According to today's Washington Post, Howard Dean, egged on by supporters, will not drop out of the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination if he fails to win next week's Wisconsin primary, as he had previously stated. Dean, who raised about $1 million after primary losses in New Hampshire and Iowa (and all states that have held primaries or caucuses to this point), says he will continue his quest for the presidency until he either wins or is mathematically eliminated from the contest. According to the article, this decision was the result of meeting supporters throughout the state of Wisconsin who urged Dean not to give up the fight. In the article Dean said he likes to make decisions by allowing ideas to "incubate unconsciously for a long time." Wow, that's exactly how I used to pretend I was working on papers in college.Personally, I think Dean's campaign realized that a)they are not going to win Wisconsin, b)they've got the money to keep running and c) they're not giving that money back, so what the hell. It seems to me that the Dean strategy is to hang in this thing as long as possible in the hopes that Kerry does something devestatingly stupid. Well, here's to hope.
In other political news, Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank muses today as to the chances that Dick Cheney will get booted off the Republican ticket this fall. It seems the chances are slim right now, but I'd love to see him replaced if only because it could inject some flavor into what's shaping up to be a rather bland general election.
And finally, I'll leave you with satirist P.J. O'Rourke's take on the Democrats and Iraq (as appeared in the Jan/Feb issue of Atlantic Monthly):
For the major Democratic candidates, Iraq is the Sharper Image airport-store issue -- a big, attractive thingamajig with lots of intriguing features. But there may be baggage problems. And what do you really do with it when you get it home.
Tony
