My buddies at Salon have posted their Thursday cover story, by Farhad Manjoo, and that's the title. Subhead:

The Web has found its candidate for president, and his name is Howard Dean.

OK, I've read it now. It's a really great piece. I knew they would come through. This kind of material is totally their shtick. Very wise choice to assign it to someone on web beat instead of politics.

Lots of insights into how Dean is using the web, and lays out the whole history of how it happened, how they kind of stumbled up on it and it grew.

Very interesting that an early supporter named Jerome Armstrong posted an item saying Trippi was full of crap, Trippi emailed him back asking for suggestions, and Armstrong said, "Get a blog." And that's how it all started, apparently. 

Best story yet on the subject.

Some fun/illuminating passages:

Meet Howard Dean: physician, former governor of Vermont, and presidential candidate from the great state of Blogland.

. . . more than any other candidate in history, Dean has put the Web at the center of his run to the White House. . . . When you assimilate the culture of the Web, you'll win the blessings of the Web.

. . .

"Most people are using the Internet as a means of broadcasting a message," Gross says, "but what Blog for America does is give people a chance to send us instantaneous feedback."

It also IDs the biggest Dean blogs out there, which were news to me (all the phrases are Salon's, except {mine in these}:

• Dean Nation, the oldest and most popular Dean blog
• Karl Frisch, a professional political consultant and a full-time Dean blogger {And professional hottie, based on the pic  on the top of his site. Very intriguing site for other reasons as well.}
• Jerome Armstrong, a Dean supporter from early on and a political blogger who runs the MyDD blog
• Rick Klau, another long-time political blogger
• Markos Zuniga, who runs Daily Kos, one of Trippi's favorite political blogs

Now this I would not have guessed. Maybe he does have some decency. Maybe he's gotten to know Mary Cheney and it has had an effect on him. Or maybe Dick convinced him.

(Dick was actually really progressive during that veep debating, saying the states needed to come up with some accomodation. Things start to look very different when you own daughter marries a woman. And he (Dick) is very close to Mary.)

Whatever the reason, here was Shrub today (via AP story):

"I don't know if it's necessary yet," Bush said. "Let's let the lawyers look at the full ramifications of the recent Supreme Court hearing. What I do support is a notion that marriage is between a man and a woman."

Thanks Shrub. We owe you one. A big one.

------------

On another note, Wal-Mart just added gays to its nondiscrimination policy. Now 9 out of the top 10 Fortune 500 do. The holdout is Exxon Mobil, and one half of that company did, until they merged, and the larger forced them to drop it. (Must have been the Exxon half forcing the Mobil half--surely Exxon was bigger.)

Another Update:

And resurrectionsong has a nice heartfelt defense of gay marriage from a straightguy. We need a whole lot more of you straightboys defending us. Thanks.

Still another Update:

Just in case, HRC (Human Rights Campaign) has set up a very easy way to fax your Rep and Senators from the web. It's free and easy, and you don't need to know who represents you or their fax numbers. As long as you know your own zip code, you're set. If you're really lazy, they've also wrote out copy for you, which you can use, edit or completely rewrite. Please take a moment and send a fax.

Great analysis of how the presidential race is shaking out at TalkLeft.

I they're right on target with this:

We think Lieberman and Gephardt can kiss the race goodbye. We put Graham in the same place as Kuchinich, which is only one step above Mosley-Braun and Sharpton.

We think its down to Kerry, Dean and Edwards for the top spot.

And I think Edwards will fade. On paper, he looks perfect, but eventually you have to listen to him. Same old bullshitter. Bland bland bland. Watching polls, parroting it all back. Not likely to inspire anyone. The safe choice. We tried safe last time.

They also encourage each to woo Wesley Clark for veep, as I've been suggesting. That man could really save the Dems in 2004.

Gotta love that W Post copy editor who wrote this headline: "Lieberman Paddling Hard as Dean Rides Cash Flow." Usually headlines stand out as so asinine. Love that paddling image.

Interesting development, though. Who would have expected this burst of enthusiasm in the Lieb camp. I thought he was dead in the water. AP's lead:

Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Lieberman's last-minute plea for donations before the second quarter fund-raising deadline appears to have paid off: He raised $5 million, about $1 million more than he had hoped to collect.

Much better story by Terry M. Neal in the W Post. (Wow--a great story and a great headline! You don't see that everyday in our cruddy press. Not that it's hard to beat AP, but this is really good stuff.)

It's a highly illuminating piece, on a lot of levels, beginning with the whole concept of the Money Primary. If you're still befuddled on why this end-of-quarter money reporting is such a huge deal in the pres race, read the first half of his story, that walks you through the whole process. But it's not just for beginners: really good stuff on how the current race is playing out in the money arena.

Then it gets into the latest developments. Right to the heart of Lieberman's problem:

Lieberman faces a perception problem. Having run on the 2000 ticket with Al Gore in a campaign that received more of the popular vote than Bush received, the expectations for Lieberman are high. He has no excuse for not being a frontrunner. And now that Dean is firmly ensconced in the first tier, someone else has to fall out of it. Is it Lieberman? There's only so much room at the top, after all.

And this is really an interesting development, if the Kerry folks can make this stick--with the help of the Dean boys, of course:

This week, Kerry's staff began arguing that it's a two-person race between Kerry and Dean, which is better than a four-way race between Kerry and a bunch of other people.

They had been bitterly fighting Dean, but apparently they see a new strategy. Accept him as a potent rival, but use it to kill off three others.

And here is the core Dean question as well:

The Dean phenomenon is real. What we don't know yet is whether it is long-lived or just a reaction to something happening in a snapshot of time.

As recently as a few weeks ago, Dean was lumped in with the Rep. Dennis Kucinich, former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun and the Rev. Al Sharpton as a second-tier candidate. But Dean's poll numbers are improving in important states, he's raising money like mad and the buzz--an intangible, but equally important standard--is moving his way.

And the key Dean challenge:

If Dean can get a handle on his negative attributes--lack of preparation, snippiness--he may be the guy to beat in the Democratic primary.

Dean has really movablized the people behind him, and thousands of volunteers have come out of the woodwork to invent him as a contender. Now the ball is back in his court. Eric Alternman had a much more extended reflection on that topic yesterday. His lead:

 Howard Dean is, alas, making a big mistake in not sucking up to the media. Lord knows, they don’t deserve it and it’s got to be painful as hell for a proud man, but any candidate — particularly any liberal candidate — will die a death of a thousand cuts without all that childish ego-feeding this particular beast demands. As The Note notes, ask Bill Bradley. Ask John McCain.

This has been a big beltway topic lately, and for once I think they're right. (Maybe a bit obsessive about their own concern, but it will still prove important.) Dean won't play ball with the media. Or just doesn't have the personality for it. That's going to cost him if he doesn't learn fast. Read the whole Alterman piece. Very insightful. (But I love the "snippiness" image from the WPost. He really can be that way. That's a problem.)

And one last key insight from the new W Post piece (my emphasis added--I think the italicized line is key. That's what I felt when I went to see him this spring):

"That's amazing!" said Democratic media consultant Dane Strother, who just learned of Dean's fundraising numbers on Tuesday after returning from a fly-fishing trip to Montana. Strother, who is unaligned in the presidential contest, continued: "Howard Dean is the only guy who knows exactly why he's running. And he's connecting. He's got all the momentum."

This is just hysterical.

Garrison Keillor singing "Where are all the Democrats?" to the tune of Pete Seegers classic folk song "Where have all the flowers gone" (long time passing . . . ) 

Biting, trenchant lyrics, as always from Garrison.

Also includes verses on:

- Where are all the journalists? (are they having too much fun, embedded down in Washington?)

- Where are all the weapons of -- mass destruction?

- Where are the Republicans? (We're happy in the GOP, where the food and drinks are free.)

Apparently it was on "A Prairie Home Companion" last week.

Nice work Garrison.

I've just added over a dozen new links at my "Media on Dean" clearinghouse.

I will try to update twice a day from now on: around 12 and 12 eastern time (late-night when the big eastern papers show their stuff, and what for me is the next morning, to catch the rest of the smaller venues that posted overnight.

If you're interested in how the smaller towns are covering him, scroll down to the section

SMALLER VENUES AND MISC INFO.

That's also where you'll find the hysterical audio of Audio of Garrison Keillor singing "Where are all the Democrats."