Thank you. I've been waiting for someone to write this.

I advised you several times: Salon News Editor Joan Walsh only writes a story once or twice a month; anytime you see her byline, read it. Really great piece today:

The Democratic Weaselship Council
If Democratic centrists want to repeat Bill Clinton's success, they should stop attacking fellow Democrats as "far left" and concentrate on uniting the party against Bush.

July 29, 2003  |  Has Karl Rove taken over the Democratic Leadership Council? I can't think of another explanation for the centrist clique's destructive guerrilla war against fellow Democrats. Tuesday's New York Times outlines the latest assault: A DLC conference this week devoted to blasting the party's presidential hopefuls for their "far left" critique of President Bush's budget-busting tax cuts and his dishonesty in leading the nation into war. If hitting Bush on those blunders really makes Democrats unelectable, the nation is in worse trouble than the DLC thinks.

She mostly takes the DLC to task, but this ending is right on the money, and something both Dean supporters and the DLC (and the Kerry camp) should think about:

I don't know what combination of left, right and center will be necessary to beat Bush in 2004. All I know is that branding the Democrats' opposition to Bush's tax cuts and Iraq debacle "far left" does Karl Rove's work for him. For a bunch of guys whose appeal is supposed to be their smarts, that's awfully dumb politics.

The DLC's hero Bill Clinton won two presidential elections by pulling together the party's left and right wings. If the DLC -- and Howard Dean supporters -- want to win back the White House, they've got to do the same.

I haven't wanted to post every freaking poll blip--you can find that any time in my Dean News Clearinghouse page if you're interested--but a trend is definitely underway here. (I'm I really want to be balanced here, and not just come off like a Dean booster, but the momentum has all been moving his way the past month.)

Each NH poll has shown Dean creeping closer and closer to Dean, and the last two have him ahead. The NY Post, of all places, put it very succinctly this morning:

July 30, 2003 -- WASHINGTON - A second poll in two days has anti-war Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean holding a slim lead over rival Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry in the key state of New Hampshire.

Both polls are statistical ties, but they're the first to suggest the former Vermont governor may be edging ahead in a must-win state for Kerry. Dean had 22 percent to 21 for Kerry in a July 20-24 poll released yesterday by Franklin Pierce College, one day after a Boston Herald poll put Dean at 28 percent to 25 for Kerry. No one else was close.