DKos: Establishment Lining Up Behind Dean

Most of my readers have probably already seen it, but Kos has a really interesting analysis (and long comment thread--don't these people sleep?) about Dean's support by the party establishment:

[W]e're seeing most of the outright opposition to Dean evaporate, and this week proved the turning point. The latest NH, IA, and MA polls. The $50K for the Florida Democratic Party. The realization of what the SEIU and AFSCME endorsements meant, the realization that it would take a miracle to overtake Dean given his current advantages in support, money, and most important (and most often overlooked) -- his ground organization. Clark, the only guy left with a chance to catch Dean, trails in all three with just over a month left before the first ballots get cast.

Wow. I hope he's right.

ntodd

[Update: in comments, faithful reader Spine brought these two items to my attention:

* TPM:

I had lunch today with someone who is not a politician but a fairly prominent Washington Democrat -- certainly not someone from the party's liberal wing. And in the course of answering a question, I said "If it [i.e. the nominee] ends up being Dean ..." At which point, with the rest of my sentence still on deck down in my throat, my friend shot back : "It's Dean."

* NYTimes Magazine:

The (mostly) young people behind Howard Dean's campaign — the brokenhearted, the techno-utopians, the formerly apolitical - come together because they like the candidate. But they also come together because they like one another.

That ought to lift faithful reader Mustang Bobby's spirits after Kristof's latest. He deconstructs the Democrats-Can't-Win meme at BBWW.]  ¶ 12:03 PM