Howard Dean

Citing Democratic rules, national committee Chairman Howard Dean on Tuesday said that the superdelegates who are poised to select the party's presidential nominee are free to back whomever they wish at the end of the primaries, regardless of who leads in the popular vote or pledged delegates. "They should use whatever yardstick they want," Dean said in an interview at party headquarters. "That's what the rules provide for."

Democratic Chairman Howard Dean reached out to Florida voters Wednesday to try to repair his party's damaged relations with a pivotal state in the presidential election. Dean committed to do his best to seat the Florida delegation at the party's nominating convention in August. His declaration put Florida back in the convention picture. But it did not resolve the thorny question of how the state's delegates might be allotted to Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

It's Tuesday in the nation's capital and the doctor is in. Seated in his corner office at Democratic Party headquarters, Howard Dean is discussing the ways of Washington, a place he likens to middle school on steroids. "There's an enormous amount of attention paid to who went to what dinner and who sat next to who and who was in the paper and who wasn't," Dean says, arching an eyebrow. "It's not a world I'm accustomed to."

Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, stood amid the soggy ruins of a devastated neighborhood here Friday and declared that Republicans would pay the price in the midterm elections for the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina. "This is a searing, burning issue, and I think it's going to cost George Bush his legacy, and it's going to cost the Republicans the House and the Senate and maybe very well the presidency in the next election," Dean said.

Re "Return of the liberal hawks," Current, May 28 Jacob Heilbrunn's labeling of defense-oriented Democrats as "liberal hawks" is misleading at best. First, no one of even cursory knowledge would call any member of the Democratic Leadership Council a liberal. They are avowed, militant centrists. Furthermore, Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack and former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner have almost the same opinion of post-9/11 national security as Howard Dean and Al Gore. All of them supported the 1991 Iraq war and the 2002 Afghanistan war and believe that we should beef up the military to target true anti-American terrorism.

Onetime presidential contender Howard Dean announced his candidacy for the Democratic Party chairmanship Tuesday, dismaying some party leaders who feared a Dean victory would derail their efforts to reposition the party on national security and social issues.

Re "The Crisis of 'Sam's Club' Republicans," Commentary, Jan. 11: A "Deniac" in the 2004 cycle, I experienced the tension between the Democratic Leadership Committee "third way" types and the Dennis Kucinich-styled anti-globalization crowd. Reihan Salam's gloomy outlook on the Democrats' future could be proved wrong if Howard Dean becomes the Democratic National Committee chair because of Dean's ability to authentically bridge this gap. Regrettably, the Democratic Party's K Street establishment still feels threatened by him. Had they not aided and abetted the cartoonization contributing to his campaign's demise, Dean might be president-elect now. We shall wait and see which party establishment sees the light first in trying to gain and retain "Sam's Club America" support.

Another hotel ballroom and, again, Howard Dean is at center stage. The audience, hundreds strong, is rapturous, worshipful, hanging on every word like a life line tossed from the slightly elevated platform. Dean, who is running to become chairman of the national Democratic Party, speaks to the put-upon sentiment of every Californian in the crowd, promising to treat the state as more than a dispensary of cash to spend someplace else. But that's not all.

The leading group of state Democratic Party officials on Monday backed Howard Dean's bid for the party's national chairmanship, establishing the former presidential candidate as the contest's prohibitive favorite. "I think the race is over," Art Torres, chairman of the California Democratic Party, said after the decision. In a nationwide conference call, the Assn. of State Democratic Chairs voted to endorse Dean.

Former Rep. Martin Frost of Texas ended his quest for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee on Tuesday, further solidifying Howard Dean's advantage in the contest. In a statement, Frost suggested that he thought the former Vermont governor had the race sewn up. "The challenge ahead for Gov. Dean will be to unite the party, rebuild the DNC and win elections in every region of the country," said Frost, who did not endorse Dean or any of the three others vying for the post.