One of the nice things about Howard Dean’s campaign for the Presidency is its openness. His web site (which seems to be the centre of his entire operation) features a blogger on which one can comment (from which I have been banned for saying not-so-nice things about the character of Dr. Dean and his supporters) and a message board. It also touts a program under which one can sign up and be given the mailing addresses of undecided voters, addresses which you are supposed to use to write them personal letters encouraging them to support Dean for President. Anyone can sign up including, apparently, me.

So I did sign up: I’ve been a member for a few days, and I’ve been collecting the addresses as they are released (the site lets you have ten every 72 hours), and I’ve written a nice letter to send to them, encouraging them to support Dr. Dean’s campaign. I thought that I’d share that letter with you and encourage you to join me in writing similar letters:

Dear Sir (or Madam),

I am writing in the hope that I might persuade you to support Dr. Howard Dean, the former Governor of Vermont, in his campaign to be the Democratic nominee for President in 2004. Governor Dean represents exactly what America needs at this time: a Democrat who represents the same ‘Democratic wing of the Democratic Party’ which has been repeatedly rejected by American voters over a span of several decades. He represents the post-American values cherished by most liberal Democrats, a creed which places ideological goals ahead of the interests of the Republic and, therefore, is increasingly beloved by the treasonous classes. A Dean victory in the Democratic Primaries would be a great victory for America because it would probably ensure the near-annihilation of the Democratic Party in the fall of 2004, a move which all loyal and patriotic Americans must agree is long overdue.

Governor Dean, we are told, is a ‘moderate.’ This is inaccurate. At best, he is a ‘Vermont Moderate’, which is to say that he is only moderate when compared with those in that state who wish to collectivise agriculture, mandate homosexuality, and abolish private property. Praising Howard Dean for his ‘centrism’ is a lot like praising those members of Stalin’s Politburo who only wanted to hold some show trails for their forbearance and level-headedness.

The staunchest supporters of Howard Dean are the sort of people who, embarrassed to be American, believe that the nation ought to be handed over to international elites. In the first years of our War on Terrorism, Dean is playing the role of Henry Wallace, only with the internet. The forces which have gathered around him are a disloyal element, made up mostly of internet-savvy, over-educated young people who would happily haul down Old Glory, never to see it fly again, in exchange for further official affirmation of buggery and abortion, their primary lifestyle choices. While other candidates, most notably Dennis Kucinich, have drawn the support of America-hating traitors, Dean has the support of most of the cool and well-dressed ones.

Under the glare of a campaign all of this will become apparent. Dean has already gone on the record as saying that he is of the opinion that an erosion of American power would not be such a bad thing. While such sentiments might swell the hearts of dot-com layoffs and the semi-literate fans of Michael Moore, they will not fail to earn the ire of decent, honest, and hard-working Americans.

I have not even begun to discuss social issues. On these, as everyone knows, Dean is far to the left of a great majority of the American people. The overwhelming majority of people in the South don’t approve of homosexual behavior- let alone ‘civil unions’ or gay ‘marriage.’ What do you think shall be the fate of the Democrat Party in Dixie if Dean is the nominee? For that matter- gay marriages aren’t even favored in liberal California. Do you really think that it’s possible to run a winning campaign on such an issue?

Some Democrats are willing to accept that Dean will lose, but they hope that his campaign will serve as the catalyst of a later revolution, just as the Goldwater campaign of 1964 did for Republicans. But this misses the point entirely. One of the greatest legacies of the Goldwater campaign was all that it did to bring about the rise of the Republican Party in the South, a move which set in motion the changes which have made the GOP the majority party in America. Dean’s campaign offers no hope of bringing the Democratic message to new circles, for he is merely preaching more of the same old and tired nonsense as other losing Democrats have in the past. He’ll appeal to the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, but to who else?

Nor is this a matter which simply concerns the fate of Governor Dean and who controls the Presidency through January 20, 2009. A lop-sided Dean defeat would help to enhance the Republican majority in both houses of Congress. As things stand today, the GOP is nearly a lock to pick up at least three seats in the Senate: South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia. If a few conservative-leaning and moderate Democrats retire (a prospect, I think, made more likely by Dean becoming the nominee) the Republicans could pick up seats in Florida and Louisiana as well. In the event that nominee Dean turns into the disaster which he looks to be, Democratic seats in California, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, and Wisconsin could be captured as well. In other words, making Dean the nominee risks giving the GOP a filibuster-proof Senate majority. In the House things look little better, especially given the recent success that the Republicans have had in the Texas Redistricting War.

Democrats, I think, see Howard Dean as the living incarnation of President Jed Bartlett from NBC’s The West Wing. The tough-seeming Governor of a little-known New England state. In fact, though I don’t ever recall seeing it openly admitted, I suspect that Dean’s campaign theme (‘Dean for America’) is stolen from an episode of that show, where we see that Bartlett’s campaign managed enticed him to run, in part, through the exact same slogan (‘Bartlett for America’). Of course, what the Deaniacs seem to have forgotten is that, unlike on TV, Republicans don’t deliberately throw debates and elections by saying and doing the sort of stupid things as Aaron Sorkin would have it.

The Dean campaign is bound for failure and, therefore, I ask you to support it. For the good of the country, Howard Dean must be the Democratic nominee for President.