Molly Ivins endorses Dean
From Howard Dean’s blog
Austin columnist Molly Ivins has chosen her candidate, and it’s Dean:
No one has been waiting with bated breath for me to make up my mind about the Democratic presidential candidates, but I have, and you might be interested in how I got there. I’m for Howard Dean — because he’s going to win….
I went up to Vermont and talked to a bunch of liberals there. They all said Howard Dean is no liberal. Funny, that’s what Howard Dean says, too. And indeed, he isn’t, but in politics, everything’s relative. The conventional wisdom first dismissed Howard Dean (the man has never been to a Washington dinner party!), then condescended to him, then graciously offered him instruction on how he should be running his campaign — which seemed to be going along quite well without their input….
Dean gives a hell of a speech — even if you’re Republican, you should go and hear him just for the experience. But I fretted about Dean on TV — TV is so important. How could anyone poker up on Margaret Carlson of PBS, not one of the world’s toughest interviewers? But then I saw Dean laugh his way through a Chris Matthews interview (which he should have done with Tim Russert, who was hell-bent on gotcha questions), and I know the guy can take care of himself. So he fights back if you get in his face — that’s not all bad.
I know, he’s even less of a liberal than Bill Clinton was, but I don’t think Dean is a moderate centrist. I think he’s a fighting centrist. And folks, I think we have got ourselves a winner here.
Gephardt campaign reduced to threatening unions to stop Dean.