POLITICS - He Came, He Yelled, He Flew Back To Vermont

Mike Littwin provides a little more commentary on the crash of the Dean Movement. Did the media kill Dean? Did Kerry's army of robot telephone machines kill Dean? Did Gore lose this campaign for Dean? Read this article and decide for yourself whether Dean lost this battle himself, or did the entire universe lead a bipartisan assault on his movement?

But the real problem for Dean, it seems to me, is that he needed a second act. And for insurgents - think Gene McCarthy - that is never easy to come by.

Dean tried everything. They said he was angry so he embraced hope as a theme. He also embraced Gore and every establishment figure he could find.

Meanwhile, his campaign gambled all his money on two states. The gamble failed so badly that when Dean finished third in Iowa, someone made this fateful suggestion: Why not fire up the troops?

In the Kerry camp, Max Cleland, who lost three limbs in Vietnam and then lost his Senate race when he was said not to be sufficiently patriotic, quoted from Henry V to get the troops going. Dean quoted from Rand McNally.

Boy, I love that last line.

(Via RealClearPolitics)