EJ Dionne compliments Dean, Edwards

[spooky3]

and laments an early end to the primary process.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46668-2004Feb16.html

"Kerry's Primary Education"

"Are Democrats about to shut down the best show they've staged during the Bush presidency -- and after just two months?

Face it, Democrats: You have never gotten your message across the way you have in this presidential primary campaign. The press pays attention to presidents and presidential candidates, not to congressional leaders. Howard Dean toughened you up -- you all owe him a debt. Then the voters of Iowa decided the party needed a candidate, not a trainer, so they lifted up John Kerry and John Edwards.

Kerry ran first in Iowa and got the Big Bounce. Edwards ran a strong second, but Dean blocked his bounce with The Scream. Whatever attention Edwards might have gotten was overwhelmed when the Media-Internet-Leno-Letterman Post-Industrial Complex went "yeeeagggghhhh!" over Dean's own statement to that effect. Kerry thus owes Dean a second debt.

snip

Also, count the Democrats lucky. Edwards's relentlessly sunny approach was a shrewd tactic that allowed him to stand out in Iowa while many of his competitors were slashing each other to pieces. Eventually, the Edwards nonaggression pact set the tone. A party accustomed to presenting itself to voters as a collection of warring street gangs suddenly looks coherent enough to run a government. Imagine that."

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[BeyondGeography]

1. Hey, EJ, wasn't Clark a candidate, too?

And didn't AWOL's service emerge as an issue because of a statement made by Clark endorser Michael Moore that Clark was asked to defend (and did) in the New Hampshire debate?

Amazing that he doesn't even mention Clark once here as an effective primary season critic of W. As a Clark supporter, I'm having flashbacks here...