Dean Done

At the DNC, that is. He won't be pursuing a second term, and will instead retire to spend more time screaming at his family.

I'm sure most Democrats would hail his "50 State Strategy" as a stroke of genius. The results are pretty impressive, I have to admit. The Democrats put the GOP on the defensive just about everywhere in 2006 and again in 2008. They went into GOP strongholds--and, more importantly, they won.

They won in Kansas. They won in Idaho. They won in Mississippi. They won in districts that gave Bush more than 60% of the vote. They won in districts that hadn't elected a Democrat in decades. That seems a pretty strong vindication of a 50 state strategy.

But I'm still not sold on it. Maybe it's just partisan bias. But I can't help thinking that the Republicans were done in by the national mood and not by any Democratic master plan. Yes, the Democrats did win in some pretty unusual places. But how much of that was thanks to Dean, and how much of that was just from Republicans being really, really unpopular?

After all, the 1994 elections seemed to "prove" the GOP was competitive everywhere. They won in Massachusetts! They won in New York! They won in Chicago, for God's sake! It was a whole new paradigm! Move over, Whig Party--the Democrats are about to join you in the Major Party Grave!

Then came 1996, and most of those new congressman turned out to be duds. Almost without exception, they got swept out of office by humiliating margins. The guy who beat Dan Rostenkowski? Hell, he lost 64% to 36%.

What am I getting at? Fine, fine, I'll tell you. 2010 will tell us just how successful the 50 state strategy really is. If the Democrats manage to hold on to their seats in the Deep South and the Great Plains, then I'll doff my cap in a salute to Dean. And I don't even have a cap.

But if the Democrats slip back and lose most of those seats, let me be the first to say "I told you so!" God, I love being able to say that. It's like heroin to a political prognosticator. We can't enough of it.