http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/07/25/dean/index_np.htmlsnip>
The conservative wing of the Democratic Party calls him another McGovern -- but Howard Dean might be more in touch with today's electorate than his critics.
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By Garance Franke-Ruta
July 25, 2003 | WASHINGTON -- The conservative wing of the Democratic Party calls him another McGovern -- but Howard Dean might be more in touch with today's electorate than his critics. While centrists like Joe Lieberman and John Edwards are fading in the polls, bolder candidates like Dean and John Kerry are surging.
In the end, victory might well go to the most aggressive candidate, despite the clucking of the cautious Democratic Party gatekeepers. "Americans don't vote for someone who has positioned himself in the center," says Curtis Gans, former director of the nonpartisan Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. "They vote for a human being who they trust to help them solve their problems."