Howard Dean

Whether you respect Howard Dean or not, this election is shaping up to be a huge vindication of the way that Gov. Dean saw how to run a campaign. Dean tried to run the first campaign that would harness Internet fund-raising. Dean was probably before his time, but not by much.

Dean also dreamed up the "fifty state strategy," which threw the Republican majority out of the House and, against all of the projections of everyone else, narrowly captured the Senate. Dean's idea, which a lot of people thought was nuts, was to not give the Republicans an inch and wherever the DNC could force the RNC to defend a seat, they did.

If this election turns out in the Democrats' favor, Dean could be the new political genius, but without the election-stealing, CIA-spy-outing and fascist-liar traits of Karl Rove.