by the Stranger Department of Homeland Security

In many ways, Howard Dean has already won the Democratic nomination.

Speaking for disenchanted Democrats who felt their party had grown timorous, Dean railed against the Democratic establishment, calling party bosses cowards and dismissing their anointed candidates as "Bush-Lite." Dean reminded rank-and-file Dems what a Democratic candidate with a backbone looked like, sounded like, and ran like. His signature line in those early, rambunctious days was lifted from another black-sheep Democrat (although, a posthumously lionized black-sheep Democrat), Minnesota's progressive former U.S. Senator, Paul Wellstone: "I represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party!" It was a justified call for mutiny in the ranks of an anemic party whose leadership had managed to lose the House, the White House, and the Senate (twice!) in rapid succession.

But Dean's crusade wasn't merely an attack on his fellow Dems. Central to Dean's slap at the Ds was a blistering attack on George W. Bush and the direction the Republicans, now pushing the Dems around, were taking the country. Dean bashed Bush's tax cuts, Bush's deficits, and, most importantly, Bush's war. The former governor of Vermont also ridiculed rivals like Senators John Kerry, John Edwards, and Joe Lieberman for voting yay on Bush's war and yay on Bush's tax cuts. Average Dems and independents responded. By the fall, after trouncing his rivals with meetups, fundraising, and media attention, Dean was the frontrunner.

Having seen the writing on the wall, Kerry, Edwards, and General Wesley Clark suddenly got religion. All three co-opted Dean's message, turned up the anti-Bush volume, and managed to locate their long-missing backbones. They haven't quite hit Dean decibels, but Kerry's rap on Bush's "economy of privilege," for example, finds Kerry's volume knob at about six. For a party that regularly idles at about three, that's not a bad start.

To the disappointment of many Born Again Democrats (like those of us on the Stranger editorial board), Dean, the loudest Dem, is no longer the frontrunner. Kerry's efforts to co-opt Dean's style and message were effective. Then Dean faltered in Iowa and finished a lackluster second in his own backyard, New Hampshire. As Washington Dems gather to caucus on February 7, Dean is widely perceived to be out of the running.

What happened? Did Dean's Internet campaign strategy turn out to be more like the phantom Internet economy than the exponentially expanding electoral movement that Dean's campaign guru Joe Trippi promised? Did Dean's premature frontrunner status backfire by creating an anti-Dean media backlash? Who knows. Let's let the Sunday-morning talk-show pundits decide that one. Here's what Washington's Democratic voters can decide on Saturday: Dean should stay alive, so he can continue to turn up the volume of the Democratic Party.

The Stranger's Election Editorial Board--renamed the Stranger Department of Homeland Security in honor of an election season that threatens to hand W. a second term--thinks it's critical to keep Dean in the equation. The Democratic Party desperately needs Dean to remain on the stage, firing up the faithful and putting steel into the spines of the other candidates. That's why we're urging readers to leave your homes this weekend, go to your neighborhood caucus site [see box], and convince your neighbors that Dean, and not Kerry (whose anti-special-interest rhetoric is undercut by the fact that he's raised more money from paid lobbyists than any other senator in the past 15 years) or Edwards (whose little-guy rhetoric is undercut by the fact that among the Dem candidates, he has the largest percentage of big-dollar donors and the smallest percentage of little-guy donors), is the best candidate. (Oh, given that this is Seattle, you'll probably also have to battle some Kucinich fans, too. No problem: Just tell them Dean, and not Kucinich, is channeling the starlight tofu energy of the fire goddess.)

In addition to the fact that Dean's fundraising numbers are the exact opposite of Kerry's and Edwards' (with a whopping 56 percent of his dollars coming from contributors giving $200 or less), here's the substantive case for Dean: As Vermont's governor, Dean successfully tackled the same problem that Bush has saddled the country with, a debilitating debt. Bush created a $521 billion deficit--expected to grow to $1.9 trillion in the next 10 years. When Dean became governor in 1991, Vermont had a $65 million deficit and New England's lowest bond rating. Dean went into action and reversed the trend--eliminating Vermont's debt in three years and even building up a $10 million surplus! Go figure, Vermont now has New England's highest bond rating. And Dean balanced the budget with Democratic priorities. Even the New Republic--a magazine that trends neo-con--admires Dean's feat: "Under Dean," the magazine wrote last month, "Vermont plowed money into its Medicaid program, broadening eligibility to include working families--families too poor to afford insurance but too well-off to qualify for assistance under the old Medicaid guidelines. As a result, nearly every child in Vermont now has health insurance."

Dean has pledged to repeal the entire Bush tax cut, arguing that carrots like the child tax credit for middle-income families would be much better spent on things that middle-class families are losing under Bush--and can't buy at Wal-Mart with that few-hundred-dollar tax rebate--like access to health insurance, better schools, and secure social security.

We also admit that the members of the Stranger Department of Homeland Security--fags and peaceniks one and all--dig Dean because of his political savvy on civil unions and his forthright condemnation of Bush's sketchy case to take the country to war--the only credible Democratic candidate who was right on that one.

Keep Dean's decibels in the Democratic Party. Support him on February 7.