THE SPIRIT OF HOHO. I disagree with Badler that you can attribute Bayh and Warner's exit from the campaign to "a presidential run gets longer, more expensive, and more personally invasive every cycle." Both of them were among the top non-Hillary fundraisers in the race, so neither left for lack of cash. As for longer and more invasive, well, that's certainly a detractor, but they knew that when they started testing the waters. I've trouble believing they would've exited if the race thought it would end in the Oval office. As for the involvement of Howard Dean in all this, the Democratic Party is now one that he and his movement created. Dean was, of course, little more than a vessel for the base's eruption of anger at the party establishment, but the influence his ascendance had on presidential primary strategizin' is incalculable. That, plus the disastrous trajectory of Iraq and the Donkey's 2006 performance, has convinced most observers and strategists that the base aches for, at the least, a nominal progressive -- and more importantly, that one can win the general election. The center in the 2008 primary will be just about where Howard Dean, the lefty, was in the last one. And his success from that spot was an undeniable force in popularizing it, all the more so because it was proven right by events. --Ezra Klein
