MICKEY KAUS says that Howard Dean isn’t quite there yet — but it’s all according to plan!

UPDATE: Hmm. I wonder if it was Howard Dean that Phil Bredesen was talking about when he said this:

Bredesen, a former mayor of Nashville, believes his party has “somehow gotten itself divorced” from the blue-collar constituency it has always relied on for presidential success: “I’ve always felt the Democratic party was a kind of alliance between the academics and intellectuals and working-class men and women. I think what happened is that in my lifetime, the academics won.”

As a result, the governor said, the party had lost its broad appeal. He mocked other Democratic candidates who think connecting with middle America means quoting a few verses from the Bible or being photographed with guns. . . .

He added: “I think a lot of the time the answer they are looking for is ‘Oh, if you just quote Matthew, Mark, Luke or John once in your speech’ that somehow everyone will think you’re one of them.”

If that worked, we’d be talking about President Kerry now.