Chait dings Dean

And he's right, of course. Key line:

"My response was that Dean was temperamentally unsuited to be president -- he had the resume of a moderate but the soul of a radical. His egomania and extreme pugilism made him a poor advocate and an even worse negotiator. His only solution to political impediments is to pretend they don't exist."

I should add that Dean's fear that the GOP would repeal HCR is unfounded. The Tea Partiers want them to, but the Democrats are positively salivating for them to do so. The fact is that the GOP has convinced much of the public that the Democrats' bill is weak, but virtually all of the individual components are popular. Campaigning on repeal would be a disaster for the GOP: they couldn't support full repeal, because then the Democrats would hit them on preexisting conditions. The debate would become one in which Democrats attacked Republicans for wanting to bring back payment caps and preexisting conditions, and the Republicans would be on the defensive with some sort of nuanced position that probably wouldn't play well. This is why Tim Kaine is saying things like, "If they want to run a campaign of bring back the day of kicking people off because of pre-existing conditions, I relish it."I guess Republicans could campaign against "government-run care", but that's just spin and not a plan of action. There is nothing like that in the bill. If the GOP runs against government-run care but pledges not to mess with the pre-existing condition ban, the individual insurance exchanges, the insurance payment caps, etc., I wouldn't be too worried.