Since Howard Dean announced the end of his bid to become the next President, his supporters have been left out in the cold, in a manner of speaking.  Most "Deaniacs", as they were dubbed, weren't and never will be part of the Democratic party, which Dean once referred to as "the Republican wing of the Democratic party."  Their reaction to and support of Dean was an intensely personal thing, not a party thing.  To expect them to simply roll over and endorse an Establishment Democrat would be ridiculous.  As one Deaniac put it in a message on Dean's web site a few days before Dean dropped out of the race, "If the Democratic establishment thinks it can tap dance on top of our heads with an old hag from Washington, we will teach them a lesson."  Another wrote, "The establishment wants, craves nothing more than to drive Governor Dean from the race, and for his supporters to either go away or line up behind their anointed special interest puppet candidate John Kerry."  A third said, "I can not see myself voting for Kerry. He makes me sick."  Something tells me that these people are not about to meekly vote for whoever the Democratic candidate happens to be.

So there's an angry mob of independent voters out there, and the Democrats have as little hope of capturing them as the Republicans do.  Where will they go?  Who will these people vote for, if they vote for anyone at all?  Who has a chance at capturing the Angry Anti-Establishment voting block?

Tomorrow, Ralph Nader is expected to announce that he's running for President once again, as an Independent.  Normally, that would garner about as much interest as the candidacy of Mickey Mouse, although many Democrats blame him for siphoning off just enough votes to deny Al Gore the Presidency in 2000 (well, that's one of the many reasons they offer, desperately avoiding the truth -- that Gore lost).  Nader managed to garner a total of 2.74% of the overall vote, or 2,882,955 total votes.  Are the Democrats so worried about so few votes, and so sure that the votes will be "stolen" from them?  Terry McAuliffe, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is busy urging Nader not to run, and desperately urging everyone who can contact Nader to urge him not to run.  It's not about choice for the voters, you know; it's about beating George W. Bush.  Ed Gillespie don't seem as worried about the Libertarian party, which is often seen as siphoning votes from the Republicans.

If I were advising Nader, I'd tell him to harness the Dean Machine in any way he could.  A Nader/Dean ticket just might be the first third-party candidacy with a chance to win even one electoral vote since John Hospers.  Of course, Hospers only received that one vote because a rogue elector decided to switch his vote from Republican to Libertarian, but 1972 was a wacky year.  Nader has already decided to run, and can possibly tap the fanatic base of Howard Dean by offering him a Vice Presidential slot.  Though Dean has dropped out of the race, he has not yet thrown his support to one of the others still fighting to be the Democratic candidate yet.  I just can't see him pulling a Wesley Clark and kissing up to John Kerry (so soon after bashing him) by saying "Sir: Request permission to come aboard."   That was sort of embarrassing to watch, even for a non-Democrat like myself.

On the other hand, after watching all the Democratic candidates trying to speak intelligible Spanish in front of a Hispanic audience, and watching several of them grovel to the NAACP for missing a fundraiser, I don't think Democrats know the meaning of the word "embarrass" anymore.