Could Be Worth Blogging: Hey, there might actually be something left to say, now that it appears Howard Dean will be holding the cigar box for the Dems.

The leading group of [California] Democratic Party officials on Monday backed Howard Dean's bid for the party's national chairmanship, establishing the former presidential candidate as the contest's prohibitive favorite.

"I think the race is over," Art Torres, chairman of the California Democratic Party, said after the decision.

This reminds me of when the Democrats went down in flames in the 2002 mid-terms: Every pundit known to man said the message was clear, that the Dems need to abandon the folly of predicating their entire platform on the failure of Bush's policies. After all, by hook or by crook, Bush has been pretty successful; and, on top of that, the American people tend to see his successes as America's successes (let's say, for example, free elections in Afghanistan and Iraq). In other words, the Dems were looking silly, sitting on the sidelines, praying for bad news in Iraq or a stall in the economy.

Instead, of course, the Dems made shrill Nancy Pelosi their minority leader in the legislative body closest to the people; then, after a brief anti-war fling with the mad Dr. Dean, they nominated the thoroughly ineffective John Kerry (who, on the war, was himself not totally unopposed to those who opposed the opposition of the oppositionists who . . . ah, forget it) for president. And now they're digging screaming Howard again.

Anybody know if a two-term president has ever added to his majority in both of his mid-term elections? Because I foresee the GOP picking up seats in 2006.