Five Words I Never Expected to Say: I agree with Harold Ickes. Surprising, not least of all to me, but he's right that the Dems are being stupid by frontloading even more primaries for 2008.

Longtime Democratic activist Harold Ickes of Washington argued that the current calendar moves too quickly. Ickes noted that Democrats worked for a faster selection process of a Democratic nominee in 2004, and by March the party had all but nominated Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry.

"We wanted to shut down the system and get our candidate out early," Ickes said. "If ever there was a foundering ship that was it. The longer we went on, the lower we went down in the polls. If we'd had a year we'd have been down around zero."

Worth mentioning, naturally, that part of the problem was the candidate himself. They wanted a lot of time to "introduce America to the candidate," but that's more effective if you pick someone America won't get sick of so quickly. Also, it gave Kerry extra time to contradict himself.

Another interesting note:

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean has not offered the commission his preference for the calendar, but may do so before its last meeting in December, when final recommendations are due, said co-chair Alexis Herman.

I can't wait to see which way the Howardly Lion goes on this. He knows full well that the tight schedule was created, in part, to keep dark horses like him from getting traction. Now that he has some significant power in the party structure, will he choose to make it harder for "outsiders" to win?