Krauthammer:

must be admitted that rarely have the authorities in any government applied more stimulus to the U.S. economy: Taxes are cut, twice; interest rates are reduced to historical lows; the dollar is cheap; and the deficit, $374 billion and counting, is exerting a massive Keynesian stimulus. Democrats could reasonably argue that any economy that did not respond to this kind of stimulus would have to be termed clinically dead. But they cannot claim it, because they opposed the principal stimulus: the tax cuts (the obvious countercyclical response to the recessionary effects of the bursting of the high-tech bubble in 2000).

My guess is that if the economy is neutralized as an issue by growth in 2004, the election will become a referendum on Iraq. More Americans already believe that the president is doing a poor job on Iraq rather than a good one. If things continue to deteriorate, the Democrats will likely gravitate to the left and to the candidate who was the most opposed to the war in the first place -- and who might most plausibly argue for withdrawal.

Question is: Can Howard Dean sell that to the guy with a Confederate flag in his pickup?