Dean should not be chosen to lead the Democratic Party

I urge all my fellow Democrats to NOT support Howard Dean as the DNC chair. The rapid support of a small minority of his supporters (God bless them) is smoke and mirrors. I respect Howard Dean and his political ambition. However, I do not believe he would be the right choice to lead our party. I believe Dean has continually demonstrated that he will put his own interests ahead of those of the Party. Dean was looking out for only himself when he entered the primary and pursued a scorched earth policy that continues with his supporters' anti-Democratic Party statements today. On numerous message boards, Dean supporters have been the very first to speak out against the Party and many of its most prominent members. This is not the kind of movement that will unite our party. Dean was looking out for himself when, instead of getting behind and campaigning for the eventual Presidential nominee, he took his grassroots support and turned it into the DFA. Some might argue that there was the risk that some of his organizers would not have worked for another candidate and thus it was necessary to institutionalize his support structure in order to maintain his many activists' commitment and energy. I have three problems with this. First, he was the one during the final primary debate that insisted on a commitment from all of the candidates that they would all get behind and campaign for whoever the eventual nominee was. However, as soon as he lost he started his own group instead of getting on the fundraising/campaign trail for Kerry much like Wes Clark and Al Sharpton did. Second, what good do these DFA supporters do the Party if they will only answer to Dean. Most of the Dean supporters I know are incredible Democrats and worked tirelessly to elect Kerry as soon as Dean dropped out of the race. If there are others who will only stay involved under the DFA banner than that seems to only help us as a Party if Dean is a candidate for office. Lastly, we must unite the party to win and the decision to start yet another third-party group shows a tremendous lack of understanding on Dean's part regarding how to do this. We need everyone who believes strongly in the Democratic Party to get on board and work together. Many have argued that in order to win we must reach out to every splinter and independent group we can to build a large coalition that can take on the Republicans. Guess what? We just did that and it didn't work! We need to build a strong vision based upon the shared values of the membership of the Democratic Party and be resolute in promoting that vision and our ideals. Trying to cater to all these various constituencies looses us more votes than it gains us. We look weak and the Republicans look strong to so many voters because instead of standing up for what we believe in we are worried about alienating so many different groups. I'll bet Howard Dean would agree with this, but it is exactly the reason he would not make a good party leader. He is not the person to lead us forward on building and promoting a common vision. Again, I respect Dr. Dean and his supporters. They have done tremendous work and their energy should serve as an inspiration to us all. I welcome their criticism of my comments and their fight to put Dean in charge of the Party. I do not speak out against these efforts due to any ill-will towards Dean, only out of my love for the Democratic Party. Please go to the following link and tell the DNC not to elect Dean as our next Party leader (#7). http://www.democrats.org/feedback/