(Image of the intersection of Howard Avenue and Dean Street in Brooklyn, from the archives of Satan’s Laundromat.)

We turn our attention to Howard Dean, newly ensconced as head of the DNC and looking to revive a party that, with the exception of a trio of tenants in the Mass Court Building in Chinatown, has had precious little to crow about of late. Dean, having lately made the rounds of the various Democratic Party cross-sectional committees (I’m sure after he met with the Feminist Whale-Rider Anti-School Voucher Caucus, he probably thought to himself, “Foof! This is a big tent!”), said this week that it was necessary to “recognize that this party’s strength doesn’t come from the consultants down, it comes from grass roots up.”

Ah yes, the consultants. In the annals of undermining, surely the fin de siecle coterie of Democratic Party consultants deserve their own special place in the pantheon. Snakebit and soaking wet, they come aboard a campaign and the candidate realizes too late that failure is a colorless, odorless liquid that oozes from their pores. And some of them boast some all-star statistics! Like Bob Shrum, who at zero for seven in presidential campaigns dreams of the Mendoza line. Or oppo-research guru Chris Lehane, about whom it can be said that campaigns literally get healthier the farther away he is from them. After John Kerry sent Lehane packing, his moribund campaign turned into a winner. Lehane, who by the way provides the added benefit of being nearly paralyzingly unlikeable to boot, went on from there to help drive Wesley Clark’s campaign off the precipitous cliffs of the presidential primary process.