Kerry, please heed not the call of the mild

The passion of the Deaniacs By Arianna Huffington

Assuming the current campaign trajectory continues, Kerry should have a Brahmin death grip on the Democratic nomination long before the Ides of March is upon us. At which point, he's going to hear an iPod's worth of siren songs all warning him that he needs to rein in his newly fiery populist rhetoric for fear of scaring off Wall Street or soccer moms or NASCAR dads or those elusive DLC Dems.

But the real kiss of death would be to heed this call of the mild.

Instead of dusting off the Democratic Party's tried-and-untrue swing-voter strategy -- remember 2002? -- Kerry needs to become the pied piper of the discontented, the disillusioned, the disenfranchised and the millions who have stopped believing that politics is the way to make a difference in the world.

Dean's message of empowerment brought these disconnected denizens out of the shadows, and his Internet-based campaign connected them to each other -- filling them with promise and hope. This promise is now in danger of turning into disheartenment and disengagement.