The Democratic race is getting ugly, and Howard Dean is making a few mis-steps, I think. Yesterday, Dean suggested that his supporters might not back the nominee if it’s not him. That’s all kinds of not good, and Joshua Michael Marshall explains why:

I don’t care if Dean says he’ll endorse whoever wins. He’s playing the defection card. And that crosses the line.

I don’t doubt that it would be hard to reconcile some Dean supporters to another Democratic nominee. But that’s not the point. By saying it, he’s leveraging it, and encouraging it.

The price of admission to the Democratic primary race is a pledge of committed support to whomever wins the nomination, period. (The sense of entitlement to other Democrats’ support comes after you win the nomination, not before.) If Dean can’t sign on that dotted-line, he has no business asking for the party’s nomination.

Marshall is spot on right. This isn’t the way the game gets played. I think, right now, a Dean-Clark ticket is the best chance to beat Bush, despite my personal affinity for Kerry. (Who, by the way, had this to say about Dean’s comments.) But I think that the primary season may be more interesting than some of the pundits are predicting.

I just hope that it battle-tests the nominee, rather than weakens him. The goal here is to take back our country.