“Yeeeeaaaaggggh!”

First of all—and, oh, how I wished I would never write these words again—Howard Dean matters.

Yes, the governors and the congressional caucus matter more. Yes, the presidential nominee matters infinitely more. Yes, a party is a cacophony of many voices and many views—and 10,000 activist-junkies all of whom have a crackpot grand strategy for victory.

But Dean, about to become the new leader of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), will occupy a special perch last held by Haley Barbour, the current governor of Mississippi and Republican chairman following Bill Clinton’s first presidential victory. A wily lobbyist, Reagan adviser and honeysuckle political hit-man, Barbour rose to the challenge of a Democratic Congress and a Democratic White House, and became an indispensable part of setting the winning 1993 and 1994 GOP strategy of hardline anti-Clinton opposition.

Free from any governing responsibilities, the political team of Dole/Gingrich/Barbour enforced a clear line in the sand: No cooperation with the other party. No “compromise” that would just mean slightly less liberal liberal legislation. Not a single Republican vote that could provide cover for Clinton’s deficit-cutting tax increase. And above all, No New Health Care—because guaranteed health care for the middle class might guarantee Democratic votes from the middle class.

As a former Barbour aide told me: “The thinking was that if we set a tone that encouraged bipartisanship, what would we be dealing with? Left-wing legislation with a patina of bipartisan cooperation. And what would be the result? More Democrat [sic] victories. We needed to show that Clinton and his party were governing in the wrong direction and therefore Republicans stubbornly opposed him and [the Democrats] couldn’t be trusted. It teed us up perfectly for ’94.”

That “stubborn strategy” was a double-birdie for the Republicans: unified opposition that killed Democratic legislation, and Washington stalemate that killed the Democratic Congress. The lesson for today’s Democrats is clear: Unrelenting, unapologetic opposition is the only effective means of confronting, and ultimately defeating, the three-branch, fifty-state, multimedia right-wing behemoth that is America’s new governing party. And to the dangerously naïve among us—those who counsel “working with the president,” and hoist Tom Daschle’s political corpse as evidence of the perils of “obstructionism”—a dose of history seems in order.

Ordinarily, of course, I would agree with those whom I’ve just called naïve. Ordinarily, I’m all for bipartisan cooperation and bridging differences. But this is no ordinary president. Anyone who falls short of 100 percent support for Bush is labeled “obstructionist,” brutally attacked as anti-God and anti-security, and targeted not just for defeat but for personal destruction. Short of switching parties, or making out with the president Joe Lieberman-style, “obstructionist” is something any Democratic leader would have been labeled. Daschle’s failure wasn’t stopping too much Republican legislation; it was stopping too little—and failing to explain why Bush’s whole philosophy (and not just a particular bill) is bad for South Dakota, and bad for America.

Tom Daschle was forever telling reporters how much he liked George Bush—and got occasionally “disappointed” by him. Dole and Gingrich and Barbour never pretended they were fond of Bill Clinton: They opposed him, and everything he supported. They didn’t disingenuously run away from “obstructionism”; they embraced it.

Of course they were fighting Bill Clinton, Gingrich would say, “he’s a terrible president and he’s hurting our country.” Perversely, Daschle never let his constituents agree with him—he liked George Bush, so why shouldn’t they? More precisely: If the choice is between a guy who likes George Bush and 70 percent of his policies, versus a guy who likes George Bush and 100 percent of his policies, there must be a lot to like about George Bush, and why not go for the second guy?

Which brings us back to my friend Howard Dean. I strongly opposed his candidacy for president. I was angry about his cheap shots at Dick Gephardt. I was disdainful of his intemperance (well before the Iowa scream), scornful of his disproven theory that all you need to win is an excited liberal base (the base isn’t big enough), and—I confess—absolutely gleeful at the news that Mr. Fiscally Conservative Governor had squandered tens of millions of the Deaniacs’ Internet money.

I opposed his DNC candidacy for very similar reasons...But I’ve begun—in the face of the inevitable and despite my ingrained electoral pessimism—to reconsider.

Maybe it’s less important that Dean isn’t the greatest campaign strategist and more important that this is a guy who has always had the courage to stand up to George Bush, even when he had an “untouchable” eighty percent approval rating. Maybe—because the presidential nominee has always determined a party’s success far more than any committee chair—my fellow New Democrats can spend less time despairing about Dean’s ACLU streak, and more time celebrating the fact that (unlike all of us) Dean has always had the guts to go after Bush’s perceived strengths—his support from Southerners and people of faith, and his supposed toughness on national security—rather than limit our criticism to liberal mainstays like health care and the environment.

Maybe, as my DNC candidate, Simon Rosenberg, once said, “an excited Democratic base, and a whole new source of money, is nothing to be afraid of.” And maybe—despite all the talk about the right message, and building a stronger liberal infrastructure—maybe that is the most any DNC chair can do.

George W. Bush (thank God) will never run for president again. And though 2008 will be a choice between two different men (or: a man and a woman!), Bush’s presidency will form the background onto which that contest is drawn. Howard Dean (if he keeps his word) will also never run for president again. But maybe what Democrats need right now is someone who can say what the Republicans said in 1993: This president isn’t nice, and he isn’t right. A Democratic “stubborn strategy” might be just what the doctor orders.

Brian M. Goldsmith ’06 is a government concentrator in Lowell House. His column appears on alternate Thursdays.