Those who forget history....

...seem to be concentrated in the Howard Dean campaign. Joel Connelly offers a corrective history lesson in the Seattle P-I.

"Our city recently welcomed Dean with a summer crowd of 8,000 people at Westlake Center.

But 8,000 folks showed up for George McGovern on Labor Day in 1972; 12,000 people greeted Walter Mondale downtown in 1984; and 15,000 braved rain-drenched supporters turned out at the Pike Place Market for Michael Dukakis, the night after he tanked in a 1988 debate with George H.W. Bush."

You remember Presidents McGovern, Mondale and Dukakis, don't you?

Well, no, because as Joel reminds us, "All these guys lost -- badly."

There's more to winning a national election than throwing red meat rhetoric to big partisan crowds. Forget that now, and you can forget the election in November '04.