I don’t always agree with Stephen Bainbridge, but he has a point about Paul Krugman’s latest missive:

Mr. Dean is squarely in the center of his party on issues like health care and national defense. (Link)

Which is precisely the Democrats’ problem. In their party, being what the Economist’s Lexington called “a moderate governor of one of the most left-wing states in the union,” qualifies you as a centrist. There’s a big difference between being a centrist in Vermont (or Manhattan or LA) and being a centrist in, say, Missouri.

Of course, that cuts both ways; a Republican at the center of his or her party (Thad Cochran? Bob Taft?) is going to be well to the right of the centrist voter in many states, and certainly would not be the same thing the media would label a “moderate” Republican (someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger, John McCain, or Christie Todd Whitman). Howard Dean may well be at the center of his party (or at least the “Democratic wing” of it, as he would put it), but that doesn’t make him a political moderate like fellow Democrats Martin Frost, John Tanner, and Joe Lieberman.