"We're not going to beat Bush with Bush lite"

The Christian Science Monitor has a report from a Dean interview with the press in Concord. Excellent story, with great soundbites of Dean in full I-am-different mode. It reveals that Dean has taken to referring to his primary opponents as "the four guys from Congress" which is a brilliant catchphrase. Excerpts follow:

Former Vermont governor Howard Dean accused his Democratic presidential primary opponents yesterday of trying to run against the very Republican policies they'd supported in Congress.

"I think our party is suffering because we keep nominating people who will say anything they have to say to get elected," he said.
...
"Our candidates think the best way to get elected is to talk to everybody about voting for things like the leave-every-school board-behind education bill, which is going to cost the New Hampshire taxpayers $109 million," he said. ". . . . I can't wait for those four guys from Congress to come up here and explain to us why they wanted to raise your property taxes after they supported a tax cut for the wealthiest people in America," he said.

Dean also criticized his opponents for voting to give Bush a "blank check" on military intervention in Iraq - and, now, changing their tune on the issue.

"Today, they're running around telling you folks they're all anti-war," he said. (Later, he acknowledged that Lieberman's vote was consistent with the senator's comparatively "hawkish" position on Iraq.) "We're never going to elect a president that does those things. If I voted for the Iraq resolution, I'd be standing in favor, supporting it right now in front of you."
...
Al Qaida is a far greater menace than Saddam at the moment, Dean said, and Bush has not done enough to deprive such fundamentalist terrorist networks of the American oil money that helps fund their organizations.

"We can do better, but it requires a renewable energy policy and an oil conservation policy that makes sense," Dean said. "We are not going to change that unless we change presidents."

So Democrats, he concluded, must nominate a candidate who can win.

"Remember," he said, "we're not going to beat Bush with Bush lite."

Dean didn't spare Bush in thesed remarks, but it's good to note that he is spending equal time bashing Bush and differentiating himself from his opponents - in the context of bashing Bush!