Dean's tough talk on DeLay troubles analysts

HoustonChronicle.com - Dean's tough talk on DeLay troubles analysts: "Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean's statement that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay should serve a Houston jail sentence, along with other thumb-in-the-eye phrases, may thrill party activists.

But some analysts wondered Monday whether the vitriol damages Dean or his party as much as his Republican target.

'Republicans are circling the wagons around DeLay, but Democrats shouldn't form a circular firing squad in response,' said Marshall Wittmann, a former Christian Coalition staffer who is now a senior analyst with the Democratic Leadership Council, a centrist Democrat think tank.

But Thomas Mann, a senior analyst with the Brookings Institution, a liberal-leaning Washington think tank, said it was almost impossible for Democrats to overplay their hand.

'Dean may well diminish himself with these attacks, but in the end it doesn't matter,' Mann said. 'It will damage DeLay. Nationally, he is going from an anonymous figure to one becoming much better known and in a negative way.'"