Dean: ''Nominee can 'salvage' Bush term''

"Choosing the next Supreme Court justice is a chance for President Bush to "salvage" his time in office, Howard Dean said Wednesday.

"This is a president who has ruined his presidency by refusing to acknowledge that the 48 percent of us who didn't vote for him might still have some ideas," Dean, the Democratic National Party Chairman, said in a phone interview from Washington, D.C. Dean is scheduled to speak at two fundraising events next week in Colorado.

"Democrats made great strides in Colorado during the last election," Dean said. Colorado Democrats captured both houses of the General Assembly for the first time since 1960 and won a U.S. Senate seat, the first such victory since 1992. "We want to be very active in the presidential race in '08 and in the governor's race in '06," Dean said. State party chairwoman Pat Waak said Dean's trip to Colorado shows his "commitment to support grassroots organizing and to help build infrastructure state-by-state."

As for Bush's Supreme Court nominee, Dean said that while he hopes the president will select a "moderate" candidate, he's not optimistic. "This is not a president who believes in consensus," he said. At a news conference Wednesday in Denmark, Bush said he will not apply an issue-based "litmus test" to candidates and instead will base his selection on traits such as intelligence, honesty and a belief in a strict interpretation of the Constitution.

A U.S. Senate agreement reached in May allows a filibuster - by which Democrats could block the appointment of a controversial judicial nominee - only in "extraordinary circumstances."
Dean said such circumstances could apply to nominees "who are way outside the mainstream" or are "judicial activists."

Dean predicts "very competitive" races in Congressional District 7, to be vacated by Republican Bob Beauprez, and in District 4, occupied by Republican Marilyn Musgrave.

Also Wednesday, Dean's staff placed ads in six newspapers across the country, targeting Republican congressmen whom Democrats accuse of ethical breaches. "These ads highlight the culture of corruption that Republicans have made the norm in Washington, D.C.," Dean said in a statement. Dean said it is time to bring integrity back to Washington politics and had a simple answer for how to do it.

"By changing parties," he said."-from the story today in the Rocky Mountain News.