Tonight I went running through the screen doors of discretion

Howard Dean is taking the populist thing in every direction possible, no? Now, he wants us to decide if he should abandon public financing in the primary:

I am writing to place the most important decision of this campaign in your hands. We need to choose whether we will decline federal matching funds or accept them. [. . .] This decision is no longer mine to make. This is a campaign of the people, by the people and for the people. Your successful effort of raising a historic amount of money through small contributions has made this choice possible. This is why I am putting this decision in your hands. I am asking you to vote on what kind of a campaign we will conduct from this point forward. No matter how well intentioned both our options are – the choice is difficult: do we choose option (a) to fund our campaign ourselves and decline matching funds, or do we choose option (b) and accept federal matching funds and the spending limits?

This announcement came early. It was not due to be made until tomorrow. If you want my honest assessment, I think he did it tonight because he got battered in the "Rock the Vote" forum tonight about the confederate flag. (And he lost some esteem in my eyes because he prefers peecees to Macintosh. Sigh.) But now the headlines in the morning will not be about his being battered in the debate, but rather his decision to turn the decision on public financing over to his supporters. Very shrewd.

I don't necessarily think it wise to forego the public financing in the primary--though Dean does make the point that we Dems are dead in tha water until after Boston--but this was a great media move on somebody's part. Dean owns the news cycle for the next week.