With all of Governor Dean’s fire-breathing appeal and centrist posing on issues like gun control, it’s easy to forget that he’s quite a conventional liberal. In an interview with the Washington Post earlier this week, Dr. Dean stunned many by calling for a radical “re-regulation” of American business. “In order to make capitalism work for ordinary human beings, you have to have regulation,” Dr. Dean said. “Right now, workers are getting screwed.”This is quite the departure from the serious deregulation of the American economy that has been going on in this country for roughly 20 years, in areas such as telecommunications, aviation, print and broadcast ownership, and utilities. It is this deregulation, in part, that has spurred the economic growth this country has seen since President Reagan took office, and which continued while the centrist President Clinton was in the White House. Luckily for the Democrats, at least Senator Lieberman hasn’t forgotten.

“Howard Dean would usher in a new era of big government with his re-regulation proposal. He would give us a treacherous trifecta of policies that turn back the economic clock: new trade barriers, a larger tax burden on our middle class, and now bigger bureaucracy,” Mr. Lieberman said in a statement reacting to the Dean interview. “By responsibly deregulating markets, Bill Clinton allowed exporters to sell more American products to foreign markets and brought competition to existing monopolies.” Much of this progress would be washed away if Dr. Dean were granted his wish to flood America’s economy with new regulations. It can only be hoped that Mr. Lieberman will give Dr. Dean a run for his money; otherwise, the entire New Democratic movement could be in danger. If no one of a centrist persuasion can give chase to the left-most candidate in the field this time out, it will send a message to potential moderate Democratic candidates in the future: Stay home. Our politics would be poorer for it.