During his ill-fated bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, Howard Dean would insert the name "Jerry Falwell" into a speech any time he wanted an applause line.

Dean, now running Democracy for America, is still hitting that note and just sent out this fundraising email:

Jerry Falwell has a lot to say. Falwell is the fundamentalist who opened the Republican National Convention in 2000 (the GOP kept him under lock-and-key this time around). He asserts that the AIDS crisis is "God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals."

Now he has started a law school. The purpose: to train fundamentalists to ignore laws they don't support and reinterpret others to enforce their radical agenda. The "school" is only the latest move in a monumental power play by the extreme right wing. They have taken over the Republican Party - and have set their sights on every branch of our government.

In the coming weeks, Democracy for America wants to distribute $250,000 to candidates who will stop them. Supporting these candidates now builds the infrastructure we will need to compete with the radical right. But we need your help to make that investment in the future of our cause.

If Falwell and the "radical right" are still running the Republican Party, John McCain, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Christine Whitman, George Pataki, Rudy Giuliani, Chuck Hagel, Colin Powell, Arlen Spector and others must have missed the memo.