GUSTO: Rogue Reporter: Carla Costa's look at the week in politics.

Nader is looking for responses not just from the candidates but from those who really control the election platforms - the party leaders.

Well, at first it seemed like Howard Dean and his psuedo-liberal-rah-rah could live up to the hopes of those who lean left. All over the country (or at least anywhere that counts in the election pre-game) Dean has been using his anti-war stance to rally liberal malcontents into what may become a formidable force. But back up the truck a bit. A quick glance at his political past reveals Dean to be a pol once liked, if not favored, by centrists for his middle of the road record. Gay civil unions -- great! If it's by court mandate. Balanced budget -- absolutely! If we cut education and medical programs in the process…

On July 3rd Dean told NPR's "On Point" : "I would say I was more practical than liberal. But as we go through this discussion we're going to find out that there are some conservative stats. For example, I have an A from the NRA. I think that it's going to be hard to pin me as a conservative but I think an A from the NRA is going to help a lot...Democrats are sick of losing on the gun issue."

I guess if I were from Vermont, where there are an average of eight to ten homicides per year (that's right, PER YEAR), I wouldn't care if everybody, his sister, and his teacher had a gun. Dean's first mission, like any other candidate, is not to speak to the issues so much as it is to get elected. And in our current political reality, that means leaving the gun issue to the states and toning down his anti-war message. In reality, Election 2004 is already shaping up to be like a rebound love affair for liberals -- we may have to settle for whoever will coo and cuddle us to sleep, at least if we hope to get Bush out of office.

With Dean making steps toward presenting his centrist appeal it was beginning to seem like his "give me your tired, your poor, your pissed off liberals" shtick would not hold steam for much longer. But over the past few weeks since that interview Dean may have been getting the breaks he'll need to pull in his centrist stance on other issues while maintaining his Bread & Circus-style-liberal stride.

More and more of the intelligence (will someone please tell me why we still call it that?) that served as the Bush administration's public case for war has been discredited or is currently under the media microscope. A general tone of Bush and his neo-con artists as aggressive, lying and untrustworthy is beginning to enter American consciousness. A recently released poll conducted by the University of Maryland shows that 52 percent of Americans finally believe that the Bush administration stretched the truth or told outright lies about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Not to mention America's yet-to-be-tallied take on a fallen economy and a horrendous unemployment rate. All of which may add up to be the window a candidate like Dean needs.

Then again, there's Ralph Nader who's looking to up the platform ante once again. Nader says he won't make a decision until the winter and in the meantime he's watching the insurgents, like Dean and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich. More pointedly, he's looking for the Democratic Party's reaction to these candidates.

Nader told NPR's "On Point" that he'll run: "If they try to marginalize Dean and Kucinich. If they decide to do that the way they promised to do after George McGovern somehow got the nomination in 1972 and they changed the rules of the Democratic Party. That's another factor in what I call the party duopoly."

Nobody hates a duopoly like Ralph Nader, and many centrist Democrats, who say Nader's spillover votes cost them the 2000 election, will be the first to tell you so. Even though Nader argues his push to move Dems to the left actually garnered Al Gore more votes than he lost, more and more liberals (myself included) are feeling the chilling effect of their '00 Nader votes and are looking to find a viable Democrat they can stand behind. Because where third party politics are concerned, apparently, American voters are more likely to back a rich wacko like Ross Perot than they are a life-long defender of consumers like Ralph Nader.

You know times are tough when people are settling for a guy like Dean who will at least say what we want to hear, even if he doesn't really mean it.

But for now I'm still with Nader on his temporary wait-and-see policy. It's doubtful, but maybe one of the Dems will find the nerve to step up and offer a voice to the legions of voters waiting for a candidate that speaks to them. Even just a little bit.

Carla Costa lives in Providence, Rhode Island, a city where mayors are indicted and incarcerated. More of her ranting nonsense can be found in Punk Planet, Women Who Rock and at The Rogue Reporter. Her Gusto politics column appears every Thursday.