On Friday, Marc Ambinder asked, “Didn’t Democrats scoff when Howard Dean and the DNC put money into Mississippi?”

He’s referring to the flap that erupted two years ago when some Democrats complained that Dean was putting too much money into rebuilding the state Democratic parties. Of course, that’s just what Dean had promised to do when he was running for DNC chairman.

Markos gave us this flashback from May 11, 2006. The speaker is Paul Begala, a Democrat from the Clinton wing of the party, on CNN:

   BLITZER: Very quickly, is Howard Dean in trouble?

   BEGALA: No. I think Candy’s report was spot on.

   He — yes, he’s in trouble, in that campaign managers, candidates, are really angry with him. He has raised $74 million and spent $64 million. He says it’s a long-term strategy. But what he has spent it on, apparently, is just hiring a bunch of staff people to wander around Utah and Mississippi and pick their nose. That’s not how you build a party. You win elections. That’s how you build a party.

Now that a Democrat has won a special election in a heavily Republican Congressional district in Mississippi, I guess we all know who was right two years ago.