If Senator Edward M. Kennedy is serious about rebuilding the Democratic Party, he should shelve the blueprints and hire a hammer.

Democrats clapped last week when the senior senator from Massachusetts made an impassioned plea for the party to return to its progressive roots. Democrats always clap for the Liberal Lion, before they revert to losing strategies designed to win the most votes by giving the least offense.

With the nation mired in a misguided war and a stagnant economy, the need for a bold opposition party is as pressing as it has been in the 43 years that Kennedy has served in the United States Senate. He ought to use his stature to pressure his party to appoint a chairman who actually articulates Democratic values.

Line for line, Kennedy's speech at the National Press Club could have been delivered by Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont who remains the bte noir of too many party insiders who do not know how much they need him.

''We cannot move our party or our nation forward under pale colors and timid voices," Kennedy said last week.

''We must say what we mean and mean real change when we say it," Dean said in joining those vying for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee.

''Well, he is talking to me aggressively, and I am listening," Kennedy said by telephone from Washington of the only spark plug in last year's Democratic presidential primaries. He is not ready to embrace a candidate to be chosen next month by the 447 voting members of the Democratic National Committee, but ''I won't be part of any 'Stop Dean' movement," Kennedy said.

He is mindful, the senator said, that the party has been too reticent in asserting its core values of equal opportunity and social justice, too ready to occupy some tepid middle ground. ''I think there is some pause now," he said. ''My own sense is that we would win the values debate hands down."

At a recent party retreat, Kennedy said, he sensed more energy than defeatism among progressives, an impression reinforced when he traveled to Wisconsin to be with his sister, Rosemary, before her recent death. ''One of the nuns was telling me about a meeting up in Madison where hundreds of activists were organizing to oppose the Gonzales nomination" for US attorney general, he said. ''There is a lot of energy out there we need to tap into."

Who better to do that than Dean, who mobilized a grass-roots movement to mount a credible campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. ''It was Paul Wellstone who led the way on this, organizing and raising money," Kennedy said of the late senator from Minnesota, whose progressive ideals were never more revered than just after his death in a 2002 plane crash. ''It is true that that happens," Kennedy acknowledged.

It does not have to end with Wellstone. Dean is the natural inheritor of his talent for bringing committed people into the political process. ''New ideas and new leaders don't come from consultants; they come from communities," Dean said when he announced his candidacy for the party chairmanship.

''I think the basic task of this position is to organize our forces and our priorities," Kennedy said. ''I think that is the job, the mechanics. Who is going to speak about the policy issues? Frankly, I think that is the job of those of us in the Congress."

Maybe, but given the anemic rhetoric of most elected Democrats, Kennedy ought to welcome some spirited company on the front lines. ''The Democratic Party will not win elections or build a lasting majority solely by changing its rhetoric, nor will we win by adopting the other side's positions. . . . 'Values' has lately become a code word for appeasement of the right-wing fringe. But when political calculations make us soften our opposition to bigotry or sign on to policies that add to the burden of ordinary Americans, we have abandoned our true values."

Ted Kennedy didn't say that. Howard Dean did.

Copyright © 2005 Boston Globe

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