mean Dean machine

Today's WaPo gives a pre-primary analysis of Howard Dean's campaign.

Former Vermont governor Howard Dean stands on the brink of a remarkable achievement in American politics, having transformed himself from rank obscurity to clear favorite for his party's presidential nomination. But rarely has a front-runner begun an election year with as many questions swirling around him as the man who rewrote the rules in presidential politics the past 12 months. …

Dean has prospered in the season known as the invisible primary, when fundraising totals, organizational and institutional support and polls substitute for the decisions of voters. His campaign, particularly in contrast to others, has money and energy, built on his opposition to the Iraq war and his challenge to party leaders in Washington. He has growing support within the party, symbolized by the endorsement Dean received from former vice president Al Gore.

But he has closed the year with some statements and assertions that have come under criticism or turned out not to be true. They range from suggesting that his late brother was a member of the military to apparent criticism of the politics of the Clinton years, to a reference to party centrists as Republicans, to remarks about Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden that brought rebukes from his rivals. Dean also acknowledged that he will need an experienced running mate to fill in for his lack of national security experience.

This summary leaves out Dean's voicing of the theory that the Administration had some foreknowledge of 9/11, and his promise to “begin” by repealing all the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. But it nonetheless makes clear his tendencies both to run off at the mouth and to embrace campaign tactics that historically have not prospered.

[A]nother centrist leader, Simon B. Rosenberg of the New Democratic Network, said party leaders here should recognize what Dean has done. “The Washington party is a failed party, and Dean's criticism of the Washington party is incredibly accurate,” he said. “We're completely out of power and heading for permanent minority status if we don't start modernizing the party. Dean has been a modernizer and innovator, and should be embraced for it. Instead he's being attacked for doing it differently.”

Those fault lines will animate the coming 60-day battle for the nomination. With the race as it now stands, the issue facing Democrats is whether anybody can stop Dean but Dean himself.

Yesterday on Fox News, Newsweek contributing editor and bitter liberal Eleanor Clift suggested that Dean's penchant for verbal outlandishness is actually an asset, as it makes him seem “authentic.” She has half a point. Dean's public image is about as authentic as his claim of being a metrosexual. But tomorrow he could reveal himself to be the Antichrist, name Lyndon LaRouche as his Prophet, and declare that live puppies are the real Breakfast of Champions—and still take the Democratic nomination in a walk.