Sullivan:HOW WEAK IS DEAN? This article presents a very wide spectrum of views about how Dean-O (as W calls him) could fare against the president. For my part, I'm increasingly unsure. Dean clearly represents something real: blue state upper middle class rage. It's healthy that this is given expression, however polarizing it might be. And conviction counts for something, if Dean can convey conviction to the broader public. That's something conservatives learned from Reagan and Thatcher, two figures once placed in the long-odds category that Dean is now in. The media will give Dean major support - not least because most journalists will vote for him but also because everyone wants a competitive race. If the Dems decide early, there will be even more media hunger for a viable challenger in the summer and fall. As 9/11 fades from memory, and as deficits continue to soar, Dean's anti-war zeal and Yankee frugality could count for something. I'd still say the odds are against him. But they're not impossible. He certainly seems more formidable in terms of will and energy than anyone else. And those things count.
Dean Looming Larger on Bush's Horizon
GOP Advisers Who Had Relished Democrat's Candidacy Are Now More Wary
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 11, 2003; Page A05
Advisers to President Bush once relished a race against Howard Dean, but they say they have become increasingly wary of him, worried that his unconventional and intense appeal poses a threat they had once underestimated.
Various officials from throughout Bush's political organization said they view the former Vermont governor's nomination as all but inevitable -- even though no votes will be cast until next month, and some well-connected Democrats still hope to derail Dean because they fear he is running too far to the left to be viable in next fall's general election.
The endorsement of Dean by former vice president Al Gore on Tuesday cemented the growing concern among GOP officials that Dean's lightning progress from also-ran to front-runner means that he could spawn unpredictable hazards for Bush. Although one administration official said Dean is still widely viewed in the White House as "a gift from God," a more cautious view is gaining currency.
"He has the biggest potential to go down in flames, but he also has a certain wild-card potential," said former Minnesota Republican representative Vin Weber.
Among the factors that most worry them, Bush officials said, is Dean's ability to attract young voters and others who have not voted before. Some of the officials said they also are given pause by Dean's similarities to their boss: a polarizing figure who has a temper and deep appeal to his core supporters.
"We believe this is going to be an election about our two bases, and therefore Dean's ability to excite his base means that he's a formidable candidate," a well-known Republican said after discussing the issue with Bush's top strategists. "This is an evolution in the thinking. So much for uniting and all that stuff."
Five months ago, Karl Rove, Bush's senior adviser, startled onlookers when he joined the final line of a chant at a Fourth of July parade in Northwest Washington, "We want Howard Dean!"
Rove later told friends he was joking, but his apparent enthusiasm was taken in political circles as a clue that Dean, widely portrayed as dovish and liberal, was Bush's opponent of choice. That view was bolstered when some establishment Democrats began voicing their fear that Dean might wind up running nearly as poorly as Sen. George S. McGovern, who lost 49 states to President Richard M. Nixon in 1972.
Dean remains a dream candidate for many Republicans. "Can you imagine a convention to nominate Howard Dean?" asked a GOP lobbyist. "It would be a festival of labor and universal health care, a liberal celebration beamed into living rooms all over the South and Midwest."
One longtime Republican operative conjured his idea of Dean in debates. "He'd be like Jack Nicholson in 'A Few Good Men,' " the operative said. "When he's being questioned, he gets redder and redder, like his head is exploding, and then he blurts out, 'You can't handle the truth.' Dean is just exactly like that. I see it written all over him."
More and more Republicans in the administration and elsewhere, however, are urging fellow party members to quit talking about a cakewalk or a blowout.
Robert T. Bennett, chairman of the Ohio GOP, was one of several veteran party officials who said they are having flashbacks to 1992, when they all assured themselves that little-known Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton was no match for Bush's father. "Everybody told me that Clinton came from a third-rate state with a budget smaller than Wal-Mart's and that he didn't need to worry about him," Bennett said. "I think we still call him Mr. President."
For the record, Bush's aides would say only that the president will offer a sharp contrast to any of the Democrats and they believe the election may be as close as it was in 2000, no matter who is nominated.
Conversations with officials throughout Bush's organization make it clear that they plan to paint the nominee, whoever it is, as a liberal, tax-raising peacenik who wants to bash Bush instead of offering positive solutions. With Dean, though, many Bush officials believe their job might be easier.
"I'd rather run against his issue profile than someone who is more moderate," said Charlie Black, a longtime adviser to Republicans. "But he's run a great campaign and has a lot of smart people around him."
Rich Bond, a Republican consultant and former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said that as Dean seeks to broaden his appeal, he will have a hard time pleasing the followers who were animated by his antiwar stance, or dispelling early impressions about his loose tongue. "He's an angry white guy -- the media has made up its mind about this guy," Bond said. "Even if he tries to get back in the middle, his activist supporters won't let him."
Kenneth M. Duberstein, chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan, said that Dean was likely to emulate not McGovern but former Massachusetts governor Michael S. Dukakis, who made an effort to move to the center before being defeated by Bush's father. Duberstein said a Bush-Dean race could be "highly competitive until the autumn," when he believes Bush would pull away.
No senior Republican acknowledged fearing that Dean would end up beating Bush. But these officials are banking on vast improvements in the situation in Iraq and in the job market.
Joe Trippi, Dean's campaign manager, said that he believes Dean "will be able to fight back, dollar for dollar," and can match Bush's pre-convention bank account by raising $100 each from 2 million people, or perhaps $200 from 1 million people, between the time the nomination is secured and the Democratic convention in late July.
"Every decision that we've made, from the beginning, was to build a campaign that could defeat George Bush and win the nomination," Trippi said. "Their whole theory has been to excite their base and depress the Democratic base. They haven't planned for a Democratic base that is so energized."
Every week brings new signs that Republicans are adjusting. The Club for Growth, a free-market advocacy group that is a leading source of outside funds for GOP campaigns, has been running an ad in Iowa and New Hampshire that shows Dean as a part of a tax-raising continuum beginning with McGovern and continuing through former vice president Walter F. Mondale, who lost to Reagan in the landslide of 1984, and Dukakis. "Will Howard Dean ever learn?" the ad asks.
RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie traveled to Dean's home state this month to give a speech accusing him of being untruthful about his decision to seal the records of his governorship for 10 years, longer than any previous Vermont governor. "As everyone in this room surely knows, your former governor would never say one thing and do another," Gillespie said.
In the clearest public sign yet that Bush officials have Dean on their mind, the campaign recently sent supporters a video called "When Angry Democrats Attack!" It shows footage of three Democratic hopefuls jabbing the air and seeming to snarl during public appearances. The clips on the 30-second video, which is posted on the campaign's Web site, open and close with shots of Dean.
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