My big fat mea culpa

My Dean Meetup was the perfect tonic after a day that saw Schwarzenegger upend the recall race. Democrats who are dissing the phenomenon are crazy. One rival campaign aide called the get-togethers "the bar scene from Star Wars" in the New Republic. Kerry campaign manager Jim Jordan came close to dismissing the whole Dean Internet campaign in Time last week: "It's like watching my 13-year-old daughter instant-messaging," Jordan said. "It's not particularly about politics and policy. It's almost like a reality show." God forbid someone should make politics fun again.

Does all this mean I think Dean can win the nomination and beat Bush? I still have no idea. Although he's leading in key primary states, he still trails at least Lieberman and Kerry, and sometimes Gephardt too, in national polls among Democrats. But the comparisons to Walter Mondale in 1984 and Michael Dukakis in 1988 are silly: They were both charisma-impaired party regulars who never really excited the base, let alone captured the mainstream. Dean has the capacity to do both, which doesn't mean he ultimately will. The links to George McGovern strike me as more sound: The South Dakota senator inspired a lefty base but could never catch fire with moderates. But I'd say Dean's already made more inroads with the mainstream than McGovern ever did -- and has the potential to do much more.

I've leaned towards Kerry because I think his war record protects him from the GOP smear that Democrats are weak on defense (though it sure didn't help veteran Max Cleland keep his Senate seat in Georgia last year). And if things settle down in Iraq, Dean's strident opposition to the way Bush handled the buildup to war and its aftermath may well marginalize him. But one thing I know for sure: With Bush's approval rating at its lowest level ever -- down 20 points from just after the first phase of the Iraq war -- it strikes me as crazier than ever that some Democrats are trying to do Karl Rove's work for him, and dismiss the Dean surge as the angry squawking of the party's loud but tiny throwback base.

Not surprisingly, Donna Brazile agrees. "I think Dean has to move beyond his base, attract institutional players, work the mainstream. But his campaign is telling us that the left is going to have a seat at the table again. That's the message to the DLC: Get used to it. Stop saying liberals are no longer good enough for the Democratic Party. Somebody needs to knock 'em a new asshole."

And it just might be Howard Dean. He still has his negatives: His campaign's in a little too much disarray, and even some supporters think the "likability" issue could plague him. Larry Brilliant was bothered by Dean's appearance on "Meet the Press" last month, when Tim Russert stumped him by asking the size of the American military, and he got cranky, comparing the question to "asking me the name of the Ambassador of Rwanda." "He got into a pissing match with Russert and he blew it. You don't get angry at a reporter who has caught you on something you don't know and probably should have."

One thing I don't worry about is that his lefty base doesn't know what he stands for, and will bolt when they realize he's a moderate. His base knows exactly how moderate he is. I interviewed dozens of his liberal devotees, and they all know the not-so-liberal aspects of his record. Someone at the Meetup lamented his staunch pro-Israel stance; several people I met said they differed with him on the death penalty. Brilliant says he has issues with Dean on all of his more conservative stands. "But he's not afraid to say what he thinks. Dean asks the fundamentally sound questions and does not have an ideological answer that trumps reason, as Bush does."

Still, Dean's summer surge could mean nothing come January. The biggest question about him is whether the darling of San Francisco and the frontrunner in Iowa and New Hampshire will have any appeal in the South. It's hard to imagine that a Northeastern antiwar candidate who's best known for signing a gay civil unions bill will play well in that crucial region. But two months ago, it was hard to imagine Dean moving into the lead in the early primary states or taking the Time and Newsweek covers by storm. We still don't know if he's George McGovern or Jimmy Carter, but he's earned serious political attention and respect. Finally, he's got mine.

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