Decoding Dean: Jonathan Rauch has an interesting take on Howard Dean, seeing him as more Clinton than McGovern:

Howard Dean -- the former Vermont governor who is leading the Democratic presidential pack -- is a suicide pill, too left-wing to win. Or so goes the conventional wisdom . . . Don't bet on it. I spent several days recently poring over Dean's speeches and other public comments. The conclusion was not as expected. The Dean campaign may be set to the music of firebrand liberalism, but its words belie the notion that Dean has painted himself into a far-left corner. Even on Iraq -- his signature issue -- Dean has planted himself subtly but distinctly to the right of his supporters.

He goes on to say that Dean is well positioned for a move to the center, at least as much so as Clinton, who ran as more of an idealistic liberal than the pragmatic centrist he became; that Dean's core supporters "will tolerate any kind of repositioning in order to defeat Bush"; and that "[i]f in actuality he is a fast-footed career politician, as the record suggests -- well, so much the better."

Rauch ignores a couple of subtleties, I think. For one, Dean's opponents for the Democratic nomination have been fairly successful in pushing, in the national media, the idea that Dean is out of the mainstream. Assuming he gets the nomination, this perception will not go away easily, particularly when Bush's campaign heats up and begins to use Dean's -- and his opponents' -- words against him. The firebrand left -- seeking to defeat Bush in any way possible -- will necessarily be more forgiving than moderates, the swing voters who will decide the election. Besides, after Nader's run in 2000, and its effect on Gore's vote totals, any Democrat will likely have a stronger hold on the base in 2004.

Second, and corallary, if Dean is so well positioned to run a centrist, New Democrat campaign next year, why are the New Democrats working against him? Did they misjudge him? Did they fall for the "too liberal" conventional wisdom that Rauch dismisses? Even if Dean is to the left of a solid New Dem like Joe Lieberman, he is (as Rauch argues) arguably to the right of the 1992 vintage of Bill Clinton, who was, at the time, the fair-haired boy of the New Democrat governors (even though, by today's standards, he was still fairly liberal).

Rauch may be right, and I don't dismiss his conclusion that Dean could be a formidable opponent for Bush in 2004, particularly if Iraq continues to fester. But I'm not yet convinced that Dean knows what he's doing.