This whole schtick about Dean moving back to the Center is just absurd. No candidate has ever changed the public's opinion about him that radically over the course of a campaign.

Breaking right is definitely the plan. Dean has more or less said so. But I agree that it can't work. Among other things, he's going to be stuck with the party platform and a prime time speech by Al Sharpton.

Dean will try it, and net-net it will buy him anything from nothing to a few % points. In essence, a nothing-to-lose strategy as he has solidified his base. The target % he would be after are those that are looking for a reason not to vote for Bush, who may react to any (even if small) negatives in the next 11 moths, but who need to assuage (foolishly) themselves that they are not putting a madman in the WH. But as oj says, too little, too late, too undisciplined.

The one who has time, discipline, and deceiptfulness to engineer a "transformation" is Hillary. The question is who will dominate Dem politics in 2008 -- the Angry-Left (which may or may not give her a pass) or the Win-at-all-costs-Left (which will).

I wouldn't worry overly. There'll have to be a reaction sooner or later. There always is.

Eventually. And we wouldn't have it any other way.

It's the beauty of the system, even if some purists will claim that "there's no real difference between the parties," or that "America isn't living up to the ideals of its founders," or that "the US is not a real democracy"....

Can't please everyone.

Just have to be able to please most of them most of the time (or actually, just those in the key states on election day).

Which suits most of us in the rather wide center surrounded by "clowns and jokers" just fine....

(Man, is that "pursuit of happiness" thang revolutionary or what?!)

David:

Good point about the tiger. Dean's vague threats about his supporters not voting for a Washington politician are just red meat to keep them salivating. But the $64,000 question is, will they vote? How many young college students are there in Iowa? How many angry leftists are there in NH? Will people vote for Dean just because they think the rest of the party is too accomodating towards George Bush?

I suspect Dean's numbers will turn out to be less than how they are touted now, but I also suspect that none of the other echoes can light any sort of prairie fire at all. Dean may wind up with the worst of all worlds: a nomination by gravitation, not acclamation, that leaves the party in an even more hissy mood than it is in now. And Al Sharpton's convention speech will be very interesting: will it prove as deadly as Buchanan's was in 1992, or will the media ignore it completely?

E.J. Dionne sounds like the person he's trying most to convince there will be a new "pragmatic" Howard Dean in 2004 is E.J. Dionne.

Bush did take Garry Maruo a little too lightly when running for re-election for Texas govenor in 1998, and the result was an ill-prepared Bush getting skewered in an October debate by the Democratic candidate. Of course, since almost no one was watching it did Maruo little good. A similar faux pas against Dean (assuming they do debate) would be far more consequential. But Mauro also was never as mean-spirited as Dean has been, and Howard's venom should keep the White House on its toes, or at least angry enough to stay focused on the guy.

And as for Dean becoming a more pragmatic -- i.e. temperate and restrained -- candidate, I have this image of an old Bugs Bunny cartoon where Yosemite Sam had to avoid losing his temper in order to obtain a fortune. Of couse he blew his top and the money, and that's about the way I see Dean operating; try as he might, Howard just doesn't seem like the kind of guy that can spend the next 10 months being the Democratic Party's new "happy warrior" without having steam come out of his ears on a regular basis.

I've been spending some time at Democratic Underground, and come away with two thoughts: there are some real wackjobs out there and these people have no idea what the rest of the country is thinking. I'm just not sure that, if Dean tries to steer right, the tiger won't throw him and eat him, especially if Ralph Nader is calling to the tiger from the left, promising fresh meat. Go surf around DU for a while, and see if you think the Democratic base will vote for a nominee who says -- as a successful nominee would have to say -- "Every American must be grateful to President Bush for taking action against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, but now is the time for new tactics and for a new focus on better life for Americans."

I think you are seeing panic,a subconsious knowledge that something is terribly wrong,but unable to ackowledge what that something is without destroying their entire self-image.

Then there is the real nightmare scenario for the Democrats. Since the primaries are proportional, not winner-take-all, there are a large number of uncommitted delegates (1/3 ?), Dean is polling 18-25% in many of the states (ahead of everyone else, but still a small number), and assuming no bandwagon effect occurs, then it seems entirely possible to me that no one will be the clear winner going into the convention.

This would mean that the candidates would be tearing each other apart and stuck on the left until August, would have to spend most of their money for the nomination, and would have only 2 months to campaign for the election and try to move back to the right.

Dionne ignores a couple of major differences between Bush in 1999 and Dean in 2003, besides the fact that Bush wasn't really running against Clinton as an incumbent.

Dean is running in the same vein as McCain in the primaries, the outsider against the DLC-Clinton establishment. He hasn't shored up support from the Democrat establishment as Bush did before 2000. Dean is going to have to keep throwing red meat to the tiger (the anti-Bush crazies) that he is riding to keep it from devouring him if he wants to have any hope of securing the nomination once the ABD movement gets some steam.

Bush didn't have to worry about McCain getting to his right the same way Dean has to keep protecting his base in the more crowded Democrat field. That gave Bush more room to manuever to the center during the primaries and still look more conservative than McCain. If the race was between Dean and Lieberman, Dean might have the same freedom but he has to worry that Gephart and/or Kerry might peel away some of his support. With Sharpton holding the most reliable Democrat base in check until the primaries show a clear leader, Dean can't afford to drift towards the center too soon even though he needs to make that move to prove he is electable.

Of course, he needs to prove he is electable to gain the support of the party insiders. Catch-22.

If Dean laps the field in Iowa and New Hampshire, as he may well do, he'll get breathing room to try to moderate his image.

However, what's he going to do about his promise to completely roll back the tax cuts ?
Any casual survey of American society would show that to be a really bad sales pitch.

Let me be clear. I'm not suggesting that Dean can win by turning right. I'm not even sure that Dean can turn right. I'm wondering whether two things: 1. Has the Democratic Party set up a system in which the winner of its nomination cannot win the election; and 2. Given how far the Democratic nominee will be forced to go to get the nomination, can this really be a realigning election or will it be seen as being an outlier.

Actually, what has happened is that the hard left has been energized by someone who takes all the canards (lies, war, blood, oil, exploitation, fascism, etc.) and says that he is a Democrat. The core of the party was still reeling from Florida (truth be told, was sighing after watching Clinton leave Andrews on Jan. 20, 2001). So the void has been (partially) filled by Howard Dean.

The Democrats were shattered by 9/11 - it exposed a majority of them as unconcerned with security (and it continues to do so). But the Republicans (except for whiners like Hagel and occasionally McCain) have been unified. The Democrats are busy telling America that our security and foreign policy should be routed through Paris and the UN; the Republicans have a much clearer view.

And so the Democrats wither. If the economy were an issue, things might be different, although Bush has done a lot to change the equation (by putting the Dems on the defensive with taxes, entitlements, and even education).

This election will be re-aligning only to the degree that the entire Democratic party can be coated with the defeatism and Luddite philosophy that infects Dean, Gephardt, Sharpton, Clark, Kerry, et. al.

Didn't 'front-loading' originate around '88 when the Democrat Party assumed Mondale lost in '84 because Gary Hart sucked the wind out of his sails? If so, essentially the same primary schedule produced Bill Clinton.

As Jim says, it's the people, not the process.

No victory by Republicans will be seen as realigning in the near term. At least until the current generation of left-leaning historians passes on.