The Democrats' dilemma

For Republicans, the nightmare is that voters think Dean will be so easy to defeat, they don't turn out in large enough numbers. The Portland pollsters, Hans Kaiser and Bob Moore, have constructed a chart that shows how Dean can win next year - even without winning Florida.

Early in the Democratic race, Dean distinguished himself as the insurgent candidate, and the different power centers of the Democratic "establishment" kept him at arm's length, hoping that one of their own, such as Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, would catch fire. That hasn't happened, and now key elements of the establishment have embraced Dean - such as the two big labor groups that endorsed him last week - and can marry their resources to Dean's existing movement.

But for some garden-variety Democratic consultants working to get their candidates elected next fall, the prospect of Dean at the top of the ticket is a sore subject. "Yes, there's some nervousness," says Stuart Rothenberg, a nonpartisan political analyst. "Democratic operatives tend to be very cold-blooded about this. They're not ideologues; they're just making pure political calculations, working on House and Senate campaigns."

Mr. Rothenberg adds that this sense of unease probably mirrors some concern in the Democratic establishment that Dean is too much of an outsider, that he's too angry and can be painted as too far left.

If Dean begins to win primaries and looks to be locking in the nomination, the party will fall in line and back him. But among operatives, Rothenberg says, the thinking is that while Dean may bring in 2 or 3 million new voters with his brash, "truth-telling" style, he may alienate 5 or 6 million others.

Ken Smukler, a Democratic consultant in Philadelphia, says the sense of panic about Dean was prevalent two or three months ago, but is dying down. The two labor endorsements "went a long way toward tamping down the panic that had begun to set in," says Mr. Smukler.

Still, one discouraged outpost of the Democratic Party is the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the breeding ground for many of the centrist ideas that President Clinton and Vice President Gore espoused and which appear, in this cycle, to be out of sync with what Democratic base voters are looking for - a clear contrast with a president they cannot abide.

Will Marshall, the DLC president, speaks of the "myth of inevitability" that the "Dean propaganda machine" has skillfully cultivated. When does the myth morph into reality?

"When actual voters start voting," he says. "What we have now is a pundit primary, in which a lot of commentators seems ready to anoint Dean the nominee two months before anyone has had a chance to cast an actual vote. I guess we've got to fill up the time somehow. I'm willing to wait and see what the people think."

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