Dean Can Win

Hawken Blog's Nitin Julka has taken note of the debate on Howard Dean's electability. The major reason people say Dean can't win is because of his stance against the Iraq invasion. I'm not convinced this does him in, both because Dean has conservative stands on issues like gun control that will make it hard to portray him as a radical leftist, and because he is a very shrewd politician who can probably sell his views on a war the American people will see as either over or a potential quagmire, depending on how things go during the next year.

I don't agree with Dick Morris on a lot of policy, but he is an extremely astute political observer, and he has made two points I think are relevant to Dean's chances. One is that Presidents lose because they are successful as often as because they fail, simply because in basic terms whatever job they became identified with no longer needs doing. In this case, if Iraq turns into a Bush success, people will turn to other issues, and if it appears to be failing, that failure will become an issue. The second is that having the most money - which Bush will - does not guarantee victory; what matters is having enough money to get your message out to a national audience and rely on voters to sort out the issues regardless of the relative number of ads they see. The first point relates to shaping issues, the second to internal campaign management. I believe Dean can do both of these - he has already shown he can be strong on offense, and his fund-raising edge among Democrats came after he rose in the polls, not before, showing he knows what he's doing. Would he be favored against Bush? I'm not so sure. But don't count him out.

(Julka also mentions the Confederate flag flap, but I don't think enough people are following the election in detail right now for it to matter.)