The Democratic Party is backed into a corner. It now appears inevitable that Governor Dr. Howard Brush Dean III will secure the Presidential nomination in little more than a month. It also appears certain that, if he does so, not only will he lose, but he’ll lose horribly, probably letting the Republicans pick up Senate seats in North Carolina, South Carolina, George, Florida and Louisiana while, at the same time, placing seats as far away as California, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, and perhaps even Wisconsin at risk. However, paradoxally, at this point it appears that Dean is the only potential Democratic candidate with a chance of winning (even if it is a slim chance).

If things break badly for Bush, Dean is the only major Democrat who has the base and following to actually unseat the President. Wesley Clark, John Kerry, Dick Gephardt, or John Edwards (the other Democrats with even a slim chance of winning the nomination) lack any truly motivated base. They’ll benefit from Democratic anti-Bush sentiment: but polls have repeatedly shown that such sentiments are mostly limited to the partisan Democratic base. Additionally, for any Democrat other than Dean to win the nomination now, they will have to do so by traditional methods involving the use of party bosses and big money. If Dean’s quest for the nomination is defeated in such a fashion, it seems likely that his supporters will either support the eventual Democratic nominee with great reluctance or, perhaps, even support a third-party candidate. Any of the major Democrats (other than Dean) is probably guaranteed to win at least 45% of the vote and one hundred and fifty or so electoral votes (unless, of course, there is a major third-party run).

Dean, however, I think could win anywhere from less than 40% of the vote to just over 50%. If Iraq goes badly for Bush and the economy tanks, Dean will be in a position to capitalize on these in a way that the other candidates will not. Moreover, Dean’s strong activist base could prove to be a major asset during a general election, motivating turn-out of non-voters. Moreover, Dean’s fanatical base helps to immunize him against attacks or mistakes which could prove fatal to a more traditional candidate.

However, a Dean win would be a major surprise. I would place the odds against it at something like 50:1. However, it is not impossible. This is why I’ve already begun directing all of my fire towards Dean: he’s the only candidate that worries me.

Some Democrats like to salivate at the idea of General Wesley Clark campaigning against President Bush: they shouldn’t. These Clark supporters seem to think that his military record will immunize him against attacks when, in fact, it will prove to be one of his greatest vulnerabilities. General Clark, it should be remembered, was actually relieved from the biggest command he ever held, as Supreme Allied Commander, Europe. This hasn’t been talked about much to date: but you can bet that it will be extensively discussed in a general election campaign. Many former military officers including General Hugh Shelton, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when Clark was SACEUR, have commented negatively on character of General Clark. Several officers have noted that they have rarely known of a senior officer who was so universally disliked. So, in other words, don’t expect General Clark to turn out to be the Democrat’s man on a white horse.

So, the Democrats are left with a very hard choice: do they nominate Dean, knowing that he has only a slim chance of winning, do they nominate a genial non-entity like Dick Gephardt, knowing that he’ll lose, but he won’t lose as bad as Dean could, or is there another option?

Given that time is running out (and that any scenario that does not end with Howard Brush Dean III as the Democratic nominee is likely to leave his followers embittered) many senior Democrats seem to have elected to sit on their hands and hope for the best. Frankly, I don’t think that there’s much else that they can do at this point. The sane wing of the Democratic Party made a horrible mistake by allowing so many major candidates into the field and front-loading the primary season. The only way to stop Dean now will be for several of the major candidates to withdraw in favor of another. This, to say the least, seems unlikely. Unlike in past campaigns, there won’t be weeks or months for withdrawals and endorsements: there will be days.

So many senior Democrats then are left hoping that Dean won’t lose too badly. However, I think that there hopes are going to be dashed. Dean has far too many knocks against him and, beyond his support on the left-wing of the Democratic Party and his internet base, he doesn’t really have much going for him unless economic and world circumstances drastically change.

Dean has severe personal liabilities. Among these, the most potentially damaging is probably his wife. While the idea that a Presidential candidate would have a wife who simply does not care about the campaign because she’s so busy with her own career might appeal to some on the left, it will not sell in Middle America. Frankly, it makes one wonder as to the state of the Dean union. One can comprehend a wife being uninterested in her husband’s career: but what kind of loyal wife is so wrapped up in their career that they seemingly are uninterested in their husband’s campaign for President? Something tells me that there’s more to the Dean marriage that could come out during a campaign.

Dean’s temperament will also, under the strain of a general election campaign, become a major liability. He regularly says stupid things and, because he contains an all-consuming arrogance, is largely unwilling to retract or apologize for them. The bizarre Confederate flag incident was an example was this, as was his suggestion that President Bush had foreknowledge of the 9-11 attacks. There are others. Earlier this year Dean told the story of a twelve year-old patient of his who he believed to have been impregnated by her father to explain his opposition to parental-notification laws in cases where a child seeks an abortion. The problem was this: that girl wasn’t impregnated by her father, and Dean knew it at the time he told the story. Moreover, he later stated that he never notified the authorities of his initial suspicions meaning that he may have violated Vermont law. Dean runs his mouth: and that will cause him increasingly serious trouble as the campaign goes on.

Dean also has an attitude approaching hostility towards organized religion which, I am certain, will endear him with the left, but will not be helpful in a campaign against the President. When you combine this with his tendency to shoot off his mouth, there exists the possibility that he might make a rather serious misstatement. These aren’t to be dismissed lightly: James G. Blaine lost the 1884 Presidential election in part because he allowed a Protestant Clergyman’s characterization of the Democrats as the party of, “rum, Romanism, and rebellion” to pass unremarked upon. Gerald Ford lost in 1976, in part, as a result of his bizarre assertion that Poland was not communist dominated. I would not put it beyond Dean to, at some point in the campaign; get caught dismissing Christians as “simple-minded” or something along similar lines.

Even in the best case scenario with Dean (outside of that fluke chance that absolutely everything will break in his favor between now and next November) the Democrats will lose four of the five open Southern Senate seats, the Presidency and (given the apparent success of the Texas redistricting plan) a dozen seats in the House. And that, of course, ignores the much higher chance that pretty much everything could break right for President Bush between now and next November.

Imagine this: Iraq goes fairly well for the next year and, for the most part, begins to slip from the public eye. The economy grows at around 5%. The US scores successes elsewhere in the War. Then, in the late Spring, the Massachusetts Supreme Court, reacting to a failure of the Legislature to move according to its wishes, fully imposes gay marriage upon the land: setting off the mother of all cultural battles. In late October, Osama Bin Laden is captured or confirmed as dead. All of this is possible and, under such conditions, we can forget about Dean losing in a McGovern-like landslide and begin to talk about an Alf Landon-style defeat for the Doctor. It could well be a Republican Passover, with the Angel of Death passing over all the land: smiting the Democrats and sparing all Republicans.

So, why are some Democrats willing to risk this? Simple: the Republicans recovered from 1936. If Dean is stopped now, there’s a good chance that the Democratic Party could end up going the way of the Whigs, Know-Nothings, and Federalists. If Howard Dean were stopped by the Old-Boys network of the Democratic Party, he (or someone who captures his following) might well launch a third-party campaign that could perform better than the regular Democratic candidate. Think about it for a second.

At the moment, the only thing limiting the liberal positions taken by Dean is his need to move to the centre in a general election. If he is running a third-party campaign, he no longer needs to worry about that: he can campaign exclusively to the left-wing of the Democratic Party which, all told, could number as much as a quarter of the electorate. Think about that.

So, in other words, the Democrats are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Moderate Democrats are even more damned. They can go down to defeat under Dean, they can split (and possibly destroy the party), or they can take the chance that Dean might actually win, in which case he would probably destroy the moderate wing of the party over the course of his single term.

It goes without saying, I think, that I’m looking forward to next November.