Dean
James Taranto thinks, as I do, that Howard Dean is the ideal Democratic nominee. For Republicans.
It’s perilous to speculate, but it’s also fun, so what the hell: What if Dr. Dean wins the first two contests, knocking out Mr. Gephardt in Iowa and Mr. Kerry in New Hampshire? That would leave Mr. Lieberman as the only centrist candidate standing in South Carolina, where the Democratic electorate is largely black. A victory by Mr. Sharpton over Mr. Lieberman would give Dr. Dean an aura of inevitability.And what if Dr. Dean does take the Democratic nomination? The last time the Democrats nominated a far-left antiwar activist, George McGovern in 1972, the GOP won a 49-state victory. The Republicans duplicated the feat in 1984, though the magnitude of that landslide owed more to Ronald Reagan’s popularity than to anything uniquely objectionable about the establishmentarian liberal Walter Mondale.
A Bush-Dean election would pit a popular Republican incumbent against a left-wing Democratic challenger. It would be as if Mr. McGovern had challenged Mr. Reagan at a time when the latter was presiding over a popular war. The District of Columbia is probably safe for the Democrats, but a 50-state sweep for Mr. Bush wouldn’t be out of the question.