Dean and the Dukakis hex
So now Al Gore is endorsing Howard Dean. The primaries don't start for weeks, but the Dean bandwagon certainly has impressive momentum. Nine, even six months ago, the conventional wisdom viewed Dean as a long-shot outsider. Today, he's the man to beat.
Any time a candidate pulls off this sort of feat, it usually means there's more going on than the media can figure out. So far, the standard skeptical line on Dean is that his campaign appeals primarily to white-collar workers, yuppies, geeks and starry-eyed college students. But if his support were really that narrow, it's hard to imagine him even getting as far as he has.
I think the Dean campaign's innovations have significantly outstripped the media's ability to interpret them. Something is happening, and you don't know what it is... (Chris Nolan has some choice comments on the same topic.) If six months ago, the experts thought Dean didn't have a shot at the nomination, maybe we shouldn't unquestioningly swallow today's expert line -- that, if nominated, Dean will go down to McGovern- and Dukakis-style defeat.
Sure, it might happen. There's a year's worth of history to unfold between now and November 2004. And Bush has an unprecedented mountain of money to spend.
But -- despite the propaganda that Dean is the candidate Karl Rove would most like to run against -- it's not as if Bush can walk easy. After all, the red state/blue state electoral breakdown from the 2000 election was a dead heat. You can cede the Republicans the South and still win if you capture just one more state than Gore did.
As someone who came of age in the 1970s in the aftermath of Watergate, I tend toward political pessimism: The bad guys are always worse than you think they could possibly be, and the good guys' victories rarely stick. But, like a surprisingly large number of other Americans, I'm sensing a little room for hope. It's too early for me to choose a candidate, but Dean has won my attention. His rhetoric is impressive, his openness to change is attractive.
To those who say he's doomed the way Adlai Stevenson was doomed, I'd say -- maybe. But maybe the world has changed in the 50 years that have passed since Ike trounced his "egghead" opponent. And, though Stevenson lost twice in 1952 and 1956, don't forget who America elected in 1960.
JFK broke that losing streak for the Democrats. I still haven't heard a conclusive argument why Dean doesn't have a shot at lifting the Dukakis curse.
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