Howard Dean is hot, and that’s why enemies in his own party are coming after him. Dean’s fans say he’s a fighter, but his foes say he’s a loser.

The critics, who were laughing at his presidential candidacy only a few months ago, now say that, as a Democratic nominee with a reputation for fiery liberal rhetoric, he would be slaughtered by President Bush.

Which really means that, more than a year before a nominee is even chosen, his critics are taking him very seriously.

Of the nine Democratic candidates, the former Vermont governor is drawing the biggest crowds, and in the second quarter of 2003, he was the sole Democrat to raise money in all 50 states.

Dean is the insurgent outsider in this race. The Democrats usually have one: Gary Hart in 1984, Paul Tsongas in 1992, Bill Bradley in 2000. They generally attract the party’s white, well-educated, professional voters. But as Dunn, a former Bradley aide, warned, “They often can’t attract the blue-collar workers and less-educated voters. Hart couldn’t. Neither could Tsongas or Bradley. Can Dean reach them?”

Garrison Nelson, a Vermont political analyst, thinks Dean can move toward the middle — because that’s his instinct.

Nelson said: “I’ve known him 20 years. Howard became a liberal six months ago. Up here, he never got any kind of visceral response from liberals. I couldn’t count more than 10 people who would’ve walked through fire for the guy.

“He was always a man of the middle, what we used to call a ‘Rockefeller Republican.’ His father and grandfather were stockbrokers. He comes from old money. So has he really changed? Or is the Democratic party desperate to be in love with somebody? I think they’re desperate to be in love.”

“The Republicans will have enough money to paint Santa Claus as a lifelong criminal. So will Dean be agile enough to appeal more broadly and lower his thermostat? Look at his (moderate) record. He could be difficult to box in.”

Perhaps. But nervous Democrats cite an incident reported recently in the Washington Post. As Bush strategist Karl Rove watched a Fourth of July parade, a dozen Dean boosters marched by. Whereupon Rove said to a companion, “Heh, heh, heh. Yeah, that’s the one we want.”