GOP Admits - We Underestimated Dean, He'll Be Tough

Some Bush allies say he reminds them of another insurgent candidate who once bedeviled Bush: Arizona Sen. John McCain. His wins in Republican primary elections in New Hampshire and Michigan rattled Bush's 2000 campaign.

"There is something going on there, and I tell you, if we don't pay attention ... we're making a big mistake," says Tom Rath, a Republican strategist and Bush adviser in New Hampshire.

Interviews with 15 GOP leaders found consensus on one point: If Dean wins the first two contests, Iowa's caucuses Jan. 19 and New Hampshire's primary, he'll win the nomination.

El - Polls show him leading in both.

Few Republicans are cheering for Dean now. His fundraising — he collected $7.6 million in the second quarter of the year, outdoing his eight rivals — the appeal of his passionate attacks on Bush and his rise in the polls have revised their earlier opinions.

They say Dean seems to be the only candidate having fun on the campaign trail, a quality that voters find appealing.

Howard Kurtz covers this and more in Media Notes and includes Stephen Moore's interesting take on the Libertarian Dean - "'You folks at CATO,' he told us, 'should really like my views because I'm economically conservative and socially laissez-faire.' Then he continued: 'Believe me, I'm no big-government liberal. I believe in balanced budgets, markets, and deregulation. Look at my record in Vermont.' He was scathing in his indictment of the 'hyper-enthusiasm for taxes' among Democrats in Washington.

"He left -- and I will never forget the nearly hypnotic reaction. The charismatic doctor had made believers of several hardened cynics. Nearly everyone agreed that we had finally found a Democrat we could work with..."

"Howard Dean could be George W. Bush's worst nightmare."