Is Dean Goldwater?

Dean's signature exclamation to his supporters is: "You have the power!" It is a revivalist's promise. While the other candidates build themselves up, Trippi says, Dean builds up his supporters by saying: "Look at you. Aren't you cool? Aren't you amazing?"

Battered Democrats are hungry to hear that. So were the conservatives, then isolated from power, who flocked to Barry Goldwater in 1964. It is the Goldwater campaign, not George McGovern's 1972 antiwar crusade, that Dean's movement most resembles. Goldwater was not about "new ideas." He was about preaching the full conservative gospel and giving his followers a vehicle through which they could organize and put it into practice. Goldwater had his share of verbal gaffes. His supporters found them endearing. "Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue," Goldwater said. You could imagine a Dean supporter saying that.

Goldwater and his legions built a mighty movement that changed the country and affects politics to this day. But in 1964 Goldwater was clobbered by Lyndon B. Johnson in a landslide felt all the way down the ballot.

Dean's challenge is to prove he can inspire a movement and still win the election. His opponents are desperate to show that the price of the energy Dean unleashes is four more years of George W. Bush. Right now the betting is on Dean. Like Goldwater, Dean has the energy on his side.