OpinionJournal - Extra

Dean v. Bush

Handicapping the Democrats

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.