William Safire: Don't Stop Dean

Conservative columnist William Safire speculates what might happen if Dean were not to get the Democratic endorsement. (Op-Ed Columnist: Don’t Stop Dean) He concludes that there's a real chance Dean would refuse to bow to the victor, and proceed to mount his own independent run at the White house. Since there's no guarantee a Democratic Party united around one candidate will be able to remove Bush from office, it seems an almost sure thing that if the party were split this way, Bush would have a cake walk in '04.

Here's where Safire's argument gets interesting:

"Here's my problem," he says. "Such a lopsided, hubris-inducing result would be bad for Bush, bad for the G.O.P., bad for the country. Landslides lead to tyrannous majorities and big trouble."

Interesting that even a columnist who supports the incumbent doesn't want to see Bush win easily, for fear of what he might become. If Bush treated his narrow and questionable victory in '00 as if it were a mandate, imagine how he'd treat an honest thumping of his electoral rivals.

"Tyrannous majorities." "Big trouble." Conservative columnist. Provocative stuff.