I think the issue is not Dean's platform - he is another Vermont independent, and a credit to Vermont and independence both -
but more the image of him in the minds of people who get political information only through the superficialities of PR campaign output.
You see, Dean can be anything in reality - the whole McGovern analogy stems from the indisputable fact that the GOP is going to spend 175 million dollars misconstruing him as an alienating, tax-raising "liberal" "wimp" in the minds of people whose awareness of issues approaches zero.
Taken on the basis of a 175 million dollar smear campaign (the best the GOP can rely on to get someone elected, really a sad statement on them) the McGovern analogy, in which Dean is misconstrued and played in the media as an alienating hyper-liberal hell-bent on raising taxes on the have-nots and Joe Sixpack, is a very important analogy to consider.
Again, I would have voted for McGovern, anyway. But the threat made by that faction that has nothing to offer other than threats of hugely expensive PR smear campaigns, is that they will make him out to look bad.
Just a clarification I wanted to make, because I don't see an awareness of the difference between PR and reality in a lot of Kossack posts here. Discussion of the analogy between smeared-Dean and McGovern in terms of how the campaign might go, seems to produce let's just say hasty responses.
(And I'll vote for smeared Dean, and stand in the street waving a sign afterwards, if it comes to that, before I'll support a Lieberman. I have a spinal column.)