I posted this same argument earlier, but boy it needs to be said again:
ELECTABILITY AND ITS DISCONTENTS
What does it mean to say that one candidate is electable and another is not? What are we really saying when we say that Clark/Kerry/Edwards can win against Bush, but Dean/Kucinich/Braun can't? [ed: In the interest of full disclosure, I support Clark. But like many of you reading this, I will support Dean or anyone else who ends up with the Democratic nomination.]
I think we're saying that one set of candidates can appeal to a broader set of voters than another. Dean is the obvious target of most of the talk about electability. Against his own history and positions, the media have absorbed Karl Rove's talking points and reflexively question whether Dean is too liberal to win a general election.
Matt Yglesias has one of the best responses to this; namely that the Republicans will say thatany Dem is too liberal. (IMHO only Clark gives them night sweats over this line of attack. Hence the he-was-nice-to-Republicans meme, targeted at the left and which many on the left seem to have absorbed more than even the media. But that's a discussion for another day.)
In assuming that Dean is too liberal, the media is uncritically accepting several Republican positions. One, that simply being thought of as a liberal is a losing proposition, never mind actually being one. Two, that support from the far left means a Democrat is unelectable, while also assuming that support from the far right is essential to a Republican victory.
You don't have to buy my line of reasoning. But if any of it rings true, then the thing to guard against is uncritically accepting those aforementioned Republican positions. My way of doing that is to ask myself two questions: (1) can someone who supports liberal positions be elected President? And (2) will support of the most liberal members of the left mean the kiss of death to that candidate?
My answers are pretty simple. To question (1), think Clinton. Better yet, think Gore in 2000 because-- without tricks that we and the media will be watching for this time around-- we would have won with a populist and leftist campaign. We certainly won the popular vote, so the idea that being a liberal puts off most Americans is probably put to rest on that fact alone.
The answer to question (2) is even simpler: if we would have had the support of the most liberal members of the left, we would have won outright. I don't remember what the state-by-state results would have been had Nader swung his support over to Gore, but those results would have meant a Democrat in the White House. And because of Nader's endorsement, Gore would have had a far more liberal mandate than Clinton. If anyone needs more proof of what a narcissisitic fool Nader is, chew on that one.
So the issue of electability seems to me to be less about Dean and more about Democrats as a whole. If we believe that a Democratic candidate can win at all, then the only thing stopping him (or one day her) from winning is us. I'm willing to bet that whatever the CW says about electability, if we join our disparate efforts into electing Dean, he'll win. If we don't, he won't.