I've read many comments to the effect that if Dean had been the nominee, he would have been trounced worse than Kerry was.
I find this interesting for the following reason:
During the run-up to the beginning of the primary season, the GOP and GOP surrogates (like the Club for Growth and partisan media hacks like Krauthhammer) were attacking Dean, going so far as to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on television ads in key states to attack him and bring him down. What is truly amazing about this, is that not a single primary had yet taken place, and yet the GOP was so threatened by the possibility that Dean might win the nomination, that they actually ran television ads against him . . . BEFORE a single primary contest had even taken place.
Now, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that such an act by an opposition party to intercede this early in the OTHER party's presidential nomination contest is unprecedented.
If the GOP was not threatened by Dean and what he represented so much, then why did they go out of their way and expend a significant amount of resources in an effort to bring him down and thus make sure that he never got the nomination?
Let me go one step further. Apparently, after Dean was taken out of the running for the nomination, Karl Rove was quoted as saying, "We really dodged a bullet" with respect to the take-down of Dean.
So, here is my question that is SPECIFICALLY DIRECTED TO ALL YOU WHO BELIEVE THAT DEAN (or a candidate like him) WOULD HAVE BEEN TROUNCED IN THE GENERAL ELECTION:
If indeed Dean was someone who would have been trounced by in a general election, then why did the Republicans take such unprecedented steps to bring him down BEFORE the primary contests even began, and why did Rove say that the GOP "dodged a bullet" when Dean was taken out of the running for the Democratic nomination?