The principal accusation leveled against Dean is that he is too left-wing to appeal to the general electorate and that George Bush would defeat him in a landslide. But the conventional wisdom is wrong. Dean could give Bush a real run for his money in November next and here's why.

Simply put, Dean is the only Democratic candidate so far who has shown anything like the political deftness that will be needed to credibly challenge Bush in November. The question his opponents need to ask themselves is that if he is such a poor candidate, how is it that he has run circles around the rest of the field all year?

The political story of 2003 in the US has been the emergence of Dean from an unknown ex-governor of a tiny state to the front-runner for the Democratic nomination. So far he has out smarted at every turn such political luminaries as John Kerry, Joe Lieberman and Dick Gephardt, all of whom began the year with name recognition that dwarfed his. This time last year virtually no one in the US had even heard of Howard Dean.

It is Dean's political dexterity that is his most compelling attribute and one that will make him a formidable opponent come November. He was the only candidate who correctly diagnosed the groundswell of anger against Bush and made it the centerpiece of his campaign. Democratic voters have been waiting a long time for a candidate who doesn't apologise for being a Democrat and who promises to give the Republicans as good as he gets. Dean recognised and tapped into this sentiment and has been reaping the rewards ever since.

The second piece of evidence pointing to Dean's political adroitness is his building up of a network of supporters and volunteers through the internet. He is now in command of what amounts to his own political machinery. He has raised more money than any of the other candidates for the nomination and has in less than a year set up a formidable grassroots organisation of his people in every state in the country. Only among the chattering classes in Washington, where parroting the conventional wisdom of the day passes for political discourse, could

such evidence of political virtuosity be contemptuously dismissed.

Dean is a master of the game and this is why he has dominated the run-up to the primary season. He has a commanding lead over his opponents in New Hampshire and is slightly ahead of the field in Iowa, the first two crucial battlegrounds in the Democratic primary. The word on the street is that Al Gore's high-profile endorsement is set to be followed by that of Tom Harkin, ex-senator from Iowa, which should safely deliver the state to Dean.

The principal argument against Dean's candidacy is that even though Dean has distinguished himself in the nomination race, he doesn't have what it takes to beat Bush in November. Dean, critics say, is simply too left-wing to win the presidency, however good a campaigner he might be. After all, the argument goes, Democratic primary voters are far to the left of the general electorate and what appeals to them will most likely not appeal to the population at large.

This is true but it misses the point. The point is that all candidates for their party's nomination must appeal to the more extreme elements in their party before tacking back to the centre for the general election. Democrats always have to tack back from the left and Republicans always have to tack back from the right. Bill Clinton had to do it in 1992. George Bush had to do it in 2000. The trick is in being able to get away with tacking back to the centre without alienating your base. This is where Dean's political dexterity comes into play.

In addition, Dean will have few problems tacking back to the centre largely because he never had to tack too far to the left in the first place. His appeal to the left has been mostly emotional rather than policy-based and this is why he should be able to retain the loyalty of the lefties when he runs a centrist campaign in the general election. And the main point is that he has the skill to do it. Sorry to sound cynical, but all politicians break promises and switch positions. The unsuccessful ones do it with painful obviousness that makes them look weak and vacillating. The successful politicians are the ones who can flip-flop with such proficiency that no one calls them on it.

The mistake that gleeful Republicans make about Dean is they imagine that Bush will face the Dean they see in the primaries in the presidential election. He won't. The Howard Dean that Bush will face in November will have been carefully crafted to appeal to the general electorate.

The Republicans can try to point out that Dean has reinvented himself and accuse him of flip-flopping, but Bush is just as vulnerable to precisely the same accusation. Bush ran for president as a "compassionate conservative" who promised a "humble" foreign policy and billed himself as "a uniter not a divider." All three claims are absurd on their face, but Bush does not appear to have suffered significant political fall-out from this. Clearly, hypocrisy, or flexibility, if you would rather, need not be a political liability.

The one issue the Republicans will try to hang around Dean's neck is that he signed a bill while governor of Vermont allowing gay couples to form "civil unions." But as Dean has pointed out, people are more interested in jobs and healthcare than in whether or not gay couples can enjoy the same rights as straight couples, and harping on the issue might look like a diversionary tactic that could backfire on Bush, to say nothing of alienating moderates.

Make no mistake, the Bush team will do everything in its power to paint Howard Dean as a died-in-the-wool leftie. But they tried to do the same to Bill Clinton and it got them nowhere. Politicians can either let their opponents and the media define them, or they can define themselves. The ones who are able to succeed at the latter can withstand almost anything. Howard Dean is that kind of politician.

Dean's only real shortcoming -- as perceived by voters rather than in the fevered imagination of the Washington press corps -- is that he is soft on national security. But Dean has only recently begun the process of defining a national security and foreign policy vision for himself, and look for him to spend the next few months systematically demolishing the perception that he is weak on national security. His tough-minded speech in Los Angeles on December 15 was a good start.

Even Dean's opposition to the invasion of Iraq can be turned into a positive if it is spun right. What we have seen with the Bush White House is the triumph of spin -- the triumph of positioning oneself so that what should be political liabilities slide off you. George Bush is the original teflon president -- nothing sticks to him. Well, two can play at that game -- and the Republicans are about to find out that nothing much sticks to Howard Dean either.

The race for the Democratic nomination is still far from over -- in fact it hasn't even officially begun yet. Dean still faces a potentially stiff challenge from retired four-star general Wesley Clark, who looks like the only one of his primary opponents who has any chance of defeating him.

In October I wrote that the race had essentially narrowed down to Dean versus Clark and the events of the last two months have only served to confirm this prediction. Clark is still a good candidate and would most likely also do very well against Bush in November. He still has a shot of beating Dean, although I think it is fairly safe to count out the rest of the field.

The point is not that Clark wouldn't be a good candidate in November -- he would -- but that it would be a mistake to think that Dean is unelectable in a head-to-head match-up with George Bush. Dean has what it takes to go all the way, and if he receives the Democratic nomination for the presidency, expect him to make a formidable candidate.

Zafar Sobhan is an Assistant Editor of The Daily Star