Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont, medical doctor, and Democratic candidate for President, kicked off his Sleepless Summer Tour in Virginia yesterday (sat. aug 23), during which he will visit seven cities in six states. Dean picked the name because, he claims, "Millions of regular Americans are sleepless over the state of our nation today."

But there are a group of Democrats that are sleepless over the sudden explosion of Dean's following - and his popularity.

With just over four months before the Presidential primaries begin, Dean has already graced the covers of Time and Newsweek, largely due to his surprising fundraising prowess, raking in $7.6 million in the second quarter and turning heads nationwide. His campaign has grown from a mere 432 volunteers in January to about 90,000 today, with nearly 300,000 people attending monthly local grassroots gatherings called "meetups". In Toledo, about 40 people showed up for the August Dean meetup.

The conservative wing of the Democratic party, the Democratic Leadership Council, doesn't like what it's seeing. Al From and Bruce Reed, the DLC's chairman and president, referred to Dean and his teeming groupies in a DLC memo as the "McGovern-Mondale wing" of the Democratic party. "That's the wing that lost 49 states in two elections," they wrote.

They're referring to the anti-war candidate George McGovern's humiliating defeat at the hands of Richard Nixon in 1972.

Austin Ranney, Professor of Political Science Emeritus at University of California at Berkeley, and a student of elections, doesn't see the McGovern comparison. "Dean's reputation of being a radical almost exclusively comes from his opposition to the war," said Ranney. Citing Dean's fiscal conservativism and his expressed desire to balance the federal budget, he added, "Dean is not the McGovern of 2004."

But the campaigns do have similarities. McGovern's campaign, masterminded by Gary Hart, pioneered grassroots campaigning. Back then, they didn't have the luxury of website donations, email, 'blogs', meetup.com, and newsgroups. Instead, volunteers and campaign operatives combed the countryside and did a lot of old-fashioned door-knocking. Theodore White, the Pulitzer prize-winning political journalist referred to his staff and volunteers as "McGovern's Army" in his book The Making of the President: 1972.

"…was George McGovern the creation of his movement, or its creator?" White wrote, "Would he come finally to bob unnoticed in the trough when the wave passed - or could he master and harness the wave's energies?"

Howard Dean will be facing the same question in the coming months.

Dean is currently vying for position in the latest national polls with Senator Joe Lieberman, who ran as Al Gore's running mate in 2000, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, and Congressman Richard Gephardt. Each of these candidates has at least 11 percent of registered Democrats saying they will vote for them.

From and Reed argue that to win the Presidency, Democrats must not succumb to the passions of what they call the "activists" in the party. "Not only is the activist wing out of line with Democratic tradition," they argued, "but it is badly out of touch with the Democratic rank-and-file."

Professor Ranney agrees that Dean has tapped into that segment of the Democratic Party. "I think that [Dean's] quite correctly read the mood of the more activist democrats who are on the more liberal side - and he's noticed that those people are somewhat dismayed by the relative lack of criticism of the Bush administration."

Dean has proposed, for instance, rolling back the Bush tax cut. His supporters rally behind him on this, but it could upset many middle class voters, even Democrats. From and Reed cite Mondale's pledge to raise taxes in '84 as his death-warrant.

Joe Lieberman is the only candidate so far to take a swipe at Dean, echoing the DLC line in a television ad that Dean could "take the Democratic Party out into the political wilderness," with his anti-war stance and desire to raise taxes.

A July story in The Washington Post, however, suggested the real looming battle is between Kerry and Dean, saying those two "often find themselves fishing in the same pond, fighting over the same voters: white, liberal, moderately affluent, well-educated, mostly antiwar, vehemently anti-President Bush." In the latest New Hampshire poll, Dean pulled ahead of Kerry, with 28 percent saying they would vote for Dean, compared to Mr. Kerry's 21 percent.

Up to now, Dean has done a better job of inspiring those voters to turnout at meetups and serve as volunteers. Joe Trippi, Dean's Campaign manager, boasts that Dean's campaign "has got to be the strongest grassroots campaign in modern history."

But with the primaries still five months away, after Dean's appearance on the covers of Time and Newsweek, pundits immediately began speculating whether Dean has peaked too soon. Can he sustain this momentum and actually win the Democratic primary?

Paul Beck, Chair of the Political Science Department at The Ohio State University, sees Dean's chances of winning as being pegged to how things develop in Iraq. "Dean's really out front in criticizing the president on Iraq," he said by phone, "if that issue isn't out in front during the election, Dean doesn't have that chip to play."

"If the issue is Iraq, Dean has an advantage over the other candidates," he added.

Norman Ornstein, a Political Scientist and Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank, also believes Dean's got a chance. "This is the first insurgent candidate that has a combination of money and support from the party's base," he said "John McCain had some money but his support came from Democrats, Independents, and moderate Republicans. There was a tremendous reaction against him from the party base."

Given Dean's popularity now, however, Ornstein says he needs to do well in the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire primary, where he says a 4th place finish would be "devastating" given all the hype up to now.

But even if Dean wins the primary, can he beat George Bush - or would he get crushed?

"It's my strong impression that an election - a general election in which the incumbent is running - is always a referendum on that President," says Professor Ranney, "If the economy stays in the tank and we continue to be in this semi-quagmire we're in [in Iraq], Bush is eminently beatable... Can Dean win? Yes."

Chuck Strzesynski, a politically active Industrial Electrician and member of the Steelworkers Union who attended Toledo's August Dean meetup said he's backing Dean, for now. "He's a straight-shooter," he said "and he's serious about balancing the budget. I think we know what the Republican trick is - they're trying to bankrupt the government so they can get rid of Social Security."

And if Dean doesn't win the primary?

"I'm A.B.B." Chuck said, "Anybody But Bush."