Newsweek does a nice job this week of summarizing the Howard Dean dilemma for Democrats choosing a presidential nominee.

[Skeptics claim] Dean is another Bill Bradley in 2000, Paul Tsongas in 1992 or John Anderson in 1980 — an NPR flavor of the month with appeal mostly to educated secular sophisticates who simply aren't numerous enough to win the White House, whatever the ratings of "The West Wing" (whose actors almost all support him). He's a classic "Doonesbury" candidate, the critique goes, which is fitting, perhaps, considering that the strip's creator, Garry Trudeau, was a close childhood friend of Dean's when they were in day camp together more than 40 years ago. The greatest fear among certain Democrats is that if Dean does win the nomination, his liberal supporters will put their Birkenstocks on the gas pedal and drive the party right over the cliff, a la George McGovern in 1972.

The dilemma for Democrats tempted by Dean is whether to go with their hearts or their heads. Their hearts soar at Dean's bare-knuckle attacks on Bush and patented Rx on social issues. Their heads tell them that the only times Democrats have won in four decades was when they nominated moderate Southerners—Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton—with a natural connection to black and working-class Democrats and independents. Under this analysis, liberals — especially if they didn't serve in Vietnam — are in danger of being depicted as "soft on terrorism" post-September 11, just as an earlier generation was derided as “soft on communism” during the cold war.

It's tough being one of the educated secular sophisticates.