Boy, conservatives sure love to fantasize. This one, in the New York Post, imagines that as Bush’s numbers drop, Hillary Clinton and Al Gore will jump back into the race, and that if Dean makes it to the nomination, Bush will clean the floor with him. He also calls Dean, a governor with many conservative leanings, an “ultra-liberal.” A month or so ago, conservatives like Tucker Carlson were talking seriously about Al Sharpton winning the nomination, which, of course, the GOP would have fits of glee over.

Of course, none of that is happening. Gore and Clinton have both ruled themselves out in such clear and unmistakable terms that it is pretty much impossible for them to go back on that without taking major hits. And Sharpton isn’t really even on the radar screens as far as the numbers go.

What’s happening is that the right is starting to sweat over Bush’s plummeting poll numbers. And now a Democrat emerges who not only has the moxie to tear into Bush for his failures, but has the moral authority to do so as he criticized Bush from the start. And now Dean’s leading the entire party out of kowtow mode and into full-blast Bush-bashing mode. And Americans are warming to it. And oh yeah, he’s balanced his budgets.

Nor does the “ultra-liberal” label work, either–if anything, Dean has a history for leaning to the right, with a record of being pro-gun, and favoring businesses, sometimes over the environment. In his state, he was seen as a moderate who was fiscally conservative; a right-wing think tank analyst remarked, “The Howard Dean you are seeing on the national scene is not the Dean that we saw around here for the last decade.” His now-famous civil unions law and the progressive financing of education were, according to many, not Dean’s agenda; he just went along with the courts. Many believe that if he wind the nomination, he will steer back to the center.

So this conservative Fantasy Island mentality is, at best, panicked wishful thinking.