I'm stealing this quote from the weblog of Matthew Yglesias (specifically from this entry) because it says what I believe. And as far as I can tell, all the folks doing the speculating believe it too. They just aren't about to allow a silly little thing like logic get in the way of all that fun speculation. Anyway, here's the quote…
Not to rain on media colleagues' parade to an undue degree here, but speculation along the lines of "…if Dean loses in 2004, then what will happen in 2008" is really a bit silly. This is 2003 — five years from 2008. Five years ago, it was 1998. Who in the world was sitting around in 1998 saying "Al Gore will almost certainly be the Democratic nominee, and if he loses in 2000 then it looks like the primary will be fought out between the Howard Dean camp and the Wesley Clark camp?" The answer, of course, is no one.
And I think all the speculation that says Dean has it locked up is premature, too. He may well be the nominee…but there are still primaries to come that he will probably lose. When that happens, or even before it happens when he looks likely to lose one, the media won't be able to resist the tease, "Is Dean Crashing and Burning?" Because they love a good horse race.
What's driving this talk that Dean is a shoo-in is probably to some extent, a frustration with the lackluster Democratic field. A lot of people who don't like Bush are eager to escalate the drive to unseat him. So for them, the sooner they can rally behind one candidate, the better. And it almost doesn't matter who that candidate is.