DR's made no secret about his doubts concerning Dean's electability. Now it appears that a good chunk of the Democratic electorate may share some of those misgivings.

Indeed, there's a case to be made that the Iowa caucus results are a victory for electability as a criterion for selecting the Democratic nominee. It's not just that Dean got hammered; it's that Gephardt also got creamed.

Polls have persistently showed that repealing all of Bush's tax cuts, including those for the middle class, is an unpopular position, even among Democratic voters. Of course, this was Dean's position....but it was also Gephardt's position, in spades. He not only wanted to repeal all of Bush's tax cuts but he proposed to spend all the savings from repealing the cuts on a very, very expensive $2.3 trillion health plan. Target practice for Karl Rove, in DR's view.

Then there's the Iraq war. Sure Americans tend to be critical of the way the Iraq war has been motivated and conducted by the Bush administration and are very worried that the war's overall result might not be worth the casualties and money it is costing. But they also see the vanquishing of Saddam Hussein as a very good thing and support the way we used military force to do that. A muddled position kind of like.....well, like that of John Kerry and John Edwards, the winners of the Iowa caucuses.

The Iowa entrance poll results cast further light on the role of the war in caucus voting. Caucus voters overwhelmingly said (75 percent) said they disapproved of the war in Iraq. These voters unsurprisingly gave little support to the most pro-war viable candidate (Gephardt, 9 percent) but also gave only 24 percent of their support to Dean, the anti-war candidate. They gave most of their support to the "muddlers"--34 percent to Kerry and 24 percent to Edwards (probably understated, since Edwards fared better in the final causus results than he did in the entrance poll).

The poll also shows that the ability to "beat Bush" was a significant determinant of the caucus vote--26 percent selected this trait as the most important quality guiding their choice of candidate. These voters gave two-thirds of their support to Kerry (37 percent) or Edwards (30 percent).

In fairness to Dean, slightly more voters (29 percent) selected taking strong stands as the most important quality determining their vote and, of these voters, more voted for Dean (31 percent) than for Kerry (26 percent) or Edwards (23 percent).

But other bright spots for Dean were few and far between. Those who described themselves as very liberal were more favorable to Dean (32 percent) than any of the other candidates. So were those who selected the war in Iraq as their most important issue (14 percent of caucus-goers). Finally, those who chose their candidate more than a month before the caucus favored Dean over Kerry by a slim 32 percent to 28 percent margin.

That's it though. Not exactly a record that inspires confidence in Dean as a viable general election candidate. Or in his ability to garner the Democratic nomination, for that matter. We shall see what voters in New Hampshire and beyond have to say. But for the time being it looks like electability is here as a serious factor in selecting the Democratic nominee. Electability fever: catch it!