As Howard Dean marches toward what now appears to be almost certain election as the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee, many Republicans are laughing out loud. They cannot believe their luck at the resurrection of Dr. Dean.

Some Democrats are shaking their heads as well: A column by Jonathan Chait in the Los Angeles Times called it a “suicidal selection.”

The conventional wisdom on Dr. Dean is that he was too liberal to be elected president and came unhinged after the Iowa caucuses with his now infamous “I have a scream” speech.

But this is a case where the conventional wisdom may be missing the full measure of the man. His rapid rise from obscure dark horse to the top of the Democratic pack – too soon, as it turned out – still is evidence of considerable political skill and an ability to inspire.

Moreover, if you take a step back and separate Dr. Dean’s record as governor of Vermont from the more heated moments of his campaign trail rhetoric, a consistent profile emerges – not of a left-wing Democrat, but a confident political fighter who has taken many stands against the liberal Democratic orthodoxy in its 1970s and ’80s variety.

After all, a pro-death penalty governor with an A rating from the NRA based on his belief that gun laws should be matter for states and not federal government is not a far-left retread. In the face of enduring stereotypes that Democrats are the party of unrestrained government spending, Dr. Dean never loses an opportunity to mention that he submitted a balanced budget each year as governor. He uses it as an unlikely applause line in his stump speech. In his first full state budget, Dr. Dean actually cut spending in the general fund 2.3%. As the book “Howard Dean: A Citizen’s Guide to the Man Who Would Be President” recounts, the Speaker of the Vermont House, Ralph Wright, wrote in his memoir, “Dean could break out in a rash at the mere mention of the smallest increase in the most obscure tax.” Left-wingers in the Green Mountain State were so dissatisfied that they ran Progressive Party candidates against him, and Dean’s former statehouse press secretary, Glenn Gershanek, recalled that “one of my most persistent activities during the early 90s was trying to fend off the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party.”

Critics contend that Dr. Dean reinvented himself as a liberal during his presidential campaign, but his stand against the Iraq War – after supporting the invasion of Afghanistan – caused many observers to lose sight of the rest of his message. That liberal perception is one that Dr. Dean, to his discredit, did not do enough to correct. But he refused to join the calls of many on the left to postpone the recent successful Iraqi elections, and his core message in pursuit of the DNC chairmanship has once again stressed his pragmatic, if passionate, approach to politics.

“Our party must speak plainly and our agenda must clearly reflect the socially progressive fiscally responsible values that bring our party and the vast majority of Americans together,” he wrote in his statement announcing his campaign for DNC chair. Instead of arguing for a guerrilla-style political retrench into Blue State identity, he dismisses the idea of a Red State and Blue State divide altogether, saying in the same statement “There are no Red States or Blue States, only American states.” In that vein, he trumpets the fact that as chair of the Democratic Governor’s Association he helped recruit successful candidates in Red States such as Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Mississippi. This is not a Democrat who is content to hug the ideological shore, but someone who wants to unapologetically reach out and make the Democratic Party competitive in all regions as a “party of reform.”

Red flags have been raised about a recent comment made by Dr. Dean in this campaign, in which he told a New York audience, “I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for, but I admire their discipline and their organization.” The first half of that sentence has been circulated alone as a symbol of his unrestrained partisan venom but seen in its full context a slightly different picture emerges – that of a loose-lipped candidate, pandering to a partisan audience as a way of backing into a more subtle point: The Republicans are to be admired for their organizational success and ability to shape the terms of American political debate. The quote shows why Dr. Dean would have made a divisive and disorganized president. But a determination to analyze and replicate the success of one’s opponents is not evidence of an inflexibly ideological mind.

Questions remain, however, about what lessons Dr. Dean has drawn from his own defeat in last year’s primaries. Will he show better organizational ability and budgeting control as DNC chairman as he did as candidate, when $50 million slipped through his fingers by the end of the first two contests? And what did he learn about the fact that the college-age volunteers who flooded Iowa on the eve of the caucuses may have done a great deal to alienate the moderate, middle-class, rural population in that state who were disquieted to find folks with pink hair and nose rings knocking on their door during dinner?

Finally, it will be interesting if he chooses sides in a concurrent struggle for a seat as vice chairwoman of the DNC, where one of the four candidates is a former Massachusetts state senator, Dianne Wilkerson, who pleaded guilty to federal charges of failing to pay $200,000 in back taxes, and another is Al Sharpton’s close ally, Marjorie Harris. These figures pose far more serious questions about the Democratic Party’s direction than the elevation of Dr. Dean.

If Dr. Dean can galvanize the Democratic rank and file without alienating Main Street America, he might have the last laugh.