1. He has a strong energetic base. He's the dark horse that came out of nowhere.
2. He's an outsider and a governor. Governor's become presidents.
3. Bush is abandoning his conservative base with his liberal policies. My parent's are on the fence right now. Several others I know are also on the fence, and others had enough and will be voting third party or staying home. Two statewide races in Michigan were 17,000 votes and 5,000 votes.
4. A lot of the Nader backers would back Dean. Dean is also running a semi-populist campaign. Populist WINS right now. It's also how alwhore came back to steal Michigan and Penn.
5. While Dean IS anti-gun, he's not AS anti-gun as the others like Kerry and Gephart.
6. Dean's not a bad speaker and doesn't sound as abrasive(to me anyway) as Kerry or Gephart. He didn't sound as elitist and I suspected him to sound either.
As for the others, Lieberman is hated by liberals. Gephardt could be a threat with labor, but has been around forever. He's very abrasive as well. Kerry is Dukakis and an elitist 'high society' liberal, not to mention his wife is a loose cannon.
Rove wants Dean, but Rove does not have a good track record in the Midwest.
You make some good points, and I also know that there are some moderate Republicans supporting Dean right now. (I'll probably get flamed for saying it though.) I will say one thing for Dean--he's very articulate. That could give him an advantage.