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During a speech this week at a religious conference, even Dean appeared wary of speaking for the party he chairs.

“I don’t want to speak for the whole Democratic Party because every time I do, I get in trouble, so I’ll speak for myself,” Dean said in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. During Dean’s speech, he predicted that America was “about to enter the ’60s again.” See Video

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said that such controversial comments have reduced Dean to being “the ‘netroots’ chairman of the DNC (Democratic National Committee); you know, the blogging community and associated powers within the Democratic Party.”

“Look, it’s no secret that [House Minority Leader] Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and [Senate Minority Leader] Harry Reid (D-Nev.) have had their differences with Dean,” Sabato stated. “So have [Sen. Chuck] Schumer (D-N.Y.), the head of the senatorial committee, and [Rep.] Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), the head of the congressional committee.

“Once you eliminate those groups, as well as the Senate Democratic Caucus or the House Democratic Caucus, I think you’re left with two things: the netroots and some of the state parties,” he added.

Sabato also referenced Dean’s strategy for financing political campaigns.

“Remember where he’s put the money,” Sabato noted. “He’s got this 50-state plan, and he’s determined to put Democratic resources in Mississippi and Utah. Well, maybe one day they’ll be voting Democratic for president. I’ll be dead then, but it may happen.”

Paul Herrnson, director of the Center for American Politics and Citizenship at the University of Maryland, took a more clinical view of Dean’s tenure at the DNC.

“In a situation when the party does not control the White House, it’s unclear whether that person is the spokesman for the party,” Herrnson said.

“Most people would look to the party leadership in the House and the Senate first because those are elected officials in high-ranking positions that are said to represent the party and were actually elected by voters and other elected officials,” he added.

“The party chairman is generally considered the major party functionary in terms of collecting resources to conduct campaigns,” Herrnson noted, stating that Dean is “raising money and spending money to build up the party’s infrastructure and to prepare for the 2006 and later 2008 elections.”

As Cybercast News Service previously reported, Dean’s tenure at the DNC has been marked by several verbal missteps.

On June 2, 2005, he alleged that Republicans offered a “dark, difficult and dishonest vision” of America and that President George W. Bush had been the “most ineffective” president in Dean’s lifetime.

Several Democratic governors and members of Congress began denouncing Dean’s comments, including Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who responded to Dean’s statement that the GOP was “pretty much a white, Christian party” by accusing the DNC chairman of using “religion to divide.”

On Wednesday night, Obama was asked on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity and Colmes” whether he agreed with Dean’s statement from Tuesday that Republican governance had thrust America into a new “McCarthy era.”

“I think that, as far as I can tell, nobody is being blacklisted,” Obama replied. However, the Illinois senator also appeared to rally to Dean’s side.

“There is a mood in the country where dissent is considered unpatriotic, and I think that’s a dangerous move,” Obama said. “We can have vigorous disagreements without assuming that, you know, the other side is somehow venal or doesn’t love their country, and I think that’s probably what Howard was trying to address.”

Over the past several months, Dean has attempted to reach out to groups that do not usually vote for Democrats, including religious conservatives. To that end, the DNC chairman was interviewed on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s “700 Club” on May 10.

During that appearance, Dean erroneously stated that his party’s platform defined marriage as being between one man and one woman. The remark sparked a “gay backlash” that led some homosexual activists to call for supporters of same-sex marriage to funnel their money to sympathetic candidates and not the DNC.

Sabato noted that Tuesday’s appearance by Dean before the conference on the “Covenant for a New America” was a further attempt by the DNC chairman to reach the religious community with an eye toward the mid-term elections in November and his own political future.

“If the Republicans actually end up holding their own or gaining seats, there will be pressure for him to leave, no question about it,” Sabato said. “There’ll be pressure for a whole bunch of people to leave, but it would start with Dean.”

Sabato asserted that the odds are in the Democrats’ favor this year because it marks the sixth year of George W. Bush’s presidency.

“There’s only been one sixth-year election since 1900 without gains by the opposition party, usually substantial gains, and that was 1998 because of two factors: backlash on impeachment and the fact that [President Bill] Clinton and the Democrats had lost everything that wasn’t nailed down in 1994,” he said.

Either way, Dean’s future is likely to be determined by the party’s presidential nominee in 2008, Sabato noted.

“Of course, it just depends on who that is and what his or her priorities are,” he said. “If that nominee wants to send a certain message about the mainstreaming of the Democratic Party, then the nominee may well ask him to leave.

“On the other hand, if that mainstream nominee is worried about the alienation of the Left and their turnout in November, he may get to stay,” Sabato added.