The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz writes an interesting article on the problems in Howard Dean's presidential campaign. Internal rifts and power struggles are not uncommon in campaigns, successful or otherwise. There was one aspect, however, that really did catch my attention:

Behind the facade of a successful political operation, senior officials plotted against each other, complained about the candidate and developed one searing doubt.

Dean, they concluded, did not really want to be president.

In different conversations and in different ways, according to several people who worked with him, Dean said at the peak of his popularity late last year that he never expected to rise so high, that he didn't like the intense scrutiny, that he had just wanted to make a difference. "I don't care about being president," he said. Months earlier, as his candidacy was taking off, he told a colleague: "The problem is, I'm now afraid I might win."

I'm reminded of an idea for a novel that I had a few years back. Since I'm not going to write it, I'll go ahead and share it with you. It dealt with a popular Missouri governor that was term-limited out of office. He didn't deal with retirement all that well. Both senators were members of his own party so other than the speech circuit, there wasn't much for him to do. His suggests that he makes a doomed bid for the White House to get some of his ideas out there. If nothing else, she joked, it would get him out of her hair. His rise and fall was initially patterned after John McCain's, but it actually follows Dr. Dean's more closely. With nothing to lose, he starts throwing out ideas that his party's presumptive nominee (or his presumptive opponent) wouldn't touch. He becomes a media darling and the next thing he knows he's winning primaries (okay, slight departure from Dean here). Tired and exhausted, he starts looking for inconspicuous ways to lose without tarnishing his name or diminishing his ideas. Part comedy, part political exposition, and part character drama. Could have made a neat book.