Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Dean?

Matthew Yglesias discusses what the Club for Growth's anti-Dean ad means and addresses Skeptical Notion's thesis that the ad proves that the GOP is scared of Dean. Matthew then offers some possible alternative explanations and analysis.

I think there is a very simple explanation: the GOP and their allies have determined that in all likelihood that Dean will be the nominee, and so they are simply gunning for the presumptive frontrunner. Indeed, it has all along been the strategy (or is it strategery?) of the Bush campaign to spend all of the primary money on the frontrunner, whomever it turned out to be. Such a strategy need not wait until March, if those spending the money are convinced that Dean is the man. It would appear that the Club for Growth has decided that that is the case.

Such ads, or other types of attention focused on Dean, do not mean that either the GOP fears him nor that they want him to be the nominee, rather it simply means that they see no point in giving much attention to the rest of the Nine.

(And BTW, doesn't "The Club for Growth" sound like a competitor to the "Hair Club for Men"?).