I have been very unnerved with the organizational and technological capabilities of republicans at all levels these days, that creates the seemingly perfect storm for them to help someone like Dean get the nomination, which is tantamount to sabotage.
There are 2 issues. You either believe that the talk radio listening, fox-news watching, conservative tabloid paper reading, population mass is devious enough to do something that doesn't cost them any money, is relatively easy, and helps out there guy dubya get reelected in there eyes. Repulicans in many states have traditions of doing this. The second issue is which major candidate these aweful people believe would be a signifigantly easier opponent for W to beat than any other. I believe that they realize, or think, that it's Dean. If someone can make a case that they'd rather face a different candidate more than any other, I'd like to hear it.
Please read this website for info about various kinds of primaries. It's easy enough for sabotaging independants to vote in regular primaries, as many republicans don't bother to register to a party, or switch to independant OR DEMOCRAT for this explicit purpouse.
www.electionmethods.org/primary.html
It's even more rediculously easy these days in the terrible OPEN primaries. I've made a map which shows all the primaries, with the open ones in Gray, any ideas are helpful. The Dean supporters can either agree or not that they will get alot of help from the bad kinds of republicans, and if so they can denounce or welcome it.