LOS ANGELES—How to explain the paradox that is Howard Dean?

One part bulldog, one part philosopher king, the former presidential candidate and new Democratic Party chairman demonstrated in a speech to California Democrats Saturday that he still has the power to mesmerize party activists.

But his trip was also marked by the kind of intemperate and controversial moments that remind people why he remains such a political lightning rod.

At a sold out dinner speech at the state Democratic Party convention, Dean brought the audience to its feet with his full-throated denunciation of the Republican party. He also issued a heartfelt call for Democrats to be more open and inclusive of “red state” voters, and their economic and moral concerns.

“We need to talk to those folks,” Dean said. “We need not react to the differences of opinion about gay rights and things like that _ it’s a symptom. What is real is the fear, and we don’t address it.”

Long a hotbed of Dean activism, California is showing signs of being more so under his leadership at the DNC.

Thousands of volunteers signed onto the Dean juggernaut after the state party’s 2003 convention in Sacramento, where the former Vermont governor _ then considered a long shot to win the party’s presidential nomination _ brought the house down with his fiery denunciation of the Iraq war. Records show that fully 22 percent of Dean’s nearly $53 million war chest came from California.

Today, many so-called “Deaniacs” have filled the ranks of state party, and Chairman Art Toreros recently named Rick Jacobs, who headed Dean’s California presidential campaign, to be deputy party chairman. Meanwhile, a Dean-backed group, California for Democracy, has been fighting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed special election and the controversial reform measures Schwarzenegger hopes to place on the ballot.

But Dean also showcased some of his signature shoot-from-the-hip bluntness that was widely blamed for steering his presidential campaign off the rails.

He began his convention speech by mocking Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s accent, declaring, in thick, fake Austrian, “I am running for governor of Cah-LEE-fornia.” While it provided a decent laugh line for an audience already full of Arnold bashers, it didn’t necessarily reflect well on a Democratic chairman who’d be unlikely to poke similar fun at a Hispanic accent or urban black street slang.

The day before, at a gay rights breakfast in Los Angeles, Dean raised eyebrows when he vowed to “use Terri Schiavo” to attack Republicans. The case of the severely brain-damaged Florida woman made national headlines and provoked a national “right to die” dispute after Republican lawmakers intervened to try and prevent Schiavo’s husband from removing her feeding tube.

Dean, a physician, went on to say, “The issue is: Are we going to live in a theocracy where the highest powers tell us what to do? Or are we going to be allowed to consult our own high powers when we make very difficult decisions?’”

While polls showed most voters believed Republicans overreached in the Schiavo’s case, Dean’s language seemed a tad inartful. A Republican party spokeswoman said the comments showed “a troubling lack of sensitivity,” even though a widely publicized memo written by a GOP congressional staffer suggested Republicans saw political possibilities in the Schiavo case as well.

Dean has also raised concern among some left-leaning delegates who question why he is so intent on opening the party to voters who oppose gay rights and abortion rights. Dean, like Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and a handful of other prominent Democrats, has called for a shift in tone on the abortion issue.

“I think we need to talk about abortion differently,” Dean said Saturday. “Republicans have forced us into a corner to defend abortion. I don’t know anyone who’s pro-abortion.”

That provoked at least one delegate to walk the convention hall, publicly questioning whether Dean wanted to invite anti-civil rights and anti-environment voters into the party as well.

In his speech, Dean also took an implicit shot at his former rival John Kerry’s presidential campaign _ a crack that might not go over well with the Massachusetts senator’s volunteers and voters.

“Democrats make mistakes too, and Lord, we’ve made a lot of them,” he said. “I think we’re in pretty good shape _ we got 48 percent of the vote after all the mistakes we made.”

There’s no doubt that legions of Democratic activists still thrill to Dean’s candor and militant call to arms. But concern remains that the former Vermont governor may simply be too polarizing to set the fractured party back on track to majority status.

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Editor’s Note: Beth Fouhy has been covering national politics since 1988.