WASHINGTON -- It's Tuesday in the nation's capital, and the doctor is in.

Seated in his corner office at Democratic Party headquarters, Howard Dean is discussing the ways of Washington, a place he describes as middle school on steroids.

"There's an enormous amount of attention paid to who went to what dinner and who sat next to whom and who was in the paper and who wasn't," Mr. Dean says, arching an eyebrow. "It's not a world I'm accustomed to."

As chairman of the Democratic National Committee, the former physician might have one of the toughest jobs in politics: overseeing the party's brutal nominating contest while laying the groundwork for the fall race against Republicans.

For a confirmed Washington-basher who once likened members of Congress to cockroaches, the job is that much tougher.

Mr. Dean ran for president as an outsider, lost the 2004 nominating contest, then won election to one of the most inside jobs in politics. His contempt for the Beltway culture seems scarcely diminished -- he spends as much time as he can away -- and the feeling is often mutual. In that sense, the doctor will never be in.

"Some may feel he's not paying as much attention to the folks here in D.C. as they would like," said party Secretary Alice Germond, who has spent nearly 20 years at Democratic headquarters. "The fact he's not well-known at Washington's watering holes may give rise to some of the sniping, which is perhaps unfair."

Much of the criticism stems from the calendar fight involving Michigan and Florida. The states breached party rules by holding early primaries, so their delegates face banishment from the Democratic convention. While that seems unlikely, some fear the threat itself will hurt the party in November, and they blame Mr. Dean.

"He doesn't have the long-term relationships or the clout in Washington that might have allowed him to negotiate a compromise," said a Democratic strategist who works with the committee and requested anonymity to preserve that relationship.

Mr. Dean also has been criticized for the prolonged scrap between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois. He has spoken privately with both camps about toning down the rhetoric, but it is unclear how Mr. Dean is supposed to settle their nominating fight himself. As Charles Cook, an independent campaign analyst, pointed out, "There's a big difference between being Democratic National Committee chair and being God."

Step outside Washington and assessments of Mr. Dean are far more favorable.

"I believe the Democratic National Committee should be an organization that is just what its name suggests, a national party," says Steve Achelpohl, the party chairman in strongly Republican Nebraska. "We cannot sustain ourselves, particularly in terms of presidential elections, if we only have 15, 18, 20 states in play. Mr. Dean stands for the proposition that we should try to play everywhere."

The plan to do that, dubbed the 50-state strategy, is the fault line that divides Mr. Dean's supporters and critics.

Since winning a four-year term as chairman in February 2005, the former Vermont governor has poured tens of millions of dollars into the state parties. Computer systems have been modernized and voter files -- the information used to solicit money and support -- are constantly scrubbed, expanded and forwarded to Washington, building a national database that figures to help the presidential nominee greatly.

State parties also have worked to invigorate the Democratic brand, each hiring a field director, data manager and spokesman. "We've basically gotten people to believe that they can be Democrats in Utah again," Mr. Dean says. "That matters enormously."

The investment, Mr. Dean and his supporters say, has paid off. In Nebraska, for instance, the Democrats gained three legislative seats in 2006 and several local offices. In Mississippi, where the party hadn't trained a precinct captain in a decade, the Democrats captured the Senate in 2007 and solidified control of the House.

The 50-state strategy has been much less popular in Washington, however, where many ascribe Democrats' local success to national trends. If anything, they say, Democrats would have gained more House seats in 2006 with better targeting. "They weren't concentrating their efforts anywhere we really needed help," said a former congressional strategist who did not want to be identified, to protect his boss' relationship with Mr. Dean.

The dispute mainly involves money.

At a time when Democrats have raised staggering sums, the DNC has disappointed even Dean fans. The committee has raised about $73 million for the 2008 elections, compared with more than $123 million for the Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. (By contrast, the Democrats' congressional fund-raising arm, which operates separately, has overwhelmingly outraised its GOP counterpart.)

More worrisome to many Democrats is the cash on hand: $5 million for the DNC versus $31 million for the RNC. Ideally, they say, the national party could soften up Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive GOP nominee, while Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama are busy throttling each other.

Sniping aside, the erstwhile outsider appears to have made his peace -- or at least an accommodation -- with Washington. He has good working relationships with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., both of whom opposed Mr. Dean's bid for party chair. A Reid adviser, Jim Margolis, even sent Mr. Dean a note recently, praising his contribution to the Senate leader's weekly strategy call. (Mr. Dean dials in from Vermont, where he spends weekends after traveling most of the week.)

Perhaps most important, after some early zingers that recalled his grenade-tossing presidential bid -- "Republicans are brain-dead," "I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for" -- Mr. Dean has been comparatively restrained. That has spared Democrats what many feared most: the need to respond to the latest outrage from their chairman's mouth.

"I'm now in the position of trying to be a unifying force," Mr. Dean says. "And so saying controversial things that are going to crank people up all the time is probably not the most helpful thing."