[Nonsuch]

Wonder what happened to the Democratic Party? This great article lays it all out, analyzing how Dean's candidacy has benefited and giving a peak into how a next-generation Democratic party will operate. Long, but well worth it. A sample:

There is, to be sure, a group of Democrats in Washington who think of themselves as part of an establishment. They have helped raise money for and steer talent to different candidates for the party's nomination. They have access to the press, to whom they have dispensed a litany of on-and-off-the-record doubts about Dean's electability. They convene for anxious steak lunches at the Palm. But to call them an "establishment" is like calling the House of Lords a force in British legislative affairs. It is almost impossible to exaggerate how incoherent today's Democratic establishment is, or how little power it has to accomplish anything of substance. Howard Dean has overcome many hurdles on his way to becoming the Democratic frontrunner. But the Democratic establishment is not exactly at the top of the list.

The absence of a true Democratic establishment is the central fact not only of the current presidential contest, but also of the last three years of Beltway politics. Washington Democrats are not wholly without political and strategic assets. But when you put it all together, there's not much to look at.

Democrats not only lack control of the White House and either chamber of Congress, they don't even have strong party institutions to fall back on. Not long after the 2000 elections, party chieftains installed fundraising Wunderkind Terry McAuliffe at the Democratic National Committee with a mandate to rebuild the party's long-dilapidated political infrastructure. He's succeeded about as well as anyone could, considering that after he became chairman, those same party chieftains successfully pushed through Congress a campaign finance reform which deprived the DNC of most of its income. These days, McAuliffe is reduced to bragging that his new small-donor program brings in enough money to cover the DNC's operating expenses.

[...]

Democrats love Dean not so much because he's "taken on" a powerful Washington establishment, but because he has tapped voters' fury and dismay that the establishment seems so powerless--even with half the popular vote behind it. It's because the establishment is pathetic, not powerful, that these people support Dean.

This grassroots fury against the "Washington Democrats"--as Dean likes to call them--is the only factor that clearly explains his extraordinary ascent and the striking inability of any other candidates to catch fire. Certainly it's got little to do with his stance on individual issues. [...] He's more traditionally liberal on tax cuts (he'd repeal all of them, where Lieberman and Edwards would keep the middle-class cuts), but of the five major candidates, his health-care proposal is the least radical. His ideas to expand federal aid for child care and higher education are, as Ryan Lizza pointed out in The New Republic recently, rather Clintonesque. Despite efforts by centrist intellectuals and some journalists to limn his candidacy as a liberal-versus-center battle, issue by issue, it doesn't add up. If voters had wanted a left-liberal candidate, Dennis Kucinich or Al Sharpton would be leading the polls. Dean's supporters are not stupid. They know that in Dean, they are getting a flinty, balanced-budget governor who opposes gun control and favors welfare reform. But that's not the source of their admiration. Dean's supporters love him because, unlike everyone else in those endless debates, he's not tainted by association with the hapless Washington establishment.

[...]

But even as Dean continues to occasionally bash Washington Democrats in public, his top staff--including his campaign co-chairman, Steve Grossman, a former DNC head--have spent the last few months quietly reaching out to them. And for good reason: Should Dean win both the nomination and, next fall, the presidency, he will face a massive, motivated, well-funded Republican establishment that will work every day to defeat his agenda, no matter how liberal or centrist it is. As disorganized as they are, Beltway Democrats still constitute a valuable reservoir of talent, experience, and money. Without a rebuilt, robust Democratic counter-establishment, Dean will be a monumental failure as president. Howard Dean needs the Washington Democrats, in other words, as much as they need him.

[thunderous_funker]

"Despite efforts by centrist intellectuals and some journalists to limn his candidacy as a liberal-versus-center battle, issue by issue, it doesn't add up."



Once Dean is out of "fire up the Dems" mode, and into get the message out to the independents mode, that will become more clear to the general electorate.

At least, that I'm hoping they are media-savvy enough to get it done. Perception is reality in politics.

[slow moe]

Bush will crush him, but for the sake of maintaining the traditional two party system in America... Go Dean!