How Did Dean Rise?

Wondering how Howard Dean - a man to the Left of even the left wing of the Democratic Party who actually lost to the loser of the 2004 Presidential Election - is now poised to become the leader of the DNC? The New York Times thinks they have the answer.

Over the past two years, what we might loosely call the university-town elite has come to dominate the Democratic Party not just intellectually, but financially as well...Howard Dean, in his fervent antiwar phase, mobilized new networks of small donors, and these donors have quickly become the money base of the party. Whereas Al Gore raised only about $50 million from individuals in 2000, John Kerry raised $225 million, including $87 million over the Internet alone. Many of these new donors are highly educated. The biggest groups of donors to the Dean and Kerry campaigns were employees of the University of California, Harvard, Stanford, Time Warner, Microsoft and so on.

Essentially the argument is that the Democratic Party is now an organization with a flourishing top branch, but no roots. One wonders how long such an organization can survive. Without a change in direction, it is likely this party will simply be ignored as an uninterested country passes it by.