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 Today we have commentary and cartoons on Howard
Dean and the Democrats, by our own political pundit, Dick Morris,
who was a political advisor to President Clinton and is now a
star on Fox News.
Dean's E-Reform
By Dick Morris
As he surges into the fund- raising lead
among the Democratic '04 presidential contenders, Howard Dean
is also catalyzing the most far-reaching of reforms in campaign
finance. Indeed, the Dean campaign will likely mark the end of
the big money era in our politics, when campaigns were dominated
by ultra-wealthy donors or special interests contributing massive
amounts of money.
Dean is proving that, through the Internet,
he can mobilize large numbers of relatively small contributors,
whose combined giving can overwhelm that of wealthy special-interest
donors. In so doing, he's also ending the oligarchy of monied
power in the Democratic Party typified by Terry McAuliffe, the
Democratic National Committee chairman whose sole qualification
is his ability to raise big bucks.
 As
the current quarter draws to a close, Dean, having collected
upward of $23 million since the year began, largely online, will
likely surge past John Kerry for the lead in total fund-raising.
Better yet, since his money is raised at a lower cost than that
raised by his rivals (Internet fund-raising is free), he'll have
an even bigger edge in total cash on hand. And since most of
his donors have not yet contributed the $2,000 legal maximum,
they can likely give and give again as the primary campaign heats
up.
But Dean's impact in changing campaign
financing is not confined to the input side of the ledger. His
surge to first place among Democratic contenders has been accomplished
without paid TV advertising in any quantity and with relatively
little free media coverage until recently. Dean is demonstrating
how Internet-based, grass-roots (or cyber-roots) campaigning
can build a political base in each of the primary states sufficient
to counter the TV-created bases of his rivals.
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  Mike Thompson,
Detroit, Michigan, The
Detroit Free Press
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