I learned a lot during my campaign for Senate, but there is one thing that keeps me up at night. Before I ran I was just a regular guy, a registered Democrat committed to supporting causes which and candidates who reflected what I felt we Democrats agreed represent our Party. I didn't realize my many-layered misperception until I became a candidate.

The reality? There are 2 separate entities called the Democratic Party: the Outside Party, made up of Democratic voters, and the Inside Party, made up of insiders like politicians, political operatives, "finance chairs", and other power brokers. As voters, we look from the outside in. The job of the candidates and/or the Party is to make us voters feel as though we are part of the same Party every couple of years, then go about their business of positioning for more and more power, frequently at the expense of, well, us--the Outside Party. But we're not really a part of their thing. And they don't want us to be.

Howard Dean knows this and made a choice early on in his candidacy to be a candidate for the outsiders (Democratic voters who think they're part of the broader Party) and not the insiders (the controlling interest of the Party which manipulates the outsiders into thinking they are part of the same thing. They aren't). In parallel he has consistently attacked the insider Party, its self-serving constructs, its failure to connect to us outsiders--Democratic voters--its catering to corporate America, and its deeply embedded, sycophantic, nepotistic, power-seeking players.

I used to think I was part of the Democratic Party because I am a Democrat. But that's not the case whatsoever. I am only invited to contribute money, time, and my vote, but never, ever my ideas or leadership. Dean, on the other hand, has asked me to join together with tens of thousands of other outsiders and take back my country. My ideas are welcome. My efforts are not taken for granted. I'm not excluded because there is no club, only all of us, and we're all important. Howard Dean has democratized Party politics by rendering the Party irrelevant.

Dean is the man saying the emperor has no clothes. And he's right, which has enraged and terrified the naked, regal insiders. How dare he let the public know how corrupt the insider system is? How dare he expose the corporate ownership of the Democratic Party insiders? How dare he take a stand and point out their lack of principles? How dare this angry, no-neck, conservative, rich Democrat create his completely autonomous, independent party machine made up of non-players, the voters of this country?

Such audacity can only be rewarded in one way: with war. The Democratic Party--not Democrats, just the card-carrying club members--is at war with Howard Dean because he is literally taking away their power base and making them impotent. The DLC, The DNC, Lieberman, Kerry, and Gephardt are all now realizing the Party machine can not turn back the Dean movement on its own and are banding together to tear Dean down in any way they can. Republican-lite Lieberman is the worst offender, tearing into Dean with fake righteous indignation, the likes of which we rarely see this side of the line between us and Republicans. It's shameful-- these failed candidates fighting against Dean as if he were the enemy, siding with conservatives in attacking his values, character, and capabilities, not because what he represents is contrary to any of their own values but because what Dean represents is the end of the insider game as we know it. He has pulled the insider carpet (woven with quid pro quo) out from under them and they're pissed.

Sadly, the insiders do not fear Dean winning the nomination because they are afraid he will lose to Bush. They fear Dean winning the nomination because they are afraid he will beat Bush and take power. When Dean wins, the palace coup will begin, and I expect there will be substantial blood-letting as Dean and his team of millions completely redefine politics, and importantly, tear down the walls of the insiders club, and let the riff-raff, like me, in through the front door—just where we thought we belonged all along. I have no sympathy for the insiders. Howard Dean is going to rock their world, and America will be a truer democracy for it.

And the insiders? Their fear is justified.