If it wishes to survive, a party out of power usually learns to face the reasons why it is a minority and makes the necessary changes in order to regain power. There is a nagging question in my mind, however, as to whether the leadership of the Democratic Party has actually gone through this process of awakening and reform. Tuesday's victory was at least in part handed to the Democrats by the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq and its utter incompetence in responding to the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. Democrats who based their campaign on Iraq did well, for the most part. Those that did not emphasize the Iraqi disaster did less well. In other words, this is an election in which Americans voted against, rather than for.

I think many Americans still don't know what the Democratic Party stands for. The party leaders in Congress have spent almost their entire careers either under Republican presidents or under Republican majorities in Congress. When Reagan won office in 1980, it appears that many Democrats decided that their political future lay in making themselves indistinguishable from Republicans, a strategy that ultimately cost many of them their jobs and ultimately cost the Democrats control of Congress.

The Republicans won control of all three branches of our government by making themselves over into an aggressive, take-no-hostages, party, preaching an agenda to the American people that sounded good, and did whatever it took to win control and to hold it. To give credit where credit is due, the Democrats assisted them by their own scandals and arrogance. Now the circle has finally come around and the Republicans have been clearly repudiated by the voters for their arrogance and corruption.

The soul of a political party is determined by how it obtains power. In this day of mass media, money has been the key to power, and the Republican Party gets it money from wealthy individuals and large corporations, whose interests it represents to the detriment of almost everyone else. Until recently, the Democrats were getting most of their money from the same or similar contributors, and a huge army of consultants grew fat as intermediaries between Democratic politicians and their powerful donors.

That political model is now under heavy attack from two directions. Most importantly, Howard Dean's 50-State project, designed to build viable state parties in every state, will, if successful, almost certainly make Democratic senators and representatives beholden to their local parties, rather than the beltway consultants that provide access to the big money. The D.C. establishment recognizes Dean as a threat to its gravy train and is fighting him viciously. Just today, Clintonite James Carville advocated replacing Dean with Harold Ford of Tennessee.

And it is not just the consultants and power brokers that are opposed to Dean. Think for a second: If you were a congressperson, with whom would you rather deal: rich donors in luxurious surroundings or your state Democratic executive committee, meeting in the basement of a church or the private dining room of a local fish house? It is naive to think that members who are to shortly to become part of the majority party are not being courted by the rich and powerful, even as this column is being written. The way to control the average politician is to control the means by which he is nominated and elected. When a politician is dependent on the state party to be elected, that is where his allegiance will lie.

Dean's project is therefore of critical importance, both to democracy and the long-term health of the party. If he goes, the Democratic Party will almost inevitably resume the very practices that caused it to lose in 1994. Given another two years as chairperson of the DNC, however, Dean will have shifted the party's center of gravity from Washington, D.C. to the state and local parties, where it belongs, and away from dependence on the rich and powerful.

The second attack upon the present arrangement is the Internet, and in particular, what the liberal political blogs have been calling the "netroots." Through the support of the blogs for specific candidates, people are donating to candidates and the DNC in numbers and amounts inconceivable just two years ago. That money comes from the grassroots and every dollar raised this way is a dollar that doesn't have to be solicited from a wealthy and powerful donor who will expect special favors. That's the reason that net neutrality is so important; the Internet is the sole mass medium that is not almost completely controlled by large corporations and the freedom of speech that is possible on the Internet is undoubtedly a thorn in the flesh of every politician and CEO whose misdeeds are likely to be discovered and broadcast to the world.

So Howard Dean needs our help. This plain-spoken doctor turned politician, rather conservative in his political beliefs, is radically changing our party for the better. It would be a disaster to lose him now.

Secondly, we can only insure net neutrality by pressuring our representatives in Congress to put it into law.