Howard Dean and his supporters are making history today

Have been out of commission for a while, due to certain problems, but I am back up and running again.

Last night when that computer problem rendered my Mac useless, the Howard Dean campaign was more than $2M short of its goal. The naysayers who suggested the Dean campaign overshot in setting such a high target ten days ago no doubt figured they were still right yesterday.

But today, as I predicted, a flood of donations came in from those who were waiting for the last day or who decided to give again. It's 4:00 pm PT as I write this, and the Dean campaign is less than $700,000 short of the goal now. Howard Dean has spent the day in L.A., and the political media has spent the day scratching their heads in wonder:

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. [...]

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.

In the Internet era, it is cheaper to reach voters one-on-one than through mass media. Dean has perfected the art of amassing a huge base of supporters by below-the-radar direct contact online, giving him a base of voters sufficient to lead in Iowa, New Hampshire and to tie in South Carolina - all vital early contests. [...]

After the Dean campaign, candidates will not have to go hat in hand to the special interests to raise their money. Increasingly, they'll find that it is better to campaign online than on the air.

Check out the Blog for America. They're doing updates more than every half hour. If you want to contribute to the story on this history-changing day, the most popular donation is $145--the price of a one-way bus ticket from D.C. to Crawford, Texas.

I'll be at Union Station tonight, with Howard Dean, the Blog for America bloggers and, I'm guessing, thousands of supporters. Come on down if you're in L.A.--you can pay at the door ($100 donation). Alternately, monitoring the Blog for America will no doubt make you feel like you're there.

June 30 was the night that we began wondering, Can presidential politics really be done differently? Tonight's the night that question is answered with a firm yes.