Watching Jonathan Alter

on the Charlie Rose show, I'm getting the impression that he's trying to build the case for stopping Dean. The other panelists were Mark Singer of The New Yorker and Mark Halperin of ABC, both of whom seemed to be full of stuff we all pretty well know: Dean is a populist, plugged in to the grassroot upset about Bush, and shoots from the hip. He's also well funded and organized. I don't think the party insiders can stop him. What can they offer any candidate now that soft money is out?

This may be the biggest unintended consequence of McCain-Feingold, to weaken the parties as a vetting and filtering mechanism for selecting candidates. They have already been rendered less influential because of state primaries and the rise of campaign consultants.