Real quick, Zack Exley has a great diary up on Daily Kos…

The result of the Dean campaign magic was very concrete: tens of millions of dollars. Tens of millons. That’s the beautiful, life-saving, nation-saving thing that’s going on here. That’s the easiest-to-see way the Dean campaign really did change American politics forever: magic, emotion, passion, dreams, all that hokey stuff — now there’s a way to convert it all into the cold hard cash  it takes to put a candidate on top. (And yes, dear netroots, the cash is still key.)

Do you remember how simple the equation was before Dean? Remember how candidates with access to large donors were the shoe-ins? And how Leno and Letterman were making a joke out of Dean for evening thinking he could throw his hat in the ring? Then these half a million people showed up from out of nowhere to give him more money than any Democratic primary candidate had ever seen. The vast majority of that money came in response to the campaign’s emails that, at least for a while, succeeded in making that direct connection (especially when the money really counted, such as around the first Dean Bat).

The Democratic base went on to contribute hundreds of million dollars to the presidential campaign, the DNC and Democratic-aligned campaigning organizations in 2004.

OK, back to your own ‘08 dreams. The new fact is that whichever candidate makes that kind of sincere and emotional connection again, will be rewarded with insane amounts of money during the primary.