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"Bernie Sanders votes with the Democrats 98 percent of the time."- Former Vermont Governor and failed Presidential Candidate Howard Dean, now Chairman of the Democratic National Committee

Most viewers tuning in at the very moment Howard Dean made this comment to Tim Russert on "Meet the Press," would have said to themselves, "Yeah...so?"

But for those of us who happened to tune in a few minutes earlier to hear Russert ask the question that prompted the reply in the first place, the statement was a stark admission of what the Democratic Party has become.

"In your home state of Vermont," Russert said, "there's a vacancy for the United States Senate about to occur. Bernie Sanders, the congressman from Vermont, wants to run for that seat. He is a self-described avowed socialist."

"Well, that's what he says," Dean scoffed. "He's really a populist."

"But is there room in the Democratic Party for a socialist?" Russert asked.

"Well, first of all, he's not a socialist, really," Dean insisted. "He hasn't said that for a while."

Russert pressed on: "Oh, he wrote in his book..."I am a Democratic socialist."

"Well, a Democratic socialist," Dean equivocated. "All right, we're talking about words here. And Bernie can call himself anything he wants. He is basically a liberal Democrat... The bottom line is that Bernie Sanders votes with the Democrats 98 percent of the time."

"So you'd support him?" Russert asked.

Dean: "We may very well end up supporting him."

Amazing. There was the chairman of the DNC, on national television, admitting that he and his party would support socialist Congressman Bernie Sanders for U.S. Senate because he (Dean) and his party are so far to the left that Bernie Sanders already votes with them 98 percent of the time.

But don't think that all liberal candidates will be as easy to spot as Bernie Sanders. As I pointed out in my Feb. 22 column, "Misunderestimating Howard Dean," the DNC Chairman's plans include pumping financial resources into state and local races over the next four years, plans he reiterated to Russert on "Meet the Press."

"By the end of this year," Dean promised, "we have a goal of having a Democrat in every precinct in America -- not every county, but every precinct in America -- four paid political organizers in every state in America in 2005... We're also going to try to get elected people running for the state legislature, people running for city council. We're involved in some mayors' races right now. We need to do this from top to bottom just as the Republicans did...we're, frankly, going to adopt a lot of it that works for Democrats."

Politicians of both parties are skilled at pretending to be something they are not, but Democrats have refined the process to a fine art. This is especially true at the local level. Knowing their unadulterated socialist message does not sell, they mask their agenda in a cloak of respectable moderation, and therein lies the danger to the Republic. Howard Dean is a true believer in the leftist cause. He attracts other true believers to Democrat activism. Combine that attraction with a commitment to elect state and local Democrat officials and you have a potential for Democrat victories in the next few years.

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