Howard Dean harnessed the power of the Internet like no presidential candidate before him. His tools included an e-mail list of two million people, an Internet-fueled fundraising campaign that took in more money in one year than any Democratic candidate in history; an army of Webloggers singing his praises, and Meetups, where like-minded netizens formed ad hoc pro-Dean groups.

But Dean has fared poorly in the primaries and caucuses, leading some cynics to conclude that maybe the 'net isn't such a powerful political tool after all.

Former Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi will have none of that. In a speech before a group of technologists in San Diego this week, the architect of Dean's Internet strategy said fearful competitors and the media saw to it that grassroots Internet groundswell was crushed.

"It's a dotcom miracle being shot down is what it is. What happened was, alarm bells went off in every newsroom in the country, and the Gephardt campaign, the Kerry campaign, the Lieberman campaign, the Clark campaign, the Sharpton campaign. That alarm said kill 'em now. Kill Howard Dean right this second. 'Cause if we don't kill this son of a b right now, he's gonna be the nominee. The press corps -- that alarm bell went off and said this guy is about to be the nominee of the party. We gotta go hammer him. We gotta put him through that ringer that every future nominee goes through and we gotta hammer the living daylights out of this guy."

Trippi says the proof of the Dean Internet strategy's success is in how far Dean came -- from a fringe candidate with $157,000 in the bank to a front-runner who raised $45 million dollars in one year. He says even though politics-as-usual all but crushed the campaign, its grassroots Internet legacy lives on.

"We have moved, energized, totally energized -- you have record turnouts in state after state; more young people voting Democratic in the primaries than in any time as these record turnouts happen, ok? That's because there's an energized Democratic Party that's taking on the president. There's a reason George Bush is vulnerable today. And it's because of the 'blogs. It's because of Howard Dean. It's because tools were out there that let hundreds of thousands of Americans get involved and let a debate happen in this country again that wasn't happening."

Trippi shouldn't blame a conspiracy to crush the Dean "dotcom miracle" for the campaign's misfortunes, according to Jonah Seiger with the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University. After Trippi's speech, Seiger said Dean was hurt by his own missteps -- including statements on the capture of Saddam Hussein, the role of his wife in the campaign, and a controversy over a possible vice presidential running mate.

"It was almost as if, in the process of re-inventing campaigning, they forgot some of the basics of communication strategy and media strategy. At the end of the day the best technology in the world is not going to make a difference if a
campaign, whether it's for dogcatcher or the President of the United States, doesn't have a compelling message that's resonating, that can really get the public's support behind it, and if the candidate starts to stumble and can't get his or her footing back that's going to be very costly regardless of the number of Meetups happening, or the number of people bloggin' for you or the number of people on your e-mail list. Message matters."

Seiger says the Internet helped Dean be successful early, but that it appeared to help fuel his rapid downfall as well, saying Dean's problems "cascaded through the network."