The hidden powers that we don't vote for

I thought I had posted on this subject before, but I can't find it, so maybe I didn't.

During the last election, John McCain, who had run against Bush in the primary in 2000, and who had generally been a thorn in Bushes side, suddenly began toeing the line and acting nice to Bush. One article I read someplace theorized that this was because McCain wanted to run again in 2008, and he needed the support of the Republican Party to do that, and to get that, he needed to support Bush during this election.

This started me thinking about these mysterious "parties", both the Republican and Democratic parties. We don't learn much about the organization of these parties in grade school when we're learning about how our government works, so, to me, they're fairly mysterious. I don't think it's a serious problem now, but at least based on what little I know, there is a potential for these parties to become the real powers in this country, with only puppets being elected as Congressmen and as the President. Who runs these parties, how are they elected, and how often?

This is more a curiosity for me, rather than a real concern, and is more a result of my personal ignorance rather than any secrecy on the part of the political parties. I have enough faith in our "Freedom of Speech" ammendment to believe that if there was a hint of a problem, the newspapers would be all over it.

Anyway, today there was an article that sheds some light on this process:

State Democratic party leaders back Dean to lead national group

Apparently there is a "Democratic National Committee" and an "Association of State Democratic Chairs". There is also something that was referred to as the "executive committee". I'm not sure what the relationship between these groups is, but I'm pretty sure the DNC is what is generally referred to by the term "Democratic Party".

Anyway, it's interesting to note that there is an official leader, and that leader is elected, at least by someone. It's also interesting to note that at least one contender (Donnie Fowler) is not a politician. He is described as a "Democratic Activist".

I hope Howard Dean runs again in the next election.