A few weeks ago, I spotted a worried post or two about a late-January Roll Call article on some of the blogs. This article asserted that some of the Democratic party's leaders had called Dean on the carpet about the state of the DNC's finances:

 "Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill are privately bristling over Howard Dean's management of the Democratic National Committee and have made those sentiments clear after new fundraising numbers showed he has spent nearly all the committee's cash and has little left to support their efforts to gain seats this cycle.

Several well-informed Democratic sources said Congressional leaders were furious last week when they learned the DNC has just $5.5 million in the bank, compared to the Republican National Committee's $34 million..."

Some worried that Dean and the Democratic Party were in trouble. Others, like Kos, blasted the article as B.S.:

"The cowardly shots in the beltway press come from disaffected insider consultants who see their lucrative gigs in danger. Dean is out raising money directly for the state parties and finally investing in the sort of infrastructure that Republicans spent decades building.

If it was up to these DC insiders, Dean would hoarde (sic) tens of millions to dump into television later this year, just as the DNC has done in the past. And just like in the past, the DNC would parsel out its advertising contracts to all the various consultancies to spread the money around, they would all take their nice fact commissions, and they'd laugh all the way to the bank.."

So which is it?

Following the time-honored advice of "Deep Throat", I decided to follow the money. So I turned to the FEC reports. Read on for the scoop.

There's more...