There is perhaps no better snapshot of the Democratic Party's current dilemma than the spontaneous caution that erupted on the sidelines during the standing ovation given former presidential candidate Howard Dean at the Western Regional Conference of the Democratic National Committee last Saturday.

As the six or seven hundred people in the crowd got to their feet for Dean, the last speaker of a long, sometimes dry day of exchanges, two aides working for rival campaigns blurted out an emphatic warning: "They don't vote!"

"And you're hearing that from two campaigns!" added one. The same could easily be said of the on-line kibitzing about this tiny but important race. It's a measure of interest, but it's not what counts.

Votes for chairman will be cast not by the audience but by the 40-some DNC committee members who were sitting at the front of the Sacramento, Calif. hotel ballroom listening to the seven men who hope to lead the party. The much larger audience of concerned Democrats sitting behind them cheering so enthusiastically for Dean can lobby, but they won't decide. Still, the tension between what energized voters – on and off-line -- want and what the party's leadership decides is best is at the party's restive heart.

A look around the Western Caucus, which brings together delegates from Alaska, American Somoa, Arizona, California, Colorado, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming, is also a good reminder for tech-savvy Democrats anxious for the party to adopt the latest and greatest in on-line organizing. For all the talk about wikis, meetups, blogs and Internet-based fundraising, tech leaves many of the party regulars cold. For them, politics is still about people, not plugs.

So the candidates for the DNC chairmanship are relying, as all political parties have for years, on pressing the flesh at a series of party meetings held to let some of the 447 people who run Democratic state organizations, hold elected office or work for labor unions, to start evaluating their choices for chairman. A similar regional caucus will meet next weekend in New York with the final vote scheduled for Feb. 12.

Tech-savvy campaigning isn't front and center in this race, but it is playing a role. Dean's Internet-reliant presidential effort makes the topic impossible to ignore. But so, too, does the recognition that things aren’t working as they should. And they suspect a better use of tech tools might help them. Details are scarce but, to a man – and they were all men -- speakers at Saturday's meeting talked about strengthening state organizations with money and technological innovations from a more receptive, less controlling Washington office.

Less easily articulated by the candidates but clear to anyone watching the crowd – Democrats also want someone who can speak to voters and separate their goals and ambitions from those of the Republicans. The problem is that there is no one man running in this race who can do all those things. Each of the candidates for the chairmanship represent in his own way the unresolved tensions within the Democratic Party. That makes the choice -- between Dean, long-time Democratic organizer Donnie Fowler, former Ohio Party Chair David Leland, New Democratic Network CEO Simon Rosenberg, former Indiana Congressmen Tim Roemer and Martin Frost and former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb -- difficult as well as crucial.

"They're all qualified," says Bob Mulholland, campaign advisor to the California Democratic Party. And in an odd twist, the ability to speak tech – to talk to and about the on-line world with some fluency -- is becoming the middle ground. Mullholland, who runs his own blog about California politics, clearly knows this. So do others in the room, even if they did leave their lap-tops at home.

Talking the Talk, But Walking the Walk?

But since not everyone knows the lingo, the possibilities or the potential, candidates are long on general ideas that will better implement technology and short on specifics. There's no talk about issue-based wiki discussions or regional meet-ups. Instead, there are promises from Dean to put state party organizers on the party payroll and references to Democracy for America and how it's already up and running. There's talk by Fowler about energizing the netroots and re-locating the DNC's offices outside Washington and giving state leaders more authority since the net frees them to work in different places. Frost's web site – an old fashioned static site – talks about the party's need to better co-ordinate Internet-based fundraising combined with talk about making Washington more responsive to the states, fiscally and otherwise. And in the highest form or flattery, Rosenberg is imitating Dean's presidential campaign, demonstrating how well he understands the on-line world and this new style of campaigning by aggressively courting the blogosphere's leaders at DailyKos.com and MyDD.com. (PDF Contributing Editor Matt Stoller has been hired to blog Rosenberg's campaign).

Dean, of course, leads the pack by virtue of his name recognition and ability to stir a crowd as well as DFA's fundraising, email list (the organization claims 700,000 names) and organizing. He brought Democrats to tech, but Dean might not be the best choice for managing the nuts and bolts of leading the party. His presidential effort was sloppy. And his reputation as an anti-war liberal who endorsed civic unions for same-sex couples has party moderates wary. That's on top of their concerns that he'll put his presidential ambitions first.

More conservative candidates include former Congressman Martin Frost, a Texan, and Tim Roemer, a member of the 9/11 Commission. Roemer and Frost are the party establishment's candidates, men who have experience working in and with Congress, who understand how the Washington press corps works and who don’t want – at least not obviously – to be president. Call them Corporate Democrats; they're slick, experienced, smartly staffed and have skill at pouring oil on troubled waters. But, creatures of Washington, how are interested are they – really – in helping state organizations? And what about corralling all this on-line activity? Do they, as they say in Silicon Valley "get it."

When it comes to tech – and what it should do – probably not. A web presence for the chairmanship race is clearly considered an "extra" with this part of the party. Webb, Roemer and Leland don’t have web sites. And Roemer's made an pretty typical on-line mistake: While he has a site, he's not promoting it or linking from is, so Roemer’s on-line presence (just try Googling his name) is largely filled by pro-Dean and Rosenberg activists' harping against him. Frost's site, while polished, is a traditional static site that doesn't accept comments. There's an email drop but no way to reach staffers.

Walking down the middle of this minefield--clearly hoping to capitalize on those who are tech-savvy but unsure about Dean--Fowler and Rosenberg are trying to leverage the support they both have among newly politicized and tech-rich Democrats. As the only two candidates in the race who have bought Google ads that draw readers – searching for their rivals – to their sites, they're miles ahead of the other guys. Their sites have blogs and encourage visitors to lobby their state Democratic representative on their behalf. It's part and parcel of their calculated appeal to Democrats, particularly party newcomers, who are frustrated by consultants and top-down management favored by the party's corporate side.

But both men also speak the language of Beltway insiders. Fowler's father Don ran the DNC during the Clinton administration and he has worked as the Democratic coordinator for TechNet, a Silicon Valley lobbying group that organizes high tech's Washington efforts. Rosenberg, who has a sharp eye for political talent, started the New Democratic Network to appeal to tech entrepreneurs. His candidacy is strongly backed by venture capitalist Andy Rappaport and his wife, Deborah, generous party supporters who plowed $100,000 to NDN last year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

But even between the tech-savvy, there are no slam dunks. And there's no party leader – no sitting president – to make the final call. Democrats must decide among themselves for themselves.

"The question becomes do we want a technician or a spokesman?" asks Martin J. Dunleavy, head of the National Democratic Ethnic Leadership Council, a "527" fundraising organization formed to appeal white ethnic groups, mostly Catholic "If we want a technician, it's going to be Fowler. If we want a spokesman, it's going to be Dean," says Dunleavy who was working the room in Sacramento on Fowler's behalf "partly" because of his relationship with his father.

And if Dean Loses?

But there's another question no one really wants to answer – not yet, anyway. And for the tech-savvy and those not-so-advanced who heartily cheered Dean on in Sacramento the chairmanship contest presents an interesting dilemma. What happens if Dean doesn’t become head of the DNC? What happens to all those Democrats who got to their feet as he ended his speech? What happens to Democracy for America, his organizing and fundraising arm? It won't stop, Dean promises.

"If I'm not the DNC Chairman, we will continue to run Democracy for America. We will continue to fund grassroots campaigns," he told the audience Saturday.

That raises another, equally important questions, what will the DNC do if Dean's not chairman? If state-level leaders can draw on more than one piggybank for campaign help, as Dean is drawing on MoveOn.org's help for the chairmanship race, doesn't that weaken the DNC's authority? Does Dean's dynamism pull single women, gays and staunch – and rich -- liberals to his organization at the expense of a party led by less dynamic party leaders like Frost or Rosenberg? After all, funding campaigns is one of the party's main jobs. Many of those who went through this last election cycle are worried about burning their supporters with too many requests. Besides, there are limits on how political action committees like DFA can coordinate with the DNC. And what about the carping that's sure to erupt from the partisan blogger supporting Dean or Rosenberg? Do they throw their support to Dean and their invectives to the traditional DNC?

"They got money. They'll be fine," says a Dean activist. Perhaps. But in an age when anyone with a cause can get on the Internet and raise money, Dean's celebrity status, particularly among the MoveOn.org and other cash-generating lefty cause factories isn't to be taken lightly. He's getting the standing ovations. No one else is.

When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It?

That's certainly one reason that there's been some – now muted – talk of a joint chairmanship, a way to split the top job so the party gets the best of both worlds. For the tech savvy – even for those who only dimly see the potential tech can offer – this might be the best platform for compromise. That's what – in spite of their insistence to the contrary -- Fowler and Rosenberg's strategies in this small-scale campaign demonstrate very well.

Democratic governors suggested splitting the job earlier this year but it was, according to one candidate for chairman, shot down by the unions who want a unified party run by one person they can credit or, of course, blame. And unions, for now, call many of the shots in the party Dean's aides also say they have flatly turned down the idea of a split chairmanship, something last done during Clinton's presidency. Of all the candidates they are best prepared – because of their established web presence with DFA – to carry their own message forward.

But the need to improve Democrat's tech savvy – as Fowler and Rosenberg are both stressing – means it makes more sense to split the job. And politics is, above all, a game of never-say-never. Particularly since none of the seven candidates to run the DNC has yet nailed an major endorsement from say, Hillary Clinton, her husband or even House and Senate minority leaders Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid.

That's why it's worth shaking up the mix. Don't look at the race as a winner-take-all contest. Frost and Dean probably won't split the job; they're too seasoned. But Frost – all but unknown to tech folks – could do worse than to have Fowler as his logistical co-chair. Rosenberg's inside-the-beltway skill at maneuvering among the party's top corporate donors could be an asset to Dean. His tech-savvy would help Frost. Dean's tech-savvy celebrity would be balanced by Fowler's ability to talk – through his father and his own connections – to the party establishment.

Their age and lack of experience in elected office makes Fowler and Rosenberg easy choices for the number two job. Both are adamant about their desire for the top slot and the competition between them is spirited. As it should be; that's just smart campaigning. But, in many respects, this race is just getting started. Things can change and change fast with the right endorsement, a meeting of minds, strategies and ambitions.

And, as California's Mulholland observed at the end of Saturday's meeting, there's no reason to run the losing candidates out of town. A last minute package of assigned roles to lead the party might well be on the horizon as the Feb. 12 meeting draws closer. Predicts Mulholland: "Whoever wins is going to be hiring some of the people on that stage."

Stand-alone journalist Chris Nolan runs "Politics From Left to Right," a San Francisco-based political site that focuses on the intersection of politics and technology and the differences between East Coast insiders and West Coast influencers.