"It's going to take all of us."

After seeing Barack Obama in person at a campaign rally in Springfield, Missouri, Tammy Bolin, of Willard, said "It feels like this is going to be a group effort. It's going to take all of us."

Ms Bolin understands, far better than anyone in the national media, why Obama has gotten to the point he has and why he will win. The media tries to pin his success on his speaking style, the use of the Internet and so on; but in so doing, they turn the reasons upside-down. The Internet has been successful for Obama not because of how BarackObama.com is structured but because that excellent structure is available to the millions of people who want to support Obama.

This campaign is about the people who support it far more than it is about the candidate. In 2003, we saw a similar out-of-nowhere campaign that took another unlikely candidate to the brink. Howard Dean had virtually no name-recognition nationally, but he nearly overwhelmed the rest of the Democratic field — and, like Obama, not because of his great web presence but because his candidacy represented millions of Americans so faithfully. Dean spoke against the war in 2003 when other Democratic candidates were desperate to find ways to appear to be against the terrorists without abandoning Democratic Party principles. Dean didn't try any fancy manuevering. He said "Hell no" to the war and that was that. In half-a-year, he became the Party's front-runner and continues today as head of the DNC.

Where his vision of politics has been endorsed by Obama, who recognizes, just as Dean did, that he is less a leader than simply the right person in the right place at the right time. In early 2003, we wanted a voice against the war, and that was Dean. In 2008, millions of Americans want change, and Obama, who shares that same desire, as well as the same fundamental beliefs in what makes our country special, was smart enough — and fortunate enough — to be in the right place to be the beneficiary of the movement that was looking for a figurehead.

Of course it matters that Obama is a great candidate with a great team. Dean's candidacy lost for a variety of reasons, and Obama has not repeated a single one of those mistakes. He has overcome all the challenges through smarts, patience, a belief in what he is doing, and his own unique skills. Yet those same traits in a different year might have done no more than create a bright flash in the pan. This election, people are ready for change, and they are, as Tammy Bolin implied, ready to make that change happen themselves. Will it help to have a great president? Of course. But Barack Obama is only one man.

"It's going to take all of us."

That is the fundamental tenet of progressive politics.