"WASHINGTON — Subway-riding, penny-pinching Howard Dean has brought a new style to the Democratic National Committee since taking over from the high-rolling Terry McAuliffe.

The changes at the top of the Democratic Party are more than cosmetic, however. Dean is reaching out to new voters, in new ways, just as he did as a pioneering – though unsuccessful – candidate for president in 2004.

Dean, the political outsider in last year's field of Democratic White House hopefuls, is loosening the Beltway's noose on the Democratic Party to a degree that is surprising activists and party officials out in the states.

"They're saying this is the first time someone in his position seems more interested in really winning elections, instead of courting rich donors and protecting the party's Washington players," said Craig Crawford, a political analyst for MSNBC and CBS and a columnist for Congressional Quarterly magazine.

"Dean may be the first grassroots Democratic leader since Andrew Jackson let the mob trash the White House for his Inaugural," added Crawford."-from the story by Cox News Service.