It's game over for Dean's Web dreams

What is that whooshing sound that you hear? It is all the hot air escaping from the self-styled "blogosphere."The blogosphere is the alternative reality Internet world, supposedly populated by vast communities of keyboard tappers linked by the World Wide Web. This campaign season, for the first time, the blogosphere had its own presidential candidate: Howard Dean.

Just a few months ago, hype ruled supreme. In early August, on the week that both Time and Newsweek slapped the improbable Dr. Dean on their covers, Time marveled at the "Internet-drive rabble that packs his events." The magazine made much of the mysterious "meetups" and "flashmobs" of Dean sympathizers who held impromptu rallies for the standard-bearer of the New Politics.

And, of course, Internet fund-raising was the shiny object that caught the eye of the Time hacks: "Then Dean's forces burst from their blogs (weblogs are the jungle drums of the Internet age) and made themselves heard in the old-fashioned language the political establishment understands: money."

Game over, webheads. John Kerry is cruising to the Democratic nomination the old-fashioned way. He squeezes fat cats and the traditional Democratic special interests for big donations. He runs slick television ads that voters respond to. He uses the mainstream media -- the TV networks and the major newspapers -- as his megaphones, because they reach the widest audiences. He seems to be making out just fine.

Nowadays, visiting the official Howard Dean website is like watching a movie called Dead Blogs Walking. The Dean home page continues to link to dozens of oddball, boutique constituencies, e.g.: "Deadheads for Dean." That site is maintained by a webmaster who has written an important essay on "Why I won't vote for Dennis Kucinich."

My personal favorite is the website "Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders for Dean." Here we find the complete text of Dean's official pronouncement on the Lunar New Year, this being the Year of the Monkey: "On this particular Lunar New Year, it is worth noting that 1776, the year our nation was born, was also a year of the monkey." Thank you, Dr. Dean.

Dean has run his campaign much like a website, providing continuous updates, even -- or especially -- if they are unnecessary. In just the past week or two, Dean has vowed to contest the Washington state caucuses, then downplayed their importance; indicated he might accept the vice presidency (as if it would be offered), and then retracted that statement.

Now the campaign is focusing on next Tuesday's Wisconsin primary, and the website has adopted an end-of-days, tele-evangelical tone, begging the faithful to throw their good money after bad. "All eyes are on you," Dean's campaign boss Roy Neel told me in an e-mail last week. "The media is starting to get it -- you've proven to the pundits and doubters that we will not slow down."

But Mr. Neel, I am a pundit and a -- oh, never mind. It's impossible to get off the Howard Dean Spams America mailing list.

The Dean campaign has one last Web gimmick up its sleeve before sliding beneath the waves. You can visit the website and "vote" for one of three unprepossessing ads it plans to run in Wisconsin. There is a larger theme here, best illustrated many years ago by a Russian newspaper's challenge to its readers to battle a chess grandmaster. The master moved, then the readers voted on the countermove. The majority was always wrong.

The Internet can be likened to the Boulevard of Broken Dreams. Ten years ago, the Web was going to put newspapers out of business. Now, hilariously, 99 percent of the Internet commentariat, my friends the "bloggers," spend all day spitballing, commenting upon, and stealing the content of papers such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Globe.

And as for the Deaniacs -- where can they go? The received wisdom is that the power of the Internet mobilized Dean supporters from men and women who had been alienated from politics as usual. But if they really want George Bush out of the White House, they will have to wake up before 8 p.m. on Nov. 2, skip the trip to Starbucks, and pull the old-fashioned lever down at the polling place.

The next election may be held online, but this one won't be.

Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com.