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Cover & Dean
Dean nation is raising $10K for Dean, come help us out at the Dean 2004 blog, by contributing. On the front page of the WA Post, was the Dean profile, A Short-Fused Populist. The B section front page was to assure the DC elite that there's nothing special about what the Dean campaign has built: An Online Revolution? I Don't See It (washingtonpost.com)
If Dean is drawing across the board white people, more males than females, HELLO DC DEM ESTABLISHMENT, this is exactly the vote that the Democrats need more of to win in November! I don't disagree with Gownder assessment. I'd just point out that if you look at the traditional turnout model for caucuses, this group has not been there. Sure, you could argue that Hart or Tsongas, maybe even Brown, and certainly McCain had elements of it, but nothing near what Dean has in place, not anywhere near this amount of national organization, and we still have months to go before the voting happens. The primaries in the southern and midwest states are where Dean's campaign needs work on reaching to overcome the problems laid out by Gownder. However, those are mostly general election concerns, not the nomination. That's the main flaw of his argument. Gownder's laid out a good case for why Dean needs to broaden his appeal to win the general, but applied it to his first need-- winning the nomination-- where it will work. I mentioned Washington state (which Dean will win easily), take a look at the New Mexico turnout from their caucuses. Similar to WA, if there is any surge of turnout in whatever demographic, it shows up in huge proportion in the NM caucuses. In the 2000 AZ primary, over 50% of the votes were cast online! There's not a caucus to be held that Dean will not be at the top. The other candidates may hold some ground in Iowa due to their traditional grassroots organizing, but in all of the other caucus states, Dean will win through internet organizing. Jerome Armstrong on Jul 5 @ 11:14 PM
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