Howard Dean's Meetups are held on the first Wednesday of every month, and in the run-up to September's meeting, the campaign saw a surge in registrations; more than 108,000 people are now signed up for Dean. (Dennis Kucinich and Wesley Clark, vying for second place, each have about 12,000 Meetup supporters.) It's hard to tell how many people actually attended the September meetings, but afterward several hundred people related their experiences on the Dean campaign's blog.

Many said that their meetings were wonderful -- but there were more than a few comments like this one, posted by "Donald from Austin": "There's something wrong here," he wrote. "We had a warm and welcoming meet-up here in Austin last night. It was fun to see friends show up that I didn't know were for Dean. I wasn't surprised to see them. I knew we all shared the same values -- so it made sense they'd be there. Out of a few hundred people, I saw one black. The homogeneous Internet culture (of which I am a part) seriously lacks the diversity we need to win. 'WE' don't all have e-mail or broadband connections to the campaign. What to do?"

Another supporter who attended a meeting in Washington, D.C., wrote, "There was not a single Asian American in the room despite hundreds of them being enrolled 3 blocks away at a local college. There is a huge African American population in DC which was certainly not reflected in the room -- not a single one present ... There is a large population of Hispanics in the metropolitan area -- only one in the room. More needs to be done ..."

On the blog, some Dean fans put forward ideas for how to attract minorities. "Josh in Austin" scolded supporters, "PLEASE stop having Meetups at cute white middle-class cafes where everyone looks like you! Each meetup should be scheduled in a place where the people walking by and wondering what's going on are from demographic groups that are harder to reach -- namely, either minorities or the elderly. EVERY retirement home has a meeting room. Have your meetups THERE. Is it sexy? No, but it will reach a group that is eager to be a part of the process. Have your meetups in restaurants in the Hispanic part of town or whatever other group you need to reach. Make the Meetup ITSELF work for you, instead of going there and THEN talking about what to do ...!"

Josh's post illustrates how astute many of Dean's supporters are about what it will take to get their man into the White House next year. Even though Dean is now thought of as the Democratic front-runner, many in his online community are constantly chiding each other not to become complacent about the task ahead. The danger that supporters appear most wary of is "preaching to the choir" -- bringing the pro-Dean message only to folks who are already inclined to accept it. Indeed, Richard Hoefer calls this the biggest pitfall of Dean's blog strategy. "I've been at odds with Dean for America because I criticize them for being too blog-centric," he says. "I think they preach to the converted, and it bugs me because I think they're missing the boat. I think Dean has incredible appeal to blacks, Latinos, minorities -- but the message hasn't gotten out there yet because they have been too focused on the blog."

The self-awareness of the potential shortcomings of Dean's campaign is exactly the kind of thing you might expect from people as well-educated and affluent as Dean supporters tend to be. And while right now none of the other campaigns can legitimately claim to be any more diverse -- in terms of either race or class background -- than Dean's, it is worth wondering whether a campaign organization such as Richard Gephardt's or John Kerry's will eventually be able to mobilize the traditional Democratic sources of support -- unions, teachers and minorities -- that will lead to primary victories and an eventual nomination.

Hoefer himself has some experience building Web campaigns -- last year, he created G4Noise.com, a Web site at the center of an effort to convince Apple that its high-end Macs were unacceptably noisy. Hundreds of people from all over the world joined the campaign, and in February, Apple relented, agreeing to replace noisy PowerMac G4 cooling fans with new, quieter versions. So Hoefer is not by any means opposed to campaigning online, but he says that Dean's blog, which puts the inner workings of the Dean campaign on public display, can sometimes seem closed off to folks not well-versed in its culture.

As an example, Hoefer pointed to one of the Dean supporters' catchphrases: "Bring back the bat!" Whenever Dick Cheney holds one of his quarter-million-dollar lunches, or when George W. Bush raises a million dollars in an evening, the Dean campaign puts up a baseball bat logo on its site and challenges supporters to raise just as much money for Dean. "We're bringing back the bat!" they say -- and shortly after they put up the bat, the money rolls in. Now, says Hoefer, the "hangers-on that are always on the blog" constantly ask for the campaign to bring out the bat. For the initiated, the phrase inspires action, but for people who aren't familiar with Dean, could it seem a little clubby?

There are many who disagree with Hoefer's view that the Dean blog is not as welcoming as it could be. Michael Cornfield, the research director of George Washington University's Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet, says that Dean's online campaign can be called "historic" precisely because it gives supporters unprecedented access. "It's the energy and emotion," he says. "You feel like you're in a campaign headquarters when you read that stuff." Most presidential campaigns are "very anal about controlling their message. The Dean campaign has adopted the opposite message, which is that we'll let anybody talk about us" -- and it's this attitude, he says, that makes people want to join the effort.

Matthew Gross, the campaign's Internet chief, says that even though Dean is getting more press these days, his Web site remains one of the main ways for new people to come to the campaign. "As he appears on television more often, you see a reaction," Gross says. "More people come online to find out about Howard Dean. It's kind of always been that way. They say, 'Gee, I've never heard of this guy,' and they go online." The numbers support Gross' point: So far, more than 360,000 people have signed up to support Dean, and the campaign is trying to reach 450,000 by the end of September.

But Hoefer's view might still have merit. In any social movement, whether it's centered around a rock group or a baseball team or a political candidate, you're bound to find varying levels of orthodoxy -- the insiders vs. the outsiders, the early devotees and the Johnny-come-latelies, the true believers and the folks who are doing it just because everyone else is. Howard Dean has built a political movement based on e-mail and Web discussion groups and blogging, and for the most part, his most devout supporters live by these technologies; but if he is to broaden his appeal, he'll have to find people who have no use for the Internet, and who won't be scared off by the portion of his base that is tech-savvy. Can he?

Recent Stories