Why Meetup matters - post NH

By Aziz P. -

Jerome offers some explanation of why Dean's Meetup netroots matter - post-New Hampshire:

A big reason why McCain lost in 2000, besides SC, was that he lacked a nationwide campaign structure that might have benefited from his NH win. The combination of the very crowded early primary schedule and the massive nationwide influx of volunteers (see Meetup.com) supporting Dean have made it possible for the Dean campaign to build a national campaign much earlier. What these means, is that the traditional growing pains associated with translating a New Hampshire win by an insurgent candidate (see McCain in ’00, Buchanan in '96, Tsongas in ’92, Hart in ’88) into a national campaign, are being dealt with by the Dean campaign nearly a year ahead of schedule. When Dean wins in New Hampshire, he’ll be on the cover of Newsweek, and become known to many voters for the first time. More importantly, for winning the nomination, he’ll also have a nationwide campaign in place to fully capitalize on the win.


Jerome is too modest to post his own stuff here, so I'm doing it for him :)

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