To judge from the breathless tone of the updates emanating from Howard Dean’s presidential campaign on December 31, the champagne corks were popping in Burlington all that day. And why not? Dean Central had much to celebrate. In 2003, after all, its candidate had undergone an exceedingly unlikely Hulk-like transformation from pipsqueak peacenik to Bush-whacking liberal superhero and vanquisher of Democratic wimpery, a metamorphosis that pushed the good doctor from also-ran to undisputed frontrunner for his party’s presidential nomination.
And the year’s last day was capped, appropriately enough, by the campaign’s latest apparent triumph: With hours to spare, Dean broke his own quarterly record for fundraising by a Democratic presidential aspirant. The now famous baseball bat, posted on Dean websites to tally the extraordinary Internet inflow from Dean’s ordinary grassroots funders, hit $15,386,183.25 before 2004 dawned. Of the other candidates, only General Wesley Clark, who raised less than $11 million, finished anywhere close.
Campaign manager Joe Trippi, mad scientist to Dean’s Frankenstein, chimed in that afternoon with an online shout-out to the Deanista cadre. It was classic Trippi, therapeutic, communitarian, and overtly conspiratorial. “You smashed through $15 million!” he gushed. “The pundits, doubters, and cynics have been wrong all year long, and you’ve proved them wrong… this campaign is full of energy and on fire. The pundits and the other campaigns–when they try to stop you–think they’re trying to blow out a candle. They don’t understand they’re trying to blow out a fire.”
But exactly how big is the Dean blaze? That is the crucial question for Democrats desperate to unseat Bush. Trippi’s imagery of a Dean conflagration notwithstanding, the fourth-quarter hard numbers are worrisome. When is a record $15 million fundraising total, and an army of 550,000 identified supporters, a disappointment? Answer: When it’s juxtaposed against web guru Trippi’s promise that harnessing the Internet would facilitate near exponential growth in Dean’s support base, enabling it to pose a realistic organizational and fundraising threat to the Bush juggernaut.
In early 2003, starting from near zero, Trippi insanely promised 150,000 supporters by June 30. He delivered 159,000. Then he insanely promised 450,000 by September’s end–and delivered that too. So when he predicted 900,000 devoted supporters by the end of the year, and 2,000,000 by the November election, it seemed not just plausible but inevitable. When he said that each supporter might reasonably donate $100 to the campaign–producing $200 million to match the $200 million flooding Bush’s coffers–and when Dean opted out of the public financing system in a show of fundraising faith, it seemed like Trippi was onto something. And when he added that Dean’s mushrooming grassroots base proved him the most electable Dem, who then could contradict him?
But now, premonitions of trouble. This quarter the number of Deaniacs began to plateau, up a mere 100,000; it was supposed to balloon more than three times that. And the money total was only a fraction more than the $14.8 million Dean raised in the fall. At this pace there will be no $200 million in the Dean arsenal–or even half that much. Most ominously, the number of Dean contributors actually fell, from 168,533 to 146,697. Might the grassroots’ fervor be slipping? Could the Dean campaign be reaching its upper limit of support? Are the number of anti-Bush anti-warriors simply too few?
Last summer the pundits proposed that the Dean campaign was peaking too early. As usual, they were wrong. In fact, it may be that Dean is peaking too late–too late, that is, for Anybody But Bush Democrats to gauge accurately Dean’s electability before he sews up the nomination.
Of course, we won’t know that until after the nomination is decided, probably in Dean’s favor. Trippi (correctly) asserts the Beltway punditocracy has underestimated the Dean campaign at every turn. Trippi and Dean spent the last year consistently confounding such critics, pulling rabbits out of hats with routine regularity. They may do so again this election year. Trippi still seems sure the campaign will reach its goal of two million check-writing volunteers. Dems should pray that his magic act is not an illusion, because otherwise Dean–and the Democrats–are doomed.
