Like Obama, Dean raised a lot of money online but ultimately lost in the primary. The former governor did keep his movement going and eventually became head of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), a position he still holds today. Howard and his "Deaniacs" are locked in a struggle with the old establishment represented by groups like the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) over the direction of the Democratic Party.
The Dean-Obama mantra generally has Obama facing the same problems as Dean in expanding beyond his obviously strong netroots support.
Dean's supporters did look something like a cross-section of the internet community, or even just a certain segment of that community. He had problems diversifying his base.
Anyone involved in the Obama campaign knows that this is not the case with the senator's supporters. He base is not perfect. He could do much better, for example, among Latinos and some polls suggest he needs to outreach more to lower income people. However, overall Obama's team looks very much like a cross-section of America.
Obama's success is likely due to many factors. He started off much better-known nationally than Dean. His 2004 Democratic Convention speech and successful senatorial campaign made him the rising star of the Democratic Party and he was presented as such repeatedly by the national media. Two of his books have become best-sellers and he managed to establish a John F. Kennedy-like following among young people even before he announced his candidacy.
Because he is the first truly viable African American candidate for president, he naturally has attracted strong support among that important segment of the Democratic voting population. Many of Obama's supporters did not learn about him on the internet.
However one looks at it, Obama looks better positioned now than Dean ever did during his campaign in terms of the breadth of his support. He already has expanded much beyond the netroots and this will help him also with future outreach.
Obama's consulting team might not be the most experienced in terms of nationwide campaigns of this sort, but they have performed admirably up to this point. They also have the advantage of learning from mistakes of the Dean campaign. They started earlier this time around than Dean and that will help a great deal.
The Dean machine didn't really get rolling until the fall before the primary election started and they really had to rush before the distractions of the Christmas season arrived. With Obama, they will probably have raised more than $70 million by September of 2007, and they already have much of their infrastructure positioned in the early states.
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