Online Electioneering

Does Dean's poor showing in Iowa mean that all that talk about Internet-based organizing was overblown hype? Or does it mean the Net-watchers were looking in the wrong direction?

A press release from meetup.com, the famous "Internet-based company that helps people self-organize local face-to-face gatherings," takes the second view:

During the month of January, John Edwards and John Kerry saw a dramatic increase in nation-wide grassroots support via Meetup registrations, foreshadowing their come-from-behind victories in the Iowa caucuses. John Edwards received the most significant surge. In the 19 days preceding the Monday night caucuses, Edwards' supporters signing up for Meetup events increased by 44% to 3,949 people from 2,751. This is four times the rate of increase for Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt, whose registrations increased 10% and 9%, respectively.

In the same three week period, John Kerry saw a 22% increase in registrations for Meetup events by his supporters. His registrants jumped to 22,076 from 18,140. The day after the caucuses, Kerry's registrations at Meetup soared by 1,000 people, the largest daily increase since he became a candidate. This dwarfed Dean's next day registrations of 386 people and Edwards' additional 242 supporters.

"The Internet can act as an early warning system for candidates and their supporters," said Carol Darr, director of GWU's Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet. "The results in Iowa prove that the Internet is a vital tool in measuring key fluctuations in grassroots support."

Maybe. But when the caucuses met on Monday Dean still looked like the dominant candidate in Meetupland, as the same release confesses:

Howard Dean has always enjoyed a significant lead over the other Democratic candidates in number of supporters registering for Meetup events, an advantage he still commands. On the day of the Iowa caucuses, 180,655 Dean supporters had signed up for Meetup gatherings.

It's not completely clear, but I think 180,655 is the number of all the people who have ever signed up for a Dean meetup, not all the people currently enrolled in meetups for the Dean campaign. In that case, the most interesting question may be how many of those registrants went on to meet up with Kerry or Edwards supporters later. On that point, alas, the release is mute.

Comments

[Xrlq]

I don't know that an Internet Meetup figure - or for that matter, anything else that happens on the Internet - is particularly representative of the electorate as a whole. If it were, MoveOn.org types would win every Democrat primary, and Freepers would win every Republican one.

[Richard Swan]

Although it would be too early to really matter, it would be curious to see what the numbers are for Bush. I seem to remember several months ago when Dean was at his peak and they (somebody I don't remember who) were talking about how many people his campaign had on an email list. Later on in either that article or another, I read that the Bush campaign had 10 times that amount.

[watcher]

At least Edwards and Kerry took time out of their busy schedules to show up for the jobs they were elected to do in the first place.

Oh wait. They didn't. But it's not liked they missed out on important legislation or anything.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2027&e=3&u=/chitrib_ts/20040123/ts_chicagotrib/congressoksspendingbill

[Brady]

Dean's meetup groups were always about more than Dean himself, but about community involvement. Also, signing up for a Dean meetup in no way means you are going to stay with the candidate. They are social organizations, not voting levers.

[Will Spencer]

The simple trouble for Dean is that many of his supporters are young Internet types who never step away from their terminals to do things like REGISTER TO VOTE.

Dean's got the slacker vote and the college bimbo vote. Kerry took the old folks vote, and they registered to vote way back when Kerry was frag-bait.

[Hudson]

Comic relief needed badly in all this run-up to New Hampshire. I've been collecting the cleverest one-liners about the various candidates.

Gore Vidal takes it, imho, with "Kerry looks just like Lincoln... after the assassination."

Dossier at:
http://hudson.typepad.com/line/2004/01/comic_relief_on.html

Okay, now I've posted on three threads, that will just about do.

[Jeff Clothier]

I think I can clear this up for you all. I'm from Des Moines. Here, we have a quaint tradition of SHOWING UP when and where we say we will, and honoring those who do the same. Unfortunately, many of our younger people confuse telepresence with ACTUAL presence. Logging on and blogging on simply aren't a substitute for actually being there. Kerry's campaign revived precisely when they assimilated this fact, and the Senator and his even more impressive spouse began showing up nearly everywhere in the state at once. Same goes for Senator Edwards.

At crunch time, it turned out that most of those who showed up for Dean were trucked in from out of state. We respect those so dedicated, but they weren't eligible to caucus here. All that Internet support and sentiment he generated turned out not to be worth a hill of soybeans here compared to the willingness to come out, show up, show us a true face and treat us as thoughtful human beings rather than backward, helpless and easily led.

[Andrew Lynch]

When will you people stop orgasm-ing over every piece of statistical information an organization releases. I write press releases every day...for a role-playing game. Don't you get it?