The Support Dean Challenge:

There are now almost 5,000 members signed up at Meetup.com for Howard Dean. March 31st is the end of the 1st quarter for FEC reporting. As you know, Dean has been getting great press lately but is this press translating to money? How about all of us meetup.com enthusiasts and netroots fans of Dean raise a million dollars for Dean's candidacy by March 31st? Achieving such a goal would help Dean gain traction on all the press he’s been getting. Like it or not, money counts, and as Dean is the best candidate out there, we need to support him now. A million bucks, though? Think it's hard? Here's a formula to ponder: If every one of the 5,000 people who have signed up for Meetup or joined a Yahoo group for Howard Dean took it upon themselves to donate the cost of an average movie ($10.00), and encourage 10 friends to do the same, then we will have raised $500,000 for the campaign. Since Federal campaign laws match every dollar raised under the $250.00 level, that's $1,000,000 right there. I think we can do it. Go over to www.deanforamerica.com and make a ten dollar contribution today. Then forward this message on to 10 people and encourage them to to do the same. Or, print up some of the contribution forms and have your friends fill them out. Just be sure that your friends follow up! This could really work. But only if you do it!

I have not yet decided whether to go all out for Dean, but I think his candidacy is an important one because he is the only serious 2nd tier candidate who is holding the Democrats feet to the fire. He is also the only one who seems to understand the kind of difficulty that any Democrat will face in 2004 from the smear campaigns of the GOP. For that alone he needs to remain viable. So, regardless of whether you think you will eventually vote for the guy, I think it behooves us all who want the Democrats to get off their butts and finally start acting like an opposition party to invest a little bit of capital in the only one who is trying to do that.