A retired construction executive who calls himself a political independent, Bill Travers of Atlanta had never worked for a political candidate in his life.
Until Howard Dean and the Internet came along.
Now Travers and his wife, Suzanne, are packing up and trekking to snowy Iowa to campaign for Dean in the crucial Iowa caucuses Monday, part of an army of about 3,500 Dean volunteers who will brave the frigid weather in hopes of helping the former Vermont governor win the opening battle of the 2004 presidential campaign.
“I would never have gotten this involved if not for the Internet,” said Travers, 60, who spent hours reading blogs posted by other Dean supporters before deciding to attend a real-life meeting of Dean supporters in Atlanta in the fall. “I think it’s the wave of the future for political campaigns, especially the way the Dean people put it together. They made it so easy.”
Dean’s Internet-based campaign has wowed the political world with its fundraising prowess, raking in $40 million last year, a record for a Democrat. But organizers say the power of the cyber campaign goes far beyond just the money, easing the logistical nightmares of getting volunteers involved on the ground and also giving Dean’s far-flung supporters a sense of “ownership” in the campaign.
“It’s a whole new way of communicating,” said Glen Maxey, a veteran political consultant from Austin who is heading Dean’s Texas campaign. “People are engaged. They are communicating, one-on-one. Campaigns used to be organized top-down, but now there’s a huge amount of lateral communication and organization. People aren’t waiting on orders, they are doing things on their own.”
Maxey will be bringing several hundred volunteers from Texas to help the Dean campaign in Iowa, with three busloads of people riding all night, fully expecting to hit the ground running the next day.
The volunteers will be the foot-soldiers in a political battle in which veterans say nothing–not money nor television ads nor national exposure–compares to raw numbers of supporters willing to knock on doors, run telephone banks or drive people to the all-important caucus meetings.
Volunteers who don’t have the money for hotel rooms can stay at 13 “Camp Dean” locations scattered across Iowa, mostly church, scout or YMCA camps with rustic accommodations.
“Iowans are pretty friendly,” said Jordan Brinkman, a Californian who said he was drawn to Dean’s honesty and lack of corporate backing. “I had a lady who invited me in, I think, because she felt sorry for me because it was so cold.”
While other campaigns have Web sites, many observers say Dean’s operation is more sophisticated, with a never-ending barrage of news updates, fundraising contests and challenges to supporters to put their passion for the candidate into action.
