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"No matter what your opinion on politics, don't forget to get out and vote this year and let them know how you feel about this and other issues."

Hang on, didn't the only serious candidate drop-out of the election? So again, the point of voting is...?

Dean's improbable sprint to internet cash-and-glory will only get him so far. And then the incredibly labor intensive huge Democratic machine will have to take over.

If you look at Dean's main Website and official blog you'll notice that it's not just fundraising that's going on. There are 150,000 people involved in Dean Meetups and thousands more have already sent over 100,000 handwritten letters to voters in New Hampsire and Iowa. Plus there are scores of independent websites discussing and promoting Dean from various perspectives. He's got more troops on the ground than the Democratic Party - particularly if you count the union troops he's already recruited as his and not the Democrats', per se.

What Dean's doing isn't taking over the "Left Wing" or even the Democratic Party so much as it is taking over the middle of the road. He's steamrolling right down the center with a good dose of traditional American common sense (although his invocation of Thomas Paine is a bit lame, at least it's an error in the right direction). He's redefining what the center of the road means.

And this whole thing about his - and his fans' - "anger" is just off the point. George W. is an idiot, and he's calling the Emperor naked and saying clearly that we should replace him with all haste. People aren't angry at Bush so much as disappointed and disgusted because Bush doesn't live up to the Main Street American values that Dean invokes.

The cynicism of the corporate-owned press is that we don't have any values to speak of beyond consumerism and the money to support our "American way" habits (and their advertisers). According to this cynicism all politicians are a bit false, so calling them naked is a bit beside the point. Dean's not a cynic, not false, and is using the Net to communicate directly with others who love America and see higher ideals as once again attainable by it, rather than a continued slide into blustering corruption.

He' proving the Republic still has some blood in its veins. He's no Thomas Jefferson (alas), but could well become the best US president since FDR.

DeanForAmerica is now running Apache on FreeBSD, but was originally running IIS on Win2k.

BlogForAmerica at least recently has been running Apache on Red Hat

But what annoys me most about the Dean websites is howarddean.tv, which not only is STILL running IIS on Win2K, but also requires you to be running a recent version of Windows Media Player and a recent version of IE on Windows to get the streaming content. They have a way of downloading QuickTime versions of some of the videos, but that's assuming you can even navigate the site with the 'wrong' kind of browser. When they have all the videos available in ogg vorbis on a site accessible via LYNX, then we'll know they 'get it'.

A SlashDot interview would be good, but it shouldn't be with Dean himself, it should be with his web guru.

Ehrm... (not connected w/ the Dean campaign or any other in any way, shape, or form -- I'm just an interested observer :)...

Have you looked at deanforamerica.com? I'd say that site is a good indicator of Internet-awareness. The man has a *blog*, for crying out loud! Actually, all the Democratic candidates are trying to capitalize on the Internet, which is IMHO a Good Thing, though it's taking some of them longer than others.

Contrast Dean's site with Bush's (ooh, shiney) for a good illustration of why the former is considered "net-savvy." (yes i know incumbents don't need to mobilize as early as challengers, yes i know Bush's site is a "temporary site," but Dean's campaign is still a masterful example of how to mobilize the internet community. i long for the day when the *president* writes a daily weblog.)

Oh, and if you think Dean is another Democrat who is against everything Slashdotters hold dear, check out some of his posts on Lawrence Lessig's blog. (Kucinich has some interesting things to say here as well. He's even pro-GPL!)

Click my sig or go here Dean For America

As you see, hundreds of thousands of Americans donated around $50 to Howard Dean. Thats the only reason Howard Dean is currently winning the primaries, he has the support of the people, I mean he has ALOT of support, far more than Bush, so if fundraising is done properly, Dean should be able to get as much money as Bush with about a million or so supporters.

Currently Dean is at 212,000 supporters, this is more than enough to put him in the lead of all his Democrats who pander to special interests.

I agree. I hope he gets the dem nomination. When do they decide who gets the nomination? Is it at the national convention? Or is it similar to the electiorial college, you weigh each states votes?

Anyway, I think it great what's going on. He's getting a lot of cash from those who actually vote for him. It's not to hard to get 40,000 people who like you to give $20. Granted it's only $800,000 and not the 100+ mil or whatever obscene about the retard currently in office spent. Get 1 million people to send you $20 and now you stand a chance. I remember seeing Dean on cspan and thinking "man, this guys great. Too bad he won't get the nomination, he makes a lot of sense. And it's be nice to have a doctor in office for once."

You guys should check out Dean's weblog It's got the current happenings and Meetups

I agree. Dean's been the most innovative candidate using the web to orgainize grassroots volunteers in a decentralized fashion. His campaign is using Meetup.com (actually, the grassroots started that first), a high-quality video distribution service (howarddean.tv; Windows only), has a blog and was the first candidate to leave a comment on a weblog. His campaign manager, Joe Trippi is incredibly tuned in to what people are saying on the web.

And not a peep on this from Slashdot. Does this mean that the Washington Post scooped Slashdot on a technology story? That's pretty lame.

I am much more liberal than Dean, but his aggressive adherance to the facts and his penchant for standing up to the current administration have made me a solid supporter. I've been blogging for Dean (various sites) and have volunteered for his campaign for various activities including the New Hampshire Democratic Convention. For more information on Dean, check out Blogforamerica (Dean's official blog, Unofficial Dean Blog, The DailyKOS (Great left leaning blog that covers the primaries).