Friday, January 30, 2004

Dean's Dollar Doldrums?

There seems to be a mix of hope and despair among those supporting Dr. Dean for the Democratic nomination. Hope: that he will be able to continue to bring his message of change and to inspire the intense grass-roots devotion that has brought him this far. Despair: that he will have enough money to do so.

From the comments of an earlier post, Steven Bates, The Yellow Doggerel Democrat had this to say:

Sorry to spoil the fun, but if Dean is truly out of money, it may well be all over, whatever the delegate count.

Dean's money was, to all evidence, raised in a virtuous way, compared not only to other Dem candidates (though Kucinich also took the small-donations route) but to every candidate in recent prior presidential elections. But there's no getting around the fact that campaigns run on money. I'm hoping for a miracle, and I'm with Dean to the end (election or withdrawal), but I'm afraid it may take a miracle.
Yesterday I heard - and I can't remember where - that all of the people who had given to Dr. Dean couldn't afford "another $75." I think, no, I hope that particular talking head was underestimating the depth of support for Dean and the depth of their pockets. And there are likely still people out there who saw that Dean's fund raising was going so well that they didn't give the first time around.

Unfortunately, money plays such a huge part in just staying in the game, much less actually crossing the finish line. But that's the subject of an entirely different post.

I'm with Steve on this one; "I'm hoping for a miracle, and I'm with Dean to the end..."

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