Reply #31: These summer numbers are very different from any others in history

[Eloriel]

http://www.sunspot.net/bal-te.campaign01aug01,0,5889923.story
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. - The Portsmouth Herald published a front-page picture the other day of Howard Dean, his shirt sleeves rolled to the elbows as usual, delivering one of his red-faced campaign speeches with the harbor in the background. The accompanying article said he had attracted an audience his staff estimated at 650 people.

To veterans of the New Hampshire presidential primary wars, that was obviously a stretch - 650 at a rally in July?

But an inside page of the paper carried a photograph taken from above that showed the crowd was indeed 650 people, give or take a few dozen.

What this suggests to those involved in the contest for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination is, first, that the process may be more advanced than usual and, second, that Dean, the obscure former governor of Vermont, is lighting a fire in the electorate.

And that is news. A hot candidate can draw that sort of turnout here in the last week or two before the primary but not, as in this case, six months ahead.

snip

At this point in 1991, he notes, then-Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas hadn't even made a final commitment to compete.

more

Read it and weep. :evilgrin:

Eloriel