Howard Dean Connects with College Students

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/03/dean.colleges.ap/

Through the Web and word-of-mouth, Dean's popularity has risen fast. Six months ago, the Democrat's support on campuses was spotty -- and largely centered on an independent group of 50 students attending various colleges in the Washington, D.C., area.

Now an arm of the Dean campaign called Generation Dean, the organization has enrolled college and high school students and young professionals in 650 chapters across the nation, said spokesman Michael Whitney, a sophomore at American University in Washington, D.C.

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But so far, Dean's outspoken style has appealed to many young people, said Carleton College political science professor Steven Schier. "The other candidates are just a group of Washington-types to college kids," Schier said from his office in Northfield, Minnesota.


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emphasis mine

Something to note, while none of the other campaigns have yet focused on the youth vote, Clark is right behind Dean in college age support.

It is also important to point out the comparison done to McGovern, yet again. The core point of the story, in my opinion, is Dean is yet again striking first and establishing, as the article calls it, an early beachhead. This doesn't win the battle, but it at least gives Dean a headstart for the youth vote.

I speak of the Kerry/Munster pic. Pretty sad, if you ask me.

As to your article itself, I'm curious as to when we're going to see an article about Dean's groundswell of support among unions, minorities, or the military. All of which will be hugely important aspects. The first two being traditional democratic base and the latter being one that is up for graps due to dissatisfaction with Bush but will not switch loyalties if they feel the dem candidate doesn't have their best interests at heart.

See most of my posts today, I'm bagging on Kerry today. Mainly for my own amusement.

I can't speak to which stories the media will cover or which direction the Dean campaign will move in. I take the good news as it comes in and don't pay much attention to the non-news. As soon as there is a story relating to the complete rejection of Dean by minorities and unions I will comment upon that subject. Until then I cannot.

The push for involvement of youth is to be commended all on its own.

He's picketed with strikers and spoke at a rally for striking workers at Yale. The unions would have committed to Gep and Kerry already if the rank and file weren't so interested in Dean and his positions.

On the 29th, Dean met with minority activists in LA. -and then at an inner city h.s. in DC where the leadership has already endorsed him.

This is on DU just now:

http://www.channel3000.com/news/2530439/detail.html

Dean is heading to Madison, Wisconsin as part of his Generation Dean tour, and is responding to the Tyson Food worker's strike.

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He's asking people who come to his rally to support striking Tyson Foods workers by bringing a non-perishable food donation.

Dean's not commenting on the dispute at the Jefferson plant, but says he supports the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.
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And this is on the blog today:

Guest Writer: Jerome Wiley Segovia, Latinos for Dean
My friend Pat Johnson with DC for Dean recently told me he was going to be volunteering in Burlington, Vermont. I jumped at the chance to join him and see what campaign headquarters was like. Well, its an amazing place, equal parts political memorabilia, excitement and incredibly likeable people. The best part is that I get a chance to give a quick report on a project which has taken all my free time for the past several months, Latinos For Dean.

Latinos for Dean is comprised of Latinos, friends of Latinos, people who speak Spanish and other Dean supporters who have self-organized and are striving to build an organization of 10,000 volunteers nationwide by the end of the primary season.

We have celebrated Dean's early endorsement of the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, only to be followed by his announcement that he's become the first presidential candidate this primary season to air ads in Spanish in New Mexico.

One of our main goals is to continually devise creative ways to reach our Latino audience, who in some cases do not speak perfect English, in other cases have felt ignored by politicians, and so they are tuned out. These include such events as co-hosting a Paraguayan "asado" in the DC area and an upcoming "see you at the ball game" outreach event at RFK stadium (soccer, this time!), supporting the IWFR in Minnesota, Texas, and other cities, and speaking about Governor Dean in Spanish on AM radio in Maryland. We're beginning to make inroads and effectively reach our communities in their own language, en nuestro idioma.

We also have recently become aware of DeanSpace, which is an excellent set of programming/design web tools for self-organizing groups such as ours that rely on limited volunteer help. Should you visit our site in the near future, you will begin seeing the improvements as we begin implementing this technology.

Recuperemos nuestro país apoyando a Howard Dean!

Jerome Wiley Segovia
NE Regional Coordinator
Latinos For Dean

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=108&topic_id=53220

Is there a better way to do outreach that you can think of? That's a serious question, because many of the solutions are just from posts on his blog.

For instance, I've written and encouraged him to reconsider and attend the NAACP forum later this week. It's the day after the AZ debate, so maybe it's a scheduling problem. None of the other leaking candidates are going but I wanted them to know how I felt about it.

Edwards has a big following among younger voters. The past president of the Young Dems has endorsed him and I heard that he had the youngest campaign staff of any of the candidates. He was great on the Daily Show and Real Time. And his college age daughter has been campaigning, too.

but the article uses 'chapters' and 'affiliates' to compare candidates and Dean has 650 followed by Clark at 350. Now, as far as I know, Clark's 650 chapters may only have 3 people and Clark's 350 may have 10 and Edwards 50 may have a thousand. There are no counts of actual people given.

These stories are hitting the press due to the Generation Dean tour which is bringing the Dean campaign to young voters. Other candidates may have done similar stuff but I haven't heard about it.