Dean Meetups
The Bentley study's findings about the Meetup attendees include:
Demographically, they are mostly Caucasian, middle aged, middle income professionals.
They see themselves as strong Democrats, either liberal or progressive in their ideology, who voted for Al Gore in 2000.
They had favorable views of Bill Bradley, and liked John McCain and Ralph Nader more than Ross Perot.
They are politically active. Most vote in every election. About half have donated money as well as volunteer time to multiple candidates in several elections.
They follow the news seven days a week in every medium: newspapers, television, radio and the Internet. Almost all report that they use the Internet several times a day.
"Democratic party members think that Dean supporters come from outside the party," says Gordon. "Now we can show them that their perception is incorrect. Dean supporters are good Democrats who vote, donate, and volunteer. We're not an isolated phenomenon."
Another key in mobilizing this constituency is The Dean for America web site. The study finds:
The Dean site was how the largest number found out about their first Meetup and how they found out about this one.
For almost one-third, this is their first Meetup. About one-fifth have attended more than three Meetups.
About half who attended a Meetup then became involved in the Dean campaign, while the other half was already involved and then decided to attend a Meetup. Most are more involved in the campaign and more supportive of Howard Dean as a result of their Meetup experience.
...................
Interesting preliminary findings out of the Clark Meetups (out of only 100 responses):
We asked respondents to evaluate all of the Democratic candidates for president on a scale of 1 to 5, 1 means strongly dislike, 3 means neutral, and 5 means strongly like. Besides Clark, the only other candidate to score above "neutral" was John Kerry. Clark Meetup attendees particularly dislliked Joe Lieberman:
- 8 Gen. Wesley Clark
- 0 Sen. John Kerry
- 8 Sen. John Edwards
- 8 Sen. Bob Graham
- 7 Sen. Carol Moseley Braun
- 6 Rep. Dick Gephardt
- 6 Gov. Howard Dean
- 4 Rep. Dennis Kucinich
- 3 Rev. Al Sharpton
- 8 Sen. Joe Lieberman
We asked respondents to evaluate some past candidates on the same scale. Bradley and McCain came out the most favorable. Nader and Perot were disliked, but the most universal dislike was for Bush and Cheney.
- 3 Sen. Bill Bradley (Democrat)
- 2 Sen. John McCain (Republican)
- 1 Ralph Nader (Green)
- 9 Ross Perot (Reform)
- 2 V.P. Dick Cheney (Republican)
- 1 Pres. George W. Bush (Republican)
