I've been tracking Meetup.com growth for the top candidates over the past month. Clark's numbers during September were so impressive, that I through they would challenge Dean in the 4th quarter. Here are the semi-daily numbers of the top four candidates during this period:
Dean Clark Kucinich Kerry
122400 38361 15922 12822
122561 39219 15989 12856
122904 39426 16040 12899
123584 39594 16075 12964
123946 39743 16101 13190
124451 39967 16179 13337
124663 40068 16214 13471
126091 40279 16305 13843
126464 40321 16326 13893
128811 41070 16506 14202
129022 41115 16528 14220
129602 41430 16576 14226
130129 41600 16608 14388
130814 41872 16664 14347
131222 42008 16744 14452
That was what I had through the end of last week. I then added the numbers for yesterday and today, which are shown below:
Dean Clark Kucinich Kerry
136950 43189 17091 14731
137519 43199 17134 14757
Draw your own conclusions. Here's what I see. The pattern has been that whenever the attention was focused on Dean, for good or bad in perception, his meetup numbers have grown, and this continues to hold during the confederate flag flare-up (during which he's signed-up another 6000+ members). Obvious too, Clark's meetup numbers have faded after his September blitz of growth. Clark is still averaging a couple of hundred a day, and a solid second. Kerry's online advertising blitz for his meetup's hasn't yielded much growth, though he's catching up on Kucinich.
Other notable meetup numbers are the Democratic Party, which is now at 9,294 (sign-up here). Bush has only 1,446 supporters, Edwards is at 1,848. The strongest Statewide candidates participating in meetup are US Senate candidates of IL, Barack Obama with 435, and PA, Pat Toomey with 349.