Internet users click and vote for Democratic contenders
Dean favored to win Web primary
By John Mercurio
CNN Political Unit
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The primary begins Tuesday and voting runs for 48 hours.
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- About 1.4 million Internet users are expected to register their preference over the next two days for which Democrat they want to see win the party's 2004 presidential nomination.
The virtual primary, organized by MoveOn.org -- a liberal advocacy group -- is not binding in any sense and is not connected to the formal Democratic Party primaries and caucuses scheduled to start next year, but it could give the winner some bragging rights.
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, an active Internet campaigner, is expected to collect the most votes, which starts at noon EDT Tuesday and ends at midnight Wednesday.
Dean made a pitch to Internet voters Monday as he formally launched his campaign with a rally in Burlington, Vermont.
"We are the great grass roots campaign of the modern era, built from mouse pads, shoe leather and hope," Dean said. "And like the founders of our republic, we seek change."
Liberal roots
MoveOn.org, formed in 1998 to oppose the impeachment of President Clinton, is holding the vote to decide whether it should endorse anyone in the 2004 Democratic primary. The group will only do so if one candidate receives 50 percent-plus-1. Otherwise, it's back to the keypad for a possible runoff later this summer.
MoveOn has proven its mettle, both organizationally and financially. In its short history, it has provided major boosts to Clinton, antiwar activists, the late Sen. Paul Wellstone and opponents of the Federal Communications Commission's June 3 decision on media ownership.
Howard Dean appealed to Internet voters as he formally kicked off his campaign in Burlington, Vermont on Monday.
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Its prior endorsements have yielded boatloads of campaign cash: It raised $3.2 million for candidates in 2000 and $4.1 million in 2002. So all nine 2004 Democrats are paying attention, and most are actively stumping in the virtual race.
All of the nine candidates have posted appeals on the group's Web site, and links to MoveOn.org are prominently displayed on the campaign homepages of Dean, Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts, John Edwards of North Carolina and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.
Not surprisingly, Dean, the leading liberal voice in the 2004 primary and the most aggressive Internet campaigner, is expected to lead this week's vote. Liberals Dean and Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, as well as front-runner John Kerry, were the top vote-getters in a straw poll the group held in May.
The process should go like this: Tuesday, some 1.4 million people who registered by midnight Monday will receive an e-mail with a unique link to a special online voting booth on MoveOn's Web site. There, they'll be presented with an e-ballot, with which they can vote one time.
"One person, one vote," said Zack Exley, MoveOn's organizing director, told CNN's Bill Schneider last week. "They get to select which of the nine Democratic declared candidates they want to become president."
To help verify the results, MoveOn has hired Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg, who will conduct post-election surveys by phone with 1,000 participants.
It remains to be seen how smoothly the primary will go, and whether the winner will enjoy a post-election bounce -- although if someone does win this week, early signs of MoveOn's strength could surface on June 30 fund-raising reports.
Questions about value
Of course, the obvious caveat in any talk of Internet-based polling is that the sample is likely to be heavily skewed, racially, economically and socially.
"This is going to channel a particular kind or activism and a particular kind of person," Joan Walsh, news editor of Salon.com, told Schneider. "Are we going to see a big Al Sharpton vote? I don't think so. In terms of who this is reaching, you've got to be very careful in characterizing who's represented by this primary."
"But you know, who's to say that New Hampshire is representative? It isn't," Walsh added. "Who's to say Iowa should matter all that much? Every way we start our primaries is skewed toward one or another point of view. This is an important group of people and the way they are choosing to make this decision, I think, has a lot of integrity. And it will tell us something about the liberals in this primary."
Then there's the question of whether MoveOn, for its own sake, should endorse at all. Simon Rosenberg, president and founder of the New Democrat Network and a fan of MoveOn overall, said the group could be limiting its long-term growth by picking sides in a nine-way race, potentially alienating supporters from the eight other candidates.
"It's a risky thing for them," Rosenberg told Schneider. "MoveOn was on a path to become one of the four or five of the most important new organizations on the political scene. [But if they endorse a candidate], a lot of people won't participate with them, people who support all the other candidates won't work with them, and it will limit their long-term growth. ...
"We have a process for picking the nominee, it's called Iowa, New Hampshire and the subsequent states. And there comes a point when what they are doing actually does get in the way of the accepted process."
Other campaigns also have sniped that the race is fixed for Dean. Aides note that Exley, the MoveOn organizing director, recently took a leave of absence for two weeks and two days when he was paid to work on organizing Dean's Web site. Exley said he was helping Dean set up software for the primary, an open offer that the other Democratic White House hopefuls declined.
Democrats can take some solace in a new, more scientific poll conducted June 12 to 18 by CNN/Gallup/USA Today.
The survey shows that Bush leads an unnamed Democratic challenger by 12 points, 50 to 38 percent, about the same lead he's held since the war began in late March. That's a sizable lead, perhaps, but not when you consider that Bush's father held a whopping 21-point lead (51 to 30 percent) over an unnamed Democratic rival at this point in the 1992 campaign.
CNN producer Shirley Zilberstein contributed to this report.
