dean: $1,000,000 and counting

Howard Dean's campaign's announced that Dean has raised $1 million through the Internet. While it's a nifty benchmark, campaign money doesn't know how it's contributed. What is significant, however, is that the contributions have come from over 10,000 people. I don't know the what the average campaign donation is, but Dean's figure of $168 strikes me as fairly low, indicating a fairly broad base of supporters.

From what I've read recently (perhaps a function of the mailing lists I'm on), Kucinich and Sharpton are meeting greater success with the traditional Democratic base (read: labor) than Dean, a fact that seems to belie Dean's claim that he represents the "Democratic wing of the Democratic party." I think it's silly to trump up the importance of the Iowa, but a political analyst at the Des Moines Register thinks that Kucinich "could be on the verge of becoming a factor in the Iowa contest." There's a enormous gulf between being a factor and having a chance to win, of course, but Kucinich's campaign's primary goal is bringing progressive views to the forefront, something he seems to be accomplishing. In Iowa at least.