Ron Paul vs. Howard Dean on Meetup and Polls

2004 Meetups
Don't think you can really compare the two candidates Meetup activities for multiple reasons.

Astroturf -- Deans "Meetups" in 2004 were paid for and "hosted by" the campaign itself. They were much more "top-down" -- indeed more like the other traditional campaigns. Additionally, since Dean WAS getting a lot of MSM press and pundit approval, the main focus of the meetups was more "social" and less about campaigning -- sure they were used to bring a bunch of people together for the rally's but not so much for self-run events.

Grassroots -- Ron Paul's Meetups are paid for by the local organizers, and are simply "on" the meetup.com site. They are very much "bottom-up" and very UNLIKE traditional campaigns. Since Ron is getting "dissed" by the MSM, it has motivated the meetups to bypass traditional campaigning and take control themselves; the focus of events is less "social" and more about campaigning, fund-raising, sign posting, etc. And it is ALL about self-run events (with the occasional mass-gathering for nearby rallies).

2004 Polls & Pundits
Yet I find it hilarious (and completely disingenuous) when the pundits refer to Ron Paul as the "Howard Dean of 2008" -- because of their "selective" memories, the ONLY thing they seem to recall about HD from 2004 was that he drew a lot of donations online.

They completely forget that:
1) The POLLS had Dean as the consummate front-runner, and the "inevitable" nominee.
2) The PUNDITS were all on his bandwagon as well, as the "Dean Phenomenon" was deemed by them as "scientifically" unstoppable.
3) That his thousands and thousands of "volunteers" were often Dean-funded.
4) That while he DID receive a lot of online contributions, a lot of his early upfront cash had been via PAC's, etc.

So the reality is that Hilary, Obama, and Romney (and to a lesser degree McCain) are much closer to the being the "Howard Dean" of 2008.

On the GOP side, Romney especially seems to be emulating Dean in spending boatloads of cash EARLY in the campaign to generate the "illusion" of popularity and inevitability; hiring a large contingent of interns and deploying them across early states, etc. And like Dean at this stage he has bankrupt or nearly bankrupt his campaign (if not for his own borrowed money that is).

So it is just so absolutely ironic that they have this "Howard Dean" clone doing the same thing, and they respond in the same way that they did in 2004.

McCain wanted to duplicate Dean, and did his best to spend "like a drunken sailor" during the first 6 months -- but he ended up fizzling out, and running out of cash.

(Giuliani spends a lot of cash, including a lot of cash early on -- not on advertising, as he gets his PR for free courtesy of the MSM -- but yet he doesn't spend it on advertising, and instead he strangely seems to spend most of his cash on consultants, charter jet flights, fancy hotels, and expensive meals while flitting around from boardroom to mansion raising more funds to pay for more charter flights, fancy hotels, etc so that he can flitt around raising money to replace [or almost replace] what he just spent ... well you get the picture -- he's a strangle little nazi man ain't he?).