!!!!WARNING: This is not solid investigative journalism. These are deductions from looking at event planning sites for candidates for an afternoon. I am happy to be proven wrong.!!!

Clinton and Obama are caught in up one numbers game, but we might also want to look at another. One way to measure grassroots support is by looking at the number of locally organized events. In that race, Clinton and Obama and Edwards are all losing. My best guess is that between all three of them, fewer offline meetings are planned by supporters in October 2007 than were planned by Dean supporters alone four years ago.

In October, 2003, there were nearly 3,000 events planned nationwide for Dean**--for that month alone.

In October, 2007, there are, at my best guess, between 1,000 and 2,000 events planned nationwide—for the next four months—for Obama.***

My best guess is that there are far fewer planned for Clinton,**** and far fewer still for Edwards.*****

All of these three have larger volunteer databases than Dean did four years ago, so the simplest explanation is the most obvious: they don’t want all that offline activity. They are not that interested in local groups getting together offline, because if they wanted to, they could enable it. They could more prominently feature offline events, they could actively encourage recurring monthly events that tend to, like churches, produce more powerful and active local groups.

I will write more later about why they may be strategically mistaken in choosing to move away from massive offline community-building around the country, but for now, I just note that this is a missed opportunity for democratic life. The Dean campaigns’ greatest legacy may be the leaders that emerged out of the local offline groups that have gone on to run for office—and run major campaigns (political and policy) in CA, Kentucky, and around the country. My bet—based on these numbers, in part—is that 20 years from now, you’ll be far more likely to meet people in politics who say they got involved through Dean than through Obama, Edwards or Clinton—and this did not have to be the case.

*(And you can read about it all in our new book about the Dean Campaign! Just out!)

**About 800 Meetup groups, and 2,100 events through get local (which tended to sprout where we had Meetups).

***Its tough to figure out the number of Obama groups, because you can only search in 250 mile radiuses (radiusi? radii?). So I searched 250 miles of 10001 (NY + DC) and found 191 events, 250 miles of 90049 (LA), found 77, 250 miles of St. Louis, found 89 events, 250 miles of Dallas, found 18, and SF, found 91. I then added the 10 total in AZ, 31 in Florida, 14 in Oregon. And then I tripled it, for good measure, which is undoubtedly way too generous, but allows for eventful and other sites, and came up with 1554 events.

****If you search 100 mile radius for zip 10001 Clinton events, you find 20. If you search the same radius for Obama, you find 71.

***** I have a hard time figuring out where to start for Edwards. He has his one-corps events, but events for groups are hard to uncover—no one walking in off the net will easily find non-One Corps events. There appear to be 35 one corps events planned for first 13 days of October. Generously, we might guess there are another 70 for the rest of the month. (Someone might want to tell Edwards' webteam that according to One Corps, 10/01/07, or any variation of thereof, is not a “valid date.” Not a big deal.)