Howard Deans presidential campaign is different, and I certainly hope it’s an indication of how things will be done in the future. Wally Bock sums it up here. It turns out that the real difference between Dean and everybody else is that he treats his supporters like a giant, self-organizing staff of experts. The key to that is giving up control, reversing the great political campaign trend of the last decade or so.
Howard Dean volunteers have taken to use Open Source software to promote his campaign and organize the effort online. Dean made MeetUp famous, but in addition to this media hyped thing, they use Drupal to get things going. Look at Deanspace to see for your self. I might add that Drupal is an excellent choice if your’e into social software.
Gunnar
Thanks for the tip, I’ll have to look more into that. You’re right about the excessive focus on meetup.com, there’s more to it than that.