"If the choice is between the grass roots and the big soft contributors of the prior period, I prefer the grass roots," said Stan Greenberg, a Democratic pollster who did considerable polling for MoveOn.org before shifting to the Kerry campaign last year. "What McCain-Feingold [campaign finance legislation] did was produce a shift away from soft money to grass-roots support. The great fear was it wouldn't happen, that Democrats would be left without resources. But starting with Dean and extending to outside groups like MoveOn, but also John Kerry and the DNC, there was a surge of giving and engagement that I can't believe isn't healthy."
Eli Pariser, who runs the MoveOn political action committee, said the rising power of the grass roots will make establishment Democrats uncomfortable and has helped reinvigorate the progressive wing of the party. But he said more than that, it has brought about a rethinking of how Democrats should organize themselves against Republicans.
"I think it's pretty clear that the era of triangulation is over," he said. "The reason for that is that if you step halfway between Republicans and Democrats, you get your head cut off by Republicans. There's no compromise and no mercy, so I think it's pretty clear that Democrats need to be an opposition that can explain why we believe the current administration is corrupt and misleading the country. It's not something you can do easily by putting yourself somewhere between the poles."
Many Democrats see the choice between nurturing the base and reaching out to expand the party's coalition as a false choice. "I find the 'base versus swing ' conversation not only to be a false choice but to be a deadly choice," said Mark Mellman, a pollster and adviser to Kerry's campaign. "If somebody is forcing that choice on us, they are forcing us to lose elections."
Clinton recently told Democrats not to succumb to the idea that they must choose between a vibrant progressive wing and the strategies he followed as president. Mark Penn, Clinton's pollster in 1996 and an adviser to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), said he sees a greater desire on the part of Democrats to reach a consensus around that model. But he said Democrats have to view the grass roots more expansively.
"I think [Clinton's] remarks represented the view that there is a synthesis here for Democrats that is not left or right, but the right kind of grass-roots movement will take that into account," he said. "I think the Republicans organized a wide diversity of people [in 2004]. It wasn't just religious people but a wide diversity of people they coaxed to the polls."
Simon Rosenberg, founder of the centrist New Democrat Network and a challenger to Dean in the race for DNC chairmanship, said he did not know the ideological implications of an energized grass roots but urged centrists not to fear such a development. "Who can be scared at having millions of people giving money and fighting?" he said. "But it's not enough for us to win."
The spike in activity on the DNC Web site in the past week shows that Dean's election has excited grass-roots activists, but keeping them happy may not be as easy as he thinks.
