"The Dean Connection"

Samantha Shapiro's article, "The Dean Connection", in this weekend's New York Times Magazine discusses the untraditional methods of the Dean campaign and how it is successfully tapping resources that more conventional candidates have either yet to explore or truly take advantage of. And along with Dean's message, it is these methods that are attracting the scores of volunteers that continue to offer themselves up to Dean For America.

Long before Howard Dean was considered a plausible candidate for president, he seemed to emit some sort of secret call that made people, many of them previously apolitical, drop everything and devote themselves to his campaign. Even after the campaign's 45 official intern positions were filled, people kept showing up -- mostly young people, but also senior citizens in R.V.'s and middle managers from Microsoft.

At the headquarters of most political campaigns, there's a familiar organizational structure: a group of junior employees carrying out a plan devised by a bunch of senior advisers. The Dean headquarters feels different: a thin veneer of Official Adults barely hovers above a 24-hour hive of intense, mostly youthful devotion. When the adults leave, usually around 10 p.m., the aisles between cubicles are still cluttered with scooters and dogs; when they return in the morning, balancing just-microwaved cinnamon buns and coffee, they climb over pale legs poking out from beneath their desks and shoo sleeping volunteers off their office couches.

Shapiro's account of the seemingly endless stream of volunteers echoes Dean's own impression that he describes in "Winning Back America" of how so many Americans have found something to relate to in his campaign's message.

Click Here to read "The Dean Connection" in its entirety.