An interesting article in today's WaPo about the grassroots machine being developed by the Bush campaign. According to article:

"Bush's campaign has an e-mail list totaling 6 million people, 10 times the number that Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean has, and the Bush operation is in the middle of an unprecedented drive to register 3 million new Republican voters. The campaign has set county vote targets in some states and has begun training thousands of volunteers who will recruit an army of door-to-door canvassers for the final days of the election next November."

The article goes on to point out that this program has been made possible by Bush's huge campaign war chest.

Whether you like Bush or not, this is exactly the sort of grassroots engagement that good government types have been advocating for years. The irony is that Bush's refusal to work under the federal campaign spending guidelines makes this possible. There's a lesson here: if you want a strong and vibrant democracy, you need to spend more, not less money in politics.