Howard Dean's weekend fund-raising will shortly succeed in matching the $250,000 expected to be raised by Bush-Cheney tomorrow. What to do for an encore?

Later tonight, we'll celebrate here on the blog when we hit $250,000. Then, we'll add a second bat.

The second bat won't have a goal. It will be up to you and thousands of other Americans to fill that bat up to whatever amount you can by midnight, tomorrow. We're close to matching the Bush-Cheney fundraising machine. Tomorrow, let's see by how much we can surpass them.

And wait til you see what we plan on doing with the additional money you help raise tomorrow. It's top secret, but we can tell you this -- it will surprise everyone.

Intriguing! We began wondering what the secret plan is, and came up with a few unorthodox suggestions for the campaign. These are not predictions, merely brainstorms.

• Campaign in citizens' living rooms: Produce a DVD containing some of Dean's best campaign material (clips of the Harkin Forum, the Teachers' Association, the announcement speech; include some video endorsements from, say, Weicker, Lofgren, etc. etc.; all the campaign ads; anything else that looks good!) plus some new footage. Send copies to a wide population of households (not just Democrats!) in the first several primary states, and make it available as a burnable image so others can make their own copies and distribute. This isn't as expensive as you might think, and DVD players are cheap and common nationwide (yay capitalism!).
  
  
• Help other Democrats: split up the money and contribute it to House and Senate Democrats (heck, even state candidates) in close races for 2004. See how many D's call him 'mean' and 'destructive to the party' then. (We have no idea if this is allowed under campaign finance laws; as I said, it's a brainstorm.)
  
  
• Endow the Dean Corps: hire a full-time staffer (or two) to brainstorm and coordinate volunteer efforts in every state. Blood drives, food drives, community cleanup, anything. Having a constant (biweekly?) flow of unquestionably positive accomplishments of Dean supporters can only be good. Also, we think the Dean Corps deserves its own home page on the official site where people can learn more/sign up for events.
  
  
• Support soldiers in a tangible way: contribute to Operation USO Care Package or something similar. This would be a nice antidote to the stupid 'Dean doesn't support the military' memes.
  
  
• Open a campaign office in DC, as close to the White House as possible. Shorter distance to move the file cabinets later, you know. :). (Extra-snarky suggestion, not really serious: park a moving truck in front of the office with a picture of the White House and graffiti beneath, "Get Out of Howard's House!")
  
  
• More prosaically: an unusual ad buy, like the sides of buses in several major cities.

Feel free to post your own, or help refine ours!