When we first looked at searches for the Democratic candidates for the 2004 presidential election, Massachusetts senator John Kerry was leading the pack. Three months later, Vermont governor Howard Dean has surged ahead and left his competition in the dust when it comes to online popularity.

Dean's campaign is based on building his base through the Internet, with a website devoted to streaming video of his speeches and events and a focus on online fundraising. In one day last month, the Dean campaign raised $802,083 on the Internet from more than 11,000 people, including more than 9,000 donors new to the campaign.

The Dean campaign also promotes itself to left-wing political bloggers in hopes they will back Dean and uses the Internet to organize supporters (detailed in this article from the liberal political magazine American Prospect).

It seems that Dean's insurgent candidacy reached a tipping point two weeks ago. Countless stories about Dean's devoted supporters and higher-than-expected fundraising finally drove interested voters to the Web to find out more about the man, and how they could help his campaign. Dean had passed John Kerry by mid-June, but over the past two weeks Dean searches are up 250 percent.

How popular on the Internet is Dean these days? More popular than Madonna, Dr. Phil, or Alyssa Milano. Of course, not everyone thinks he's the perfect candidate, but he definitely has become one of the frontrunners.

Campaign watchers also need to watch out for General Wesley Clark. While he still hasn't announced if he intends to run in 2004, Clark ranks third among the candidates, behind only Dean and Kerry, and we get searches each week for the website draftwesleyclark.com.

Here is the ranking of the nine candidates, plus Clark, over the past four weeks. Once again, left-wing fringe candidate Dennis Kucinich gets a surprising number of searches, while Democrats online don't seem to be that curious about Dick Gephardt or Joe Lieberman.

1) Gov. Howard Dean
2) Sen. John Kerry
3) Gen. Wesley Clark
4) Sen. John Edwards
5) Rep. Dennis Kucinich
6) Sen. Bob Graham
7) Rev. Al Sharpton
8) Sen. Joe Lieberman
9) Rep. Dick Gephardt
10) Sen. Carol Mosley Braun

TOMORROW: Keep your feet on the ground, and your ankles slightly above them.