There has been a very heated debate between
Kos and
Zack Exley concerning the Kerry campaign's use of the netroots. As KE04's Director of Online Communications, Exley is understandably defensive when confronted about the campaign's online opportunity losses. But I think blaming Exley for Kerry's online campaign is like blaming Lyndee England for Abu Ghraib.
The Kerry campaign's lack of netroots understanding was a symptom of KE04's larger disease of failing to run a post-modern political campaign. As I see it, the Kerry campaign made two fundamental mistakes, both of which require that the buck stop with John Kerry.
The first mistake was that Kerry signed up for a 21st century election and hired 20th century management. Bob Shrum and Mary Beth Cahill were both critically unqualified to succeed in a post-modern political world they didn't understand.
The second mistake was that Kerry listened to their outdated advice and refused to provide the leadership America was waiting for him to offer.
For some unknown reason, some of the people who built the Bridge to the 21st Century never crossed the span. Exley brings up one good point that comes close to grasping what really went wrong:
It is a valid criticism of the Kerry campaign that it missed an opportunity to really connect with a whole new world of political activists and build an incredible movement. I agree with that criticism -- and I made it every day internally when I was at the campaign, as many irritated Kerry communications and finance people would confirm.
Though Mary Beth Cahill did work very closely with us to produce those emails, it was not the same as when Joe Trippi used the campaign emails (early in the Dean campaign) to really speak from the heart to supporters. We were one tier down from the actual heartbeat of the campaign at Kerry. It was a real problem.[emphasis mine]
Online campaigning isn't an option like air conditioning or leather seats that can just be added to an otherwise solid vehicle. While a strong online campaign may be indicative of a post-modern campaign, you don't have a 21st century campaign because you have a website. You can't just add features to an outdated campaign, to be successful you need to build your entire campaign by understanding the realities of the world in which we live. This is something that KE04 failed to understand. The people who understood how to interact online shouldn't have been second-tier staffers, but rather the people who didn't understand how to interact online shouldn't have be in charge. It was like hiring a once-was Army General to fight a naval battle. If you don't know how to sail then what the fuck good are your scars?
Let's look at some of the examples of how the Kerry campaign malpractrice began at the top.
KE04 never provided that one critical phrase necessary to break through the clutter of our ad-overloaded lives. Their final attempt, "A stronger, safer America" was almost a parody of how political consulting at the end of the 20th century will be remembered for combining multiple "tested" words into a phrase that had never been uttered by a human. A dozen years earlier, Clinton's "It's the economy, stupid" was gold when it came to breaking through, because it was unique, it didn't sound contrived, and it was very memorable. In fact, a Democrat pioneered the concept of breaking through when FDR chose to speak in the informal for his fireside chats. With all that is going on in people's lives, if you can't break through then how do you expect to connect?
Not only did Kerry fail to break through, but he failed to understand that others could break through. The dinosaurs at HQ saw the Swift Boat ads with their $40,000 bank account and assumed that they were irrelevant. Of course, they learned the hard way that their outdated understanding of political power failed to predict the catapult potential of a bold action. Just like Condi Rice looked to a nation's tank brigades to judge their threat while failing to plan for 20 guys with box cutters, the KE04 campaign miscalculated that the Swift Boaters lack of money would prevent traction with the voters.
Speaking of money, let's talk about Kerry campaign's lust for money. Yes, we've all lost a race because there wasn't enough money for the last mail piece. But it was because of failure to meet prima facia burdens of name recognition in down-ticket races. The Kerry campaign's lust can't be rationalized on these grounds. Campaign's need money to persuade, but the Kerry campaign failed to appreciate political basics enough to focus on winning votes. For them, getting money buys ads that might get votes. This giant chip on their shoulders from the 20th century campaigns they lost was revealed through their entire "try not to lose" strategy -- which proved woefully ineffective in a world waiting on a hero. What they failed to grasp was that their base had more potential as supporters than as repeat donors.
Not only did they waste potential and money on TV, but failing to understand post-modern politics hurt them on the news. The Kerry campaign suffered a disaster when they went down for a week after Reagan died. KE04 hid while every GOP hack in the world related their Gipper stories back to Bush being the heir to the legend. Anyone who ever suggests a campaign should be suspended should be immediately fired for not understanding that post-modern politics occurs all day, every day...with NO exceptions. Not learning from the Gipper-porn week, the Kerry campaign media surrogates were outnumbered at least 2:1 during the our own convention. Doing their best not to notice a trend, the Kerry campaign suffered the same fate during the RNC. With a genius only Shrum could create, this continued during the debates as the GOP fact-checked at a 5:1 ratio while the Kerry media team held back the debate bounce the candidate earned. KE04 assumed that the press would report "the facts" without giving them anything bold enough to earn a spot on the news.
The yester-year consultants even prevented Kerry from making up for their piss-poor understanding of modern campaigns. This occurred every time they held him back. Kerry followed his consultants instead of leading the people. The "try not to lose" strategy focused on not turning people away. Unfortunately for Kerry, in a post-modern world everyone knows the score and those left wondering follow the boldest leader. Worse yet, by convincing Kerry to vote for the a doomed war, they not only undermined his credibility, but additionally neutralized what would have been the winning issue.
For all of this, the buck should stop at Kerry.
But back to the netroots. If the Kerry campaign would have had leadership that understood post-modern campaigns they could have used technology far more effectively. They could have done all of the things Ken Mehlman did as he outperformed Democrats online and in regards to GOTV. But they could have gone even further, they could have built a movement.
I think it is important to have the discussion on how we could have done better online, but let's remember that the internet is only one part of running 21st century campaigns. Hiring 20th century consultants is like hiring the fastest pony express rider as a train engineer. Considering Kerry hired Bob Shrum, some might take the analogy one step further by saying Kerry hired the slowest pony express rider.
The Democratic Party is in serious need of reform and arguing over how we use the netroots won't get us there if we continue to rely on strategists who deploy antiquated campaigns. Yes, Exley could have done a lot more by empowering Kerry supporters. The fact that Exley was too new of a Kos user to even be able to post a dairy proves he did a shitty job. But forget him, I think Kos has the most important view on netroots:
Thing is, we aren't going to put out for campaigns without getting something in return.
This year, the netroots put out because of a very deep hatred of Bush. I think it is accurate to say that Democrats did well online in spite of McAliffe and Shrum and Exley. Likewise, Democrats won many votes in spite of Kerry. When you consider that the only age demographic we won -- the under 30 crowd -- was almost entirely due to the conduct of our opponents you'll see that Democrats are in dire straights.
We can't afford to continue putting individuals unqualified for post-modern campaigning in charge of the future of the Democratic Party.