While just about all the 2008 contenders from both parties ignored Austin's South By Southwest (did they even know it existed?), the Warner campaign was busy building support. Warner hails from the tech industry an thus has credibility in this field. And his tech people were working it, recruiting the smartest and brightest industry execs to serve on advisory panels or work the campaign.
While most of the other campaigns will hire the same ol' consultants doing the same ol' crappy websites (and thinking that "blogging" is cutting edge and hip), Warner's people were scouring the conference for the interactive technologies of tomorrow, the stuff that will truly be cutting edge and hip in 2008. By then, blogging will be downright institutionalized.
The goal was clear -- locking these supporters up early not only gives the Warner campaign a frighteningly effective talent pool to draw from as the election heats up next year, but also deprives rival campaigns of their talents.
From an organizational standpoint, this is very reminiscent of the Dean campaign, and not surprising -- Jerome Armstrong (my co-author and former partner) is behind this Warner push.
Two more stories (aside from that NY Times Mag piece last Sunday) illustrate the early support and buzz Warner is generating.
From the Hotline Blog:
The last Dem to win Greene Co., MO, in a presidential race was Bill Clinton.
And that's why Nora Walcott, the executive dir. of the Greene Co. Dem Party, was so keen on inviting ex-VA Gov. Mark Warner to speak to at their annual Jackson Day dinner this year.
Says Wolcott of Dems in her county: "They see Warner as a candidate who can do for Missouri what Bill Clinton did in Illinois" -- that is, break a cycle of Republican dominance. "He's a map-changer."
Warner, busily preparing a WH '08 campaign along the twin axes of pragmatic competence and Southern outreach, quickly accepted.
Wolcott announced the 4/7 dinner in late February. Two weeks later, all her tickets are gone and she's finding tables to fill an overflow room. Wolcott: "We're outpacing 100 percent of where we were last year. We're selling these like mad."
The second story starts with me in Austin, speaking to a crowd who showed up to meet me and get their books signed.
One of the attendees asked me, "Who do you want for 2008?" I answered that my fantasy ticket was Schweitzer/Obama, and that I wasn't even close to deciding who I'd personally vote for out of the real candidates in 2008. Way too early for that.
But, I said, "If I had to guess, and I'm not very good at this, but if I had to predict who our nominee would be in 2008, I'd say it would be Mark Warner."
And the room burst out in cheers and applause.