I'm going to add my voice to the growing chorus that this presidential election thing is already nipped in the bud. There are a few signs, call them tea leaves to read, that show me why I think the election has already been decided. OK, I'm a biased guy when it comes to things Internet, but, c'mon, let's face it, the Internet has been THE decisive factor of this political season so far. Here are just a few points off the top of my head as to why I see Dean winning easily come next November.
- Grassroots. The exploitation of the tools available for networking on the Internet have gone well above and beyond anyone's expectations. From what I see, only the Dean campaign "GETS IT". Not only do they "get it", but people like KOS have used their technical expertise to create unique tools for the Dean campaign that have addressed the need for bottom-up, self-organizing systems. Make no mistake, the movement to elect Dean IS bigger than the candidate. If the DNC were smart, they would start NOW to adapt a lot of these tools. Their own blog KICKING ASS, has gotten off to an excellent start. MoveOn.org is also a growing force. If the Dems can employ Dean web-campaign-style tools, there is a possibility of nice coat-tails effect...but I haven't seen a lot of this. If anyone can post some links to these types of campaigns, here would be a good thread to do it.
- Attitude. Notice already what you see on the blogs. Everyone is attacking Dean. Yet Dean's blog, and the main website stay focussed on the target: Bush and the General in November. There is not only a sense of purpose and urgency, there is little worry and a lot of resolve. It's not Dean who has the teflon, it is the attitude of the Internet-based supporters that respond to negative ads like Osama bin Dean that really indicated to me that Dean had already won it. You just know that the Repubs will try similar things with their ads for the General. But, the Repubs will use just a couple handfuls of overpaid hacks to create ads that have worked in the past. The Deanies will counter with THOUSANDS of unpaid Deaniacs submitting ideas...and there will be some GEMS in there. Look at the Osama bin Dean ad: you can see already the Dean bat will go over their next fundraising target since the ad, and you can see thousands of ideas to counter it. The Deanies are proud and they back that up financially at the drop of a bat, er hat...but I still don't see a lot of John Kerry type arrogance that they DESERVE the election...that is, I haven't seen it yet. And I have a feeling I won't see this attitude surface, either. On the blog, Deanies keep writing to each other that very important message: stay focussed...Dean can unseat Bush.
- Human resources. These net people for the Dean campaign...they are fierce. There are sub-groups in the Dean campaign throwing out dozens of ideas daily. They range from songs, to ads, to ways to organize, to events to raise money, to ideas to counter the emerging dirt. There are not dozens, but thousands of people brainstorming positive strategies such as these, and brainstroming counter-ads to the emerging negative ads. Yet they stay focussed on getting more people involved. Personal empowerment. Look at the Dean rhetoric. "They aren't attacking ME, they are attacking YOU." Getting personal without getting personal. It's a good meme and it's working its' magic. Yeh, a lot of people are giving money to the Dean campaign, but there are even more people giving TIME and LABOR to the campaign, which will prove to be invaluable. The MEET-UP numbers have kept growing. The MEET-UP purpose is mainly to get MORE PEOPLE involved, not to collect money, or sell the candidtate. Sorry, TIME and LABOR has ALREADY proven invaluable. They are organized, they are charged up, and they are not taking anything sitting down, and there are a hell of a lot of them, and they are growing at a steady clip.
- Exploiting the technology. When the Bush "me, too" blog came on, they decided to have no comments on the blog. Some here wrote, "typical, they fear negative comments". Well, I simply shake my head and say "really, they don't get it." Comments on blogs are what create community. They are what bring people with common interests together. They are what create energy to work more for your candidate. The Dean blog (and KOS blog) has trolls, but look, it still gets HUNDREDS of comments on every item posted. They get THOUSANDS of visitor, pro and anti Dean, who stop by to post something. The interest that generates this also generates energy. The Bush blog had the opposite effect, and that actually heartens me. It shows that they really ARE closed minded, top-down demagogues. The Dean campaign has probably agonised over how to control the comments, but, again, the community on the blog, much like Kos, has been able to work with the tools, modify the tools, to get the maximum benefit out of it. The bottom-up decisions as to how to exploit the tech has also been quite impressive.
Yes, much of what I write here overlaps, and I'm just really skimming the surface. Deep down, yes, I'm going on intuition, but I'm writing as one of the believers in the power of the Internet, and one who has researched virtual communities, and I believe we are seeing history being made by people exploiting the potential of this great human connection-building instrument we call the Internet.
See you in DC at President-ELECT (not SELECT) Dean's inauguration in January, 2005.