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Disintermediation and Politics
code_rage writes "Everett Ehrlich (capsule biography) writes an article in the Washington Post that examines Howard Dean's effective use of the internet to create a political organization. He says that Dean has created a 'virtual' party that has taken over the only remaining asset of value, the brand name of the Democratic party. His analysis refers to the theory of Nobel-winning economist Ronald Coase: that the size of an organization is determined by the cost of gathering information. Ehrlich's article makes some predictions about the effect that Dean's strategy will have on the political system." In a related story, there's an mp3 interview with Dick Morris, along with a couple of (appropriately) blog posts about it.
I've always wondered why Republican political figures such as Bush don't just tell the bible-pounders to go pound sand. It's not as if they're going to vote Democratic just to spite the administration, right? Ehrlich's point explains just exactly why: because if the torch-waving asshats of the American Taliban ever take their ball and go home, the Democrats will win by default, forever and ever Amen. There will be no single party capable of stopping them. And once unopposed, the Democrats will start to look a lot more like old-school Democrats (read: socialists in populists' clothing) than the Stepford Republicans they now resemble.
Scary stuff for a right-leaning person such as myself who thought he had no use for the religious wackos that infest the Republican party...
I don't buy it. As far as being able to organize a campaign based on emotionally-charged issues, and thus being able to recruit volunteers with little or not effort, the internet will and has had a dramatic impact on politics (i.e., Howard Dean). But just because it allowed Dean to expand his base of support much more rapidly and widely than was ever possible before, that does not automatically mean the death of organized politics and our two-party system. How will it help moderate, hum-drum politics and politicians (probably > 90%), or even interesting politicians without a drum to beat? It won't. It'll help the radical and/or disaffected fringes to have more of a voice (which is usually a good thing), but most Americans are firmly in the middle of the road. The group that appeals most to the middle is going to be the one that wins. I'm not saying our current system will be the way it is forever (god help us if so), but I don't see any radical change anytime soon.
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
It's been wrong for several years -- likely since it was first uploaded. There are seven red stripes and six white stripes in the US flag. The flag that Slashdot has used has seven of each, with a white stripe being first. This is clearly incorrect and has been for a very, very long time. Can't anybody simply put up a new flag icon that is accurate?
I'm so tired of being presented with the "choice" between "Rich White Man A" and "Rich White Man B" at each level of the process. In the 2000 primaries, both parties #1 and #2 were "Rich White Man" and here we are in 2004, and the Democrats are presenting a many-headed "Rich White Man" field of "choices". Kerry, Dean, Clark, Edwards, Gephardt.
Screw them all. I'd vote for freakin' SHARPTON if he makes it to a ballot near me, and I think he's INSANE.
I'll probably vote for Gen. Clark between the top two "choices" of "Rich White Man", since at least he doesn't look like a weasel. (Sorry, Dean, but you look like a weasel.)
MORTAR COMBAT!
It sounds like you have a real problem with bigotry against those who don't share you own religious views.
Sharing at the point of a gun isn't sharing. It's forcing.
If this be bigotry, let us make the most of it.
It wasn't the remark that turned me off but the fact that he defended the remark over and over and wouldn't admit that it wasn't the best thign to say. I believe he finally did.
That's something that has turned me off with bush as well as almost all politicians. They won't admit that they might be wrong. If they do admit that they are wrong or flip sides on an issue they will be attacked in the next election as wishy-washy or inconsistant.
Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
I haven't looked to closely at it before. Now that I have, it looks like the top has been cropped off as you can still see a little red.
Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
How does this internet fund raising effect the current climate of pro-campaign finance reform?
According to Kerry, Republicans have been contributing to Dean's campaign on the Internet.. Whether this is true or not, it very well could be. How would we ever know?
I'd like someone to explain to me how this is actually "grass roots," and not possibly one of the major parties (if not both) giving large sums in small packets under various proxies?
What a wonderful theory. If only it fit the facts. Howard Dean has taken the internet and done amazing things with it, but the concept that he is somehow hijacking the Democratic party simply isn't accurate.
* Dean was governor for 11 years. He got there through traditional Democratic party politics.
* I remember having a conversation with some Vermont relatives back shortly after the 1996 convention about whether Dean would run in 2000.
Basically, Dean has been an up-and-coming force in the Democratic party for a number of years. While his outsider rhetoric and outspoken opposition to the war has helped fuel his candidacy, he is still a product of the Democratic party, with its grassroots activists and door-to-door campaigning.
Lastly -- a quick anecdote. Ralph Reed (formerly of the Christian Coalition, all around brilliant evil-doer, and now chairing Bush's reelection campaign in the Southeast) recently gave a speech talking about how according to all their polls, on the Friday before the election, Bush would have won all of the key battleground states had the election been held then. But instead, the Democratic apparatus came out in force and turned the election into a statistical dead heat. His best line went something like this:
Republicans think the campaign ends the Friday before the election, after the last television ad is bought, the last billboard put up.
Democrats believe the election starts the Friday before the election. GOTV (get out the vote) efforts don't really begin in earnest until those last 72 hours. The Democratic machine was what turned a sure Bush victory into a fraudulent mockery of an election (I try to be even handed... really I do, but facts is facts).
Dean's improbable sprint to internet cash-and-glory will only get him so far. And then the incredibly labor intensive huge Democratic machine will have to take over. The article completely misses that fact. While the internet portion of the campaign may allow for a small control group, the actual work still has to be done by what is essentially a huge national corporation with a precense in every precint in America. That's a large group of people.
A pretty theory with some definite substance -- just not as clear-cut as the author would have us think.
Coase's theory of the relationship between information gathering costs and organization size is interesting, but not the most interesting impact of the internet on politics. One side effect of low-cost high-speed information gathering (and distribution) systems is that the competing parties can adjust their offers to voters using a much more rapid feedback cycle. Intensive use of polls, focus groups, trial balloons, e-mail, etc. let candidates fine tune their message like never before.
The two party system engenders a careful political calculus of stepping just far enough over the middle to steal an opponent's votes without alienating the extremists in the party. The democrats will try to appear just far enough right of center and the republicans will try to appear just far enough left of center to win. Everyone is shooting for the same 50.1% of the electoral votes and has the information gathering systems and information distribution systems to get it.
Unless one side achieves a huge advantage through external events (e.g., Dean wills if the economy tanks, weather disrupts voting in a key state, etc.) this will mean more close elections that reveal the statistical inaccuracies of our voting systems. It won't surpirse me if the Supreme Court will again decide the outcome of a presidential election in the near future.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I am by no means in the wealthiest 1% and there is no way in hell Dean will get my vote.
Please, if you are a Dean supporter you better get over assuming that everyone will like Dean as much as you do. Dean has to have something better to run on other than "I hate Bush." Oh, and "I'm going to raise your taxes again" isn't the right thing either.
You do realize that the conclusion you've drawn from your above link is a bit disingenuous, don't you? You've got 1 Republican candidate versus 10 Democratic candidates in that graph. The parent poster was correct, the Democrats do indeed have more money from large organizations, such as unions and PACs than any other party. For example, consider this link from the very same site:
Large contributors: Dem vs. Rep
One of the biggest embarassments to the Democratic party is that the size of the average donation to their party is larger than the average size contributed to the Republican party. In fact, the mean size of political donations to the RNC during the past election cycle (2000) was about $50. The Democrats claim that the mean size of contributions is unimportant and will not publish it for that reason and because it somehow would invade the privacy of their contributing base in aggregate.
And if you think that McCain-Feingold has "negated" the impact of unions and PACs, you are very mistaken.
Translation: provide information you don't agree with and would rather see censored.
If the government were to take our tax money and allow it to be directed to a religious school that indoctrinates eight-year-olds with the notion that Ronald Reagan is the Fourteenth Bodhisattva of the Great Pumpkin and, consequently, the Lord and Savior of all Mankind, would you consider it "censorship" when people object?
At the end of the day, one irrational, unprovable belief is no different from another. The founders of the United States recognized that, and specified in no uncertain terms that the new country's government should stay out of that particular battle.
I agree that it's very probable that a given religious school will provide a better overall education than a typical government-run public school, but still, funding religious schools is a perfect example of local optimization at the expense of global optimization. You only do that kind of thing if you don't know any better. Thanks to the last couple thousand years of history, we do know better.
Um, what the hell kind of "progressives" do you hang out with? I consider myself a progressive, I have many friends and associates who would describe themselves the same way. Certainly it is true that we are all inclined to generally distrust corporations, to fight racism, to end oppression, etc. But seriously, I've never met anyone who behaves as you suggest. What you have written is a gross caricature of "leftists", it is identical to the lies spouted by people like Rush "The Junkie Fascist" Limbaugh to demonize his political opponents, and is itself nothing more than a silly stereotype with a very limited basis in reality.
$1000 less per pupil, to be exact (Gartner Survey from 2002). If the choice is to spend $5000/student at a public school or spend $4000/student so they can go to a private school of their choice, vouchers save money which can be used in the public school or (god forbid) taxes can be lowered.
I find it amusing that you don't like the idea of people spending their own money (via lower taxes) or given the option of making their own education decisions.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.