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The Internet, Media and Politics
Several people submitted an interesting column on Davenet about the differences in methodologies of the Dean campaign and other primary campaigns. Of course, the analogy doesn't have to be strictly Dean - it can apply to any candidate who breaks from the traditional norms of campaigning. and while I think people have been saying since 1996 that this is the year of the Internet in politics, for me this is the first *real* use of the Internet in a meaningful way. In any case, the question of productization in politics is a very real one, and should be discussed.
Apart from the horrid word, it's hardly a new process. Every electable official since the days of... well, since there were elections, has been a product shaped to win a constituency.
Dean did well using the Internet was because his constituency was one that relies on the Net for news and views.
But he failed for the same reason: he still spoke to a minority. For the majority, presidents have to be Presidential. In todays' world this means good looks and charm and political skill.
Expect future party machines to use the Internet much more, yes, but don't expect future presidents to be any less chosen on their ability to look good on television.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
"On the Internet, this card will confirm all the information required to gain access to a state (government) network--while also barring anyone who isn't legal age from entering an adult chat room, making the Internet safer for our children, or prevent adults from entering a children's chat room and preying on our kids...Many new computer systems are being created with card reader technology. Older computers can add this feature for very little money," Dean said.
Source. Scary... the man is looking to displace Bush, and he's more Orwellian in thought. Read the article.
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Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
"In any case, the question of productization in politics is a very real one, and should be discussed."
In a couple of years or so, we should be able to bid for our representation, much as goes on with the corporate sponsors, although I think they should wear badges to make such things obvious.
As for Dean, he was doing quite well until Trippi advised him that big, nasty lockdowns on personal PCs was the way to go, coincidentally somethng that Wave Systems (Trippi's company) would have cleaned up on. Palladium/DRM from a Democrat?
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
I won't bother getting into a political shootout over this so here's my two ^*. The last place I would want to look towards when thinking of the pResidency, votes, voters* (and any variation of this) would be online. How many articles have you seen on Diebold, and all of the quirks associated with things political.
Wait before you shoot some quick response, I know this has little to do with voting so let me shift. Using the net in the fashion Dean has, is nothing new, he's probably the only one smart enough to publicize it though. Remember, many Americans aren't that literate when it comes to computing as it is, so think about this... Who are his real followers, and one has to know these numbers the Dean camp or whomever can be tweaked.
E.g.: Dean2004.com or whatever sites associated with them show 1,000,000 visitors for February. Oh really? How many unique visitors, etc. Don't throw out numbers without backing it. Secondly, when it comes to computing, for all you know, there could be some 13-17 (under the voting age) kids playing around with Dean & Co. No you say? Prove it. Who in Dean or any camp can say with a straight face "We've attracted 1,000,000 legal aged voters that live in America" that would be a flat out lie. Even if say "cache.bigcompany.com" (where Big Company was a Fortune 500 co.) connected to someone's party, how do you know it's not a misconfigured proxy allowing anyone to connect.
Dumb users spread viruses. Irrelevant? I definitely think not. I would not look to the net for the next best thing "politically" for a long ass time. Now when someone decided to post "this is the first *real* use of the Internet in a meaningful way" ... They should have thought up something more meaningful like medical studies or something similar. My personal "REAL USE" of the internet would be the sharing of information on the educational level a-la MIT's Open Course Ware, and other projects similar to that. However I think medically it's underdeveloped and could rock. Think distributed dna sequencing type stuff.
Oh well my ramblings for the day
MoFscker
As a platform for political wheedling, the net could change the dynamics of voter behavior very much, but only in conjunction with REAL online voting.
What happens when, like telephone proliferation in the US, reliable net access is in the hands of vitually all americans and unique, verifiable online identifiers are adopted for users? Online voting is just the first - and most obvious - step. Politicians (and PACS, grassroots orgs and radicals as well) could cheaply distribute and track effectiveness of their messages. Most importantly, they could more easily gather vote paydirt from the largest (and previously unreachable) voting majority in the US - the non-voter - who I argue is just too damn lazy and busy to walk to thier local elementary school and push a button.
What if there was a link from Dean's blog to a "voting proxy" system which would cast your vote online for you on election day - even if you forgot? take away unidirection persuasive material and physical polling places and you'll have voting weirdness the likes this country has never seen.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
In the last election in Sweden there was one new party called Fria Listan (the Free List). They were depicted as populist libertarians in the media. I think that had some truth in it, but at the same time I liked some of their ideas. They said they wanted to get away from the old party politics with lots of money spent on politicians going around the country holding speeches on public plazas and so on. Very 1950s...
This new party tried mainly to spread their ideas using the web and writing articles and letters in newspapers, both because they couldn't afford traditional campaigning and because they thought this was a more rational way in the modern age. They did generate some media attention, so I think a lot of people would at least have heard of them.
So how did it go? In Sweden we have many more parties represented in parliament, if you get more than 4% nationally or a certain percentage locally, you get a minimum number of seats in parliament. This makes voting for a small party more attractive unlike countries like the US where the winner get everything and therefore parties tend to be reduced to two mainstream, close to the center parties.*
Total number of votes for the Free List in the election? About 500, from a population of 8 million. Of course, their politics might influence this more than their method of communication, but I was still surprised at how incredibly small the number was. Joke parties like The Donald Duck party have been known to get more votes. Their web page (http://www.frialistan.st/) is now gone.
* Of course, the downside of our system is the tendency for weak coalition governments with lots of internal bickering, and special interest parties gaining disproportionate powers because they can tip the scale between bigger parties which are evenly balanced.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
You know what, I had cancer too, and I showed up for school. In fact over 5 years of chemo, the majority of it carried out either 90 or 550 miles from home, I only missed 30 days of class in 5 years. The worst year of my cancer I missed 4 days of school, now the Senate doesn't meet near as often as 5th grade does, but I'd expect he could make more votes, as he was able to campaign at the same time and his treatments took place in D.C.
The cancer card doesn't get my sympathies for Kerry, if he was really into serving the country and carred for his family, he would have retired from the Senate to get treated.