Michael H Goldhaber on Thu, 11 Dec 2003 09:18:57 +0100 (CET) |
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<nettime> The Dean campaign and the Internet |
Nettimers: Howard Dean , by the current looks of things, has done something amazing in American political history . Without being President or Vice President he apparently has sewn up a major-party nomination before the start of the election year. Things could come unglued, and part of the earliness of his success may simply result from campaigning starting earlier and earlier in successive election cycles. Still, considering Dean's having come out of nowhere (well, Vermont) much of his success seems to be based on his highly sophisticated use of the Internet: as an organizing tool; for building support; as an extremely successful means of fundraising; and to hold his supporters together. Further, as the New York Times Magazine ( http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/07/magazine/07DEAN.html ) points out, his campaign has a sort of technological coordinator who has volunteers writing new kinds of software for new modes of Internet connection. This has apparently helped him develop a far more flexible, complete and complex organization in early primary states than any predecessor or competitor. For non-Americans, I should add that the primary system as it now exists is extremely weird, unrepresentative, and dominated by a handful of small states. It is generally thought that if one candidate wins both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, this candidate is essentially guaranteed nomination. However, a "front-runner" who somehow does not do as well as expected, especially in New Hampshire, can sometimes be viewed as the loser even if actually ahead in the vote there. The guess is though that Dean's support is so much stronger and deeper in both places than anyone else's that such a turn around is quite unlikely. He also seems to be ahead among Democrats in South Carolina, even topping the charismatic Senator Edwards from neighboring North Carolina. I bring all this up in the hopes that nettimers will discuss this model of politics via the Internet and what it might portend/teach. -- Best, Michael Michael H. Goldhaber # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net