Try as I might to remain oblivous to matters outside the concerns of newspaper editors, ever so often I have to pay attention to actual news. The last time I did that, though, it was not pretty, but then again, wouldn’t you have a tantrum if you confronted the reality that Arnold Schwarzenegger is the governor of the state you live in? Hey, I quieted down after swearing-in was over.
Oh, wait, this is supposed to be about Howard Dean and his revolutionary approach to presidential campaigning. He’s been using the Web to energize his supporters, who provide him gobs of free campaign support. In a way the crass cynicism of getting people fired up to elect you — when you know these people will be of marginal use to you once the election’s over — is a bit disconcerting, but I suppose all elections have been like this; the fact that it’s occurring to me just now suggests how few thoughts I’ve devoted to the subject.
Of course this starts out with a post by Jay Rosen, who has become the Designated Deep Thinker among journalism bloggers. Rosen credits Ed Cone with writing the definitive piece on why the Dean campaign matters, even if Dean loses. He also links to a New Republic big-picture piece on Dean, more from Dem-blogger Daily KOS, and a Dan Gillmor post from back in August.
Your assignment for today is to bookmark these links and remember to actually read them sometime between now and the Iowa Caucuses. Think how smart you’ll seem when you can crow to your co-workers that you knew all along it was gonna be Dean.
UPDATE: I just finished Ed Cone’s piece, which seems to be missing one critical point: anything perceived good guy Howard Dean can do with technology can be replicated by his enemies (it’s possible I glazed over this part, it’s long article). Team Bush has $200 million and six months to play catch-up. It also has talk radio, the Fox Network and all the warbloggers on its side, plus the population’s inherent tendency to side with the current prez during wartime. The Web knows no politics, it just offers politicians another way to get people to the polls. All Dean’s “he gets it!” cheerleaders are gonna have some crow to digest if somebody really repellant uses all these tools to get elected in the future. As a paid-up member of the International Liberal Media Conspiracy I’d prefer to a Dean to a Bush, naturally, but I can live with either of them. But I do sorta worry about who comes next, because the tools are there for any old crank to exploit (Osama and Saddam spring to mind).
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