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February 07, 2004 THE INTERNET AND HOWARD DEAN....The LA Times has a story today about the Howard Dean internet phenomenon, whose failure is prompting "painful self-examination" among supporters who were convinced that the internet was going to change everything. Well, we've been down that road before, haven't we? But even so, I have to say that the breast beating is impressive:
Now, although I'm obviously a technophile, I've been in the high tech world my entire life and was an early skeptic of the messianic tone adopted by so many of the mid-90s dotcom folks. I thought The Cluetrain Manifesto was remarkably naive and shallow, that selling cat food via the internet was just dumb, and that market valuations should be based on projections of future earnings no matter what anyone else says. But here's the funny thing: this time I think the internet enthusiasts are being too hard on themselves. It's a given in my business that the best marketing in the world can't sell a product that people don't want, and in the end I think that's all that happened here. After all, look at what the internet accomplished for Howard Dean: it raised a ton of money and generated loads of activist enthusiasm, which in turn bought a huge ground staff, encouraged endorsements from two of the biggest unions around, allowed the campaign to saturate the airwaves with advertising, boosted him to #1 in the polls, and helped fund a 50-state organization that was the envy of every other candidate. In other words, the internet was instrumental in helping build all the traditional mechanisms that elect a candidate. The fact that it still didn't work just means that the candidate wasn't good enough. After all, Phil Gramm raised a boatload of money in 1996 and then disappeared without a trace. It happens. Politics is a funny business and it's hard to know why some people succeed and others don't. But whatever the reason for Dean not succeeding, I don't think the blame can be laid on his internet operation. Without that, he wouldn't have gotten even as far as he did. POSTSCRIPT: Having said all this, I should add that the basic echo chamber critique is valid, although it's worth keeping in mind that all campaigns suffer from it whether they depend on the internet or not. After all, what else kept a guy like Joe Lieberman in the race so long? Posted by Kevin Drum at February 7, 2004 09:14 AM | TrackBackComments
I think they're being too hard on themselves, too. Even if Dean doesn't get nominated, as he said he gave the Democratic Party a spine infusion. That's no small feat given the state it was in, and it's an enormous help to the country. The Dean supporters should feel proud of themselves for that. And I think the internet will only grow as a tool for grass roots nominations and activism. Posted by: DanM at February 7, 2004 09:24 AM | PERMALINKI'm in Iowa. Blaming the internet operation is ludicrous. The internet operation allowed Dean to be in a very clear position to win it all: money, mo, organization. The problem: Kerry had a much better (not bigger, just better) organization here in Iowa. Dean contacted lots of neophytes in (an brought a lot from out of) the state. They were much less effective than the smaller, better targeted Kerry field organization. That's it. Once Kerry won Iowa big, IT WAS ALL OVER. The argument that the candidate wasn't good enough is bogus. Sure, Dean wasn't good enough. But so is Kerry. The difference? Kerry won. Posted by: Alejandro Andreotti at February 7, 2004 09:27 AM | PERMALINKI think HO HO would have done much better if the consevative media did not call him angry and everything else. They were afraid there might have been real change in Washington. Cange can be scarry! There is no chane HO HO will be VP. He has nothing to offer. Check out pandagons take on that. Posted by: chef at February 7, 2004 09:27 AM | PERMALINKIn the game of electoral politics, everything revolves around 50% + 1. But that isn't the only game in town. History shows the disproportionate force exerted by compact minorities. The Dean campaign transformed the entire Democratic field. The internet wasn't the force, it was the vehicle for an emerging independent force. Call it tectonics or whatever. There are forces afoot outside the two-party system that will have their day. Posted by: Jeff Roby at February 7, 2004 09:27 AM | PERMALINKThe recriminations are going to be loud and vehement because a lot of people who weren't rich donated a lot of money and now it's all gone with nothing to show for it. Posted by: apostropher at February 7, 2004 09:32 AM | PERMALINKSounds like Iraq apostrophe I disagree with Kevin's assessment. The problem wasn't that Dean 1.0 (last spring and summer) wasn't a product that people wanted. The problem was that Dean 2.0 (fall and winter) lost some of the luster. Unfortunately for the campaign, the enthusiasm and echo chamber of the movement masked some of the real problems. They didn't realize that Dean had been dragged off message until Iowa. Gore's campaign taught me two things. First, you have to suck up to the media. You may hate them. They may be shallow and lazy. But you have to do it on a personal level. Cultivate their friendships or at least give them silly nicknames. They like that. Second, you have to clamp down on negative press quickly. Here Dean was stronger. But too many supporters assumed that by email bombing Nedra Pickler they could avoid the inevitable Goreings. But in many ways, this may have just contributed to to the antagonistic relationship in the press. Yes, Dean supporters reacted to negative press and got some corrections but, in doing so, they may have contributed to more negative stories later on. When Eric Alterman is complaining that he is getting hate mail from Dean supporters you know something has gone horribly wrong. Posted by: space at February 7, 2004 09:36 AM | PERMALINKAs a younger person, I can attest to the fact that we don't like to vote. Targeting young people is not the way to go, especially in a state with caucuses. Posted by: Brian at February 7, 2004 09:40 AM | PERMALINKAlso, Dean treated all of his supporters the same. There were really two types. First, there were the pissed off moderates and informed citizens who were attracted to a guy who preached fiscal responsibility and cut through the bull shit. This is they guy who had the potential to reach McCain-Perot type moderates. Next were the real Deaniacs who went to the meetups and loved the movement of the thing. Dean's critical mistake was in preaching to the true believers - who were never going to leave him anyway - and driving away the potential moderate voters who saw him as a glorified Nader-Kucinich type. Posted by: space at February 7, 2004 09:42 AM | PERMALINKOne more thing about the internet. I think a lot of people initially supported Dean because they figured that he could raise more money than other candidates and use his vast army of supporters to save money on the campaign trail - volunteers would do many of the things a traditional campaign would pay for. Thus, he would have a war chest and be better positioned to go head to head against Bush. This was the pragmatic, "electability" argument for Dean. But much more than the external factors (e.g the Angry Dean meme, the YEEAARRGH) which were more or less bullshit, finding out Dean's burn rate really was a kick in the teeth. Suddenly it apeared that the internet wasn't delivering a financial advantage -- or at least the campaign wasn't taking advantage of it. That was a blow. Posted by: space at February 7, 2004 09:49 AM | PERMALINKI just think Dean sucks as a public speaker. His bubble of support was word-of-mouth, and I loved the guy's message, but listening to him wasn't enjoyable. I can't stand Kerry's speaking either, but Kerry doesn't have Clark and Edwards taking out his vote like Dean does. Plus Dean went wobbly in January, the churchifying, several awkward quotes played up by the hostile media (who likes its Bush tax cuts thankyouverymuch). Posted by: Troy at February 7, 2004 09:52 AM | PERMALINKFrom a different angle, one thing that liberal wonks have been lamenting for decades is the decline of all the old face-to-face communities where political discussion and proselytizing could take place -- unions, lodges and service clubs, the old church denominations, and (the cliche) bowling leagues. So far these communities have been replaced (for liberals) by nothing. (Conservatives have the "New Churches" which often are pretty contemporary in their use of media and music; they also pioneered internet politics at Free Republic). The Dean internet campaign is a beginning for Democrats learning to survive in the new social world. I'm not a blog triumphalist at all, but the liberal blogosphere does make it more difficult for the RNC to flimflam people. I don't think that the blogosphere quite balances out the fact that the mainstream commercial media have become virtually an arm of the RNC, but without the blogs we'd just be doomed. It's pretty new, too; since I started eighteen months ago dozens of great new sites have popped up. Posted by: zizka / John Emerson at February 7, 2004 09:58 AM | PERMALINKThere's more of this analysis over at PressThink, from Jay Rosen at NYU. Posted by: Linkmeister at February 7, 2004 10:00 AM | PERMALINKGlen Johnson of the Boston Globe nailed it when he wrote this into a recent article: During Dean's visit yesterday to Altera Coffee [in Milwaukee] across a park from Lake Michigan, journalists outnumbered patrons. Dean spoke for several minutes with two men holding a business meeting. As he turned away, one of them, Christian Bartley, a 33-year-old management consultant, said: "Please stay in the race. You and the other guys have been great for the debate." The candidate replied, "If you want me to stay in the race, you have to vote for me." Hope the bloggers remember that for the next time. Posted by: Ara Rubyan at February 7, 2004 10:06 AM | PERMALINKAra: All that tells me is that, unlike Phil Gramm, people do like Howard Dean. They've just been sold the false bill of goods that Kerry is more electable. I've lamented the fact that this was due, in no small part, to the failure of the party to embrace Dean as a genuine representative. Yes, Vermont is a small state. But, guess what? There are no longer Democratic governors in Florida, Texas, California, or New York. There are slim pickings for Democrats these days. And most people prefer governors. Hell, even if Davis was still in Sacramento, he sucked hard. Posted by: space at February 7, 2004 10:15 AM | PERMALINKI agree with Space's comments above, but the central problem is not clearly stated -- Howard Dean was not ready for prime time. The BFA and DFA echo chamber obscured the fact that Howard Dean was an undisciplined candidate. He'd said many things that could (and would) be used against him, and it wasn't until a week before Iowa that the campaign tried to control Howard's mouth. Had Novemeber and December been used to sharpen the message, and teach Howard Dean the importance of thinking before speaking, he might be cruising towards the nomination. They didn't, and they failed -- Joe Trippi bet the campaign on Iowa, and it was a bad bet badly made. The Dean use of the Internet was brilliant, but it was no substitute for the rest of the components of a successful campaign. By the time they realized the problem, it was too late -- the scream was wall-to-wall on the media, driving Dean's negatives to never-never-land. Posted by: Charles K at February 7, 2004 10:15 AM | PERMALINKTroy, I think the 'going soft' came at the wrong time. He lost focus. I cringed when he started exuding religiosity, especially as it was he who promised to marginalise 'god, gays and guns' as election issues. I think the Internet echo chamber didn't help him, but the media echo chamber was the real kicker, with words like 'electability' and 'gaffes' coming up regardless of his efforts to rise above them. I think the 'gaffes' have been key already in undermining Bush's reelection prospects and giving renewed conviction to Democrats (even if it manifests in a big phony like John Kerry), but may have cost him the chance to amplify them as the Democratic nominee. But where would we be if he'd stayed quiet? Posted by: Chris at February 7, 2004 10:16 AM | PERMALINKSuperb analysis, Kevin. I completely agree. And though Dean got his share of sandbagging by opponents and the media, ultimately, knowing how these things work and building the team and instincts to contend with the inevitabilities is an important part of leadership. I've not written off Dean yet. I want to see what Neel's ads look like in Wisconsin to see if Dean's re-tooled properly. He's a longshot, yes, but he's been a longshot before. And no matter what happens, Dean lighting the fire under the Dems to make 'em stop sounding like lukewarm Republicans... and Trippi's use of the Net for grassroots funding are both things they deserve enormous credit for, despite the mortal missteps made. Posted by: Kevin Hayden at February 7, 2004 10:24 AM | PERMALINKI sort of agree Troy's comments -- Howard Dean is a terrible public speaker, when he is on the spot. In the debates and in media interviews, HD was consistently the worst of the bunch. When he speaks to friendly audiences, Howard Dean is a rock star. I drove to Albuquerque for the September Debate, to see if Howard Dean was the real deal. By the time it ended, I was in oh-my-god mode; he was flat-out bad. But at the supporter event afterwards, he was great. These problems could have been addressed, but they were ignored -- until after Iowa. By then, it was too late. A lot of this has to do with Howard Dean being a "hot" personality, and TV being a "cool" medium. Meaning, anyone who wants to communicate via TV needs to control their emotions, and put on their best beauty-queen-smiley-face. Bill Clinton is great at it, GWB is okay, but Howard Dean never learned -- he always plays to the audience in front of him, rather than the larger audience out their in TV land. And that's why we need to leverage Howard Dean into a spokesman for the DSCC and DCCC and the Progressive Voter Registration Projects. Howard Dean can be the George Patton/Creighton Abrams, to John Kerry's FDR & IKE. Posted by: Charles K at February 7, 2004 10:29 AM | PERMALINKPossible thread hijack here: selling cat food via the internet was just dumb ...well, pets.com failed, sure, but it's become a commonplace now that it was a ridiculous idea, and I'd like someone to explain why. Pet food is: -- a commodity Faced with all this, the idea of allowing people to buy their pet food in bulk and have it delivered sounds promising. Certainly it sounds promising (a priori) compared to buying books online, where you'd think that losing the experience of browsing in a bookstore would be fatal. Obviously, Amazon's amazing web site has overcome that. But I repeat: aside from knowing now that it failed, why should it have been obvious 5 years ago that pets.com was doomed? Really, what you had this time out was a situation where really Dean had it coming from ALL sides. The media was focused on his negatives, while Kerry/Edwards co-opted his positives. No candidate would win with that sort of storyline. (It's similar to what got Gore in 2000. The media were focused on the negatives while Bush co-opted the positives. It really is an electoral winner). And yes, it's about getting off nmessage. They really were pulled off-message. I think the biggiest naivite 'tho was thinking that they could go head to head with the news media. Maybe some day, but that day isn't QUITE here yet. When "Cluetrain" came out, I was actually one of the first to see it..the day it was originally released. You know something? I still believe it's the way of the future. It's the way things will have to be. There is eventually going to be a BIG backlash against business as usual. Eventually, wihtout knowing it or not, one company will adopt some of the principles, and have massive success with it. Things such as overseas technical support (To be honest, that's the front line in this..that's where people are going to get fed up with it), are going to cause the backlash. They'll demand more for their services..not just the pierced depressed Gen-Xr or the half-asleep Wal-Mart clerk. They'll demand a higher level of service. Posted by: Karmakin at February 7, 2004 10:52 AM | PERMALINKDonBoy:The big difference in that, is with Amazon, it was a creative good. It was something that people actually talked about on the internet, and could easily link to their pages. It may still be the best information repository regarding books. Movies? Netflix, frankly is the killer business app. Amazon does not have the edge there, as most people link to IMDB for a movie. Music? Who listens to music anymore? Games? Links to gamerankings.com usually. Posted by: Karmakin at February 7, 2004 10:56 AM | PERMALINKSpace insightfully writes: First, you have to suck up to the media. You may hate them. They may be shallow and lazy. But you have to do it on a personal level. Cultivate their friendships or at least give them silly nicknames. They like that. Too true. Fame's effect is a fascinating subject. Even the most vigilant can be distorted by its presense. These media folk inhale the fumes of fame as a living. Their humanness can't help but be foreshortened by the bright lights. A candidate, distorted too by fame, must somehow simultaneously realize his own sickness and that of the reporting body before him. And he must do so in a way that is not false. If bush has a genuis, it is his ability to "lay back his ears" and humble himself before the strongest of the media hounds. Does Kerry have this skill?
The primal scream was warranted--a bubble had just popped--but should have been done in private. But after that moment--for the media--Dean became America's class clown appealing only to the eternal sophmore in all of them. Very sad. Very highschoolish. But alas, very true.] Posted by: -pea- at February 7, 2004 11:19 AM | PERMALINKI don't get at all the notion that Dean accomplished something. A year ago John Kerry was considered the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. That is still true. Is Kerry anti-Bush? Well sure, how the hell else can one defeat an incumbent? Arguing that Dean caused that isn't compelling. Sure Comet Dean raised 40 million, and somehow that "fiscal conservative" blew it all and got his a** whipped. So what's the big deal? Posted by: spc67 at February 7, 2004 11:24 AM | PERMALINKThe "failing" of Howard Dean had nothing to do with over-reliance on the internet, a so-called bubble or any of that crap. Repeat after me, 10 times slowly. It's the media Stupid. How many times was the "yell" played on TV? I could go on and on. This is not to say Dean has run a perfect campaign and bears no responsibility, far from it. However, had he ran a perfect campaign I still think he had no chance with the current media situation. So again, please stop letting the media off the hook, if they wanted and decided to actually present the truth for even a week, Bush would have an approval rating in the 20s and Kucinich could wipe him out. Posted by: sid at February 7, 2004 11:28 AM | PERMALINKMany excellent comments here. Dean failed strategically and tactically in a multiplicity of ways, and his personality never had a chance to connect - 'space' above hit it right. The Dean movement, though many of its members were far too taken with web boosterism and candidate/campaign as political therapy, has shown the way toward new models of organizing and fundraising. There is a lot to build on. Posted by: jacko2 at February 7, 2004 11:31 AM | PERMALINKalso: many Dean supporters who became activists were not well trained. That can be changed. If they want to continue as operatives, they should go to Democratic Gain and Emily's List for training. They're held around the country. Next cycle they can become real pros and learn a lot. Posted by: jacko2 at February 7, 2004 11:34 AM | PERMALINKspc: Dean's "Can Anyone Tell Me Why..." speech in Sacramento in March 2003 really lit his candle wrt the field, at least for those of us paying attention. Dean caught our eye, and our good wishes with that speech, especially the "I'm tired of listening to fundamentalist preachers!" part. Fundies suck, but saying this is still political suicide once your message goes primetime, apparently. Posted by: Troy at February 7, 2004 11:36 AM | PERMALINKFundie churches are an amazingly coherent political bloc. I went to one for Christmas Eve, and the pastor actually worked in a reference to Rush Limbaugh ("I was listening to Rush Limbaugh and heard..."). Rove is counting on 20M fundie voters this year, that's 20% of the electorate. Posted by: Troy at February 7, 2004 11:41 AM | PERMALINKThe recriminations are going to be loud and vehement because a lot of people who weren't rich donated a lot of money and now it's all gone with nothing to show for it. We do have something to show for it. We re-framed the debate, re-directed the campaign, and will have a stronger Democratic candidate to show for it all. My donations to Dean were well-spent. PS--You're welcome. Posted by: NTodd at February 7, 2004 11:41 AM | PERMALINKKarmakin: Yeah, Amazon's site -- as I said -- is outstanding. I still don't know why pets.com was doomed, though. Maybe I'm reading too much into your post, but are you thinking that pets.com's problem is that shopping for dog food will never be as much fun as shopping for books? That may be a good argument, although I bet it's possible to put together a fun web site for pet people, some of whom are pretty obsessive, in a Friday-cat-blogging sort of way. After all, petsmart.com is still with us. Posted by: DonBoy at February 7, 2004 12:09 PM | PERMALINKDean raised $40 million. That's exactly the point. He spent it unwisely - or maybe he was just out-maneuvered. But if you re-wound the clock and then deployed that $40 million differently, Dean could be the nominee. Posted by: Density at February 7, 2004 12:25 PM | PERMALINKwhose failure is prompting "painful self-examination" The only mistake of the Dean campaign was to tell the truth to the American people. About not being able to do everything people were promising unless you rescinded all Bush's tax cuts, about the irrelevance of Iraq to the security of the US, about Saddam's capture being irrelevant to our safety,.... Posted by: BobNJ at February 7, 2004 12:56 PM | PERMALINKYour reference to Phil Gramm's sudden disappearance from the Senate (waddling away with all those campaign contributions) is inapt. He no doubt was informed by his strange bedfellow, Enron-Boardmember-insider Wendy Gramm, that the Enron connections might prove politically fatal in Texas. And it's sure he got some significant Enron funding up until he quit the race... Posted by: Kaliope Karu at February 7, 2004 01:01 PM | PERMALINKYou can also look at the Dean phenomenom this way: All of the grassroots efforts in the world are no longer enough to counter the massive power that cable TV news has in shaping political dialogue in this country. Dean has been courting to wrong constituency. Like Kerry, he should have ignored the voters and gone straight to lobbying influential members of the national media. Posted by: Aaron Gillies at February 7, 2004 01:06 PM | PERMALINKI've thought long and hard about Dean and the comments on the board and I think I'd come down somewhere in the middle. I'd like to protest the description of the dean followers as young and looking for dates--there must have been some of them, I don't know, but the Meetups I went to, taking time out of my busy post-date life with two kids and a husband--were largely full of people in their forties and fifties who were emphatically not looking for a way to spend a night out. We liked Dean, we loved his directness and his message, and we liked being given something to do to fight back against Bush. That, to me, was the key both to dean's fundraising and his early popularity: he was literally the only candidate who was asking for help pushing back against Bush. And you felt that your contributions, however small, were going right into the fray. I loved the way Dean's campaign would ask for money to run an agressive add against some recent right wing insult. Man, I'd give money every day to the the DNC is they were doing it. But I hated the adds. I would have liked better adds and better speeches for Dean. I didn't want to see him toned down, I wanted to see him made more marketable while still maintaining his hard line. But here is something else to remember: Dean and his campaign actually were taking the long view of things. They sent people to their local party caucuses (I'm going as a delegate in the spring to our state convention) and they were using the internet and the meetups to inform people about how to get involved in a gr assroots on the ground way. Show me another campaign that was doing that? They were relying either on pulling in new people without training them (and didn't do even as well as Dean) or not bothering because, like Kerry, they have all the insiders they need. I differed from Dean on many, many political points and I chose him with my eyes open because I thought he was a dynamic, attractive, and determined candidate who would fight back against Bush and I still believe he could have done it given a slightly different placement of the primary season and either fewer vicious attacks from the right and the democratic party or a miraculously better ability to turn those to his advantage. I know Kerry, and I hate him--I am one of the many Mass voters who can say that and do say that--but i'll vote for him. Its not "dated dean and married Kerry" its wanted Dean and a better life, shotgun marriage to Kerry" for me. Posted by: aimai at February 7, 2004 01:39 PM | PERMALINKThe internet was a double edged sword for Dean. While it may have been an asset in rousing interest and volunteerism, not to mention cash - the average curiosity seeker who stumbled upon the open forum was certain to be turned off. On the night of the "scream", I checked in and saw that the place was flooded.... endless chattering up of assinine conspiracy theories, the juvenile namecalling "troll!" towards anyone with a dissenting viewpoint, the overt Bush bashing. This was not a good indicator of the type of sobriety expected of a serious candidate, and don't think for a minute that it hasn't had a significant effect in undermining his momentum. Posted by: Kate at February 7, 2004 02:47 PM | PERMALINKI agree with Space and a few others here. I was and maybe still am a Bush supporter in the war on terror, but lately I think he's taken it as far as he is capable of. So what I was looking for is someone I found reasonably tough and someone who, unlike Bush, is conversant on most issues and can sound like he's not following the teleprompter - ala Kerry. Every interview I read and saw with him was terrific, as he just candidly answers the question, much like McCain did. (See the current Rolling Stone interview) As an aside and an example - in the NPR debate a few months ago, the question was asked "Should snowmobiles be banned from national parks?" Personally I know little about this, but assumed that the issue is that they are noisy and destroy vegetation, but it seemed to me that they ought to be OK in certain areas. Well, all the candidates just said "yes" instantly, seemingly without thinking and presumably giving the PC answer. What Dean said was "I'd say yes, but I'd leave that decision to the park manager." This is a guy who thinks and considers. Why would the guy I just decribed felt it necessary to hoot and holler after coming in 3rd in Iowa? I think he was catering to the crowd that email-bombed journalists and whined every time someone brought up his temperament. Anyway, I'm sad that he's pretty much done for.
i don't think it's about any bubble bursting, i think he's just started speaking the truth, stepped outside of the political box with which our current political/social mechanism is comfortable with - and the corporate media has effectively disappeared him. maybe he didn't even mean to, to begin with, but was compelled to by a simple force of nature welling up which just can't absorb any more deception and bullshit. so now the "media" has just shunted him off to the side with Kucinich, et al. are we going to let this happen. or maybe we can just be content to choose our president from a roster of "bones men" from now on. Posted by: berkeley b at February 7, 2004 03:12 PM | PERMALINKAs a volunteer in the Dean campaign, I can say that I never thought much about the internet and I certainly never thought that the "Internet was going to change everything". Email groups and a blog seemed like the thing to do. Would you start a business and not have email? If you had access to affordable collaboration software wouldn't you use it? If you had access to a scheduling tool for meetings wouldn't you use it? The real story is that 100's of thousands of people got involved in the campaign on their own initiative. No one can figure out why. so they credit it to the Internet - and pretend that they're insightful. One thing though is that having all the supporters so well connected makes them easy targets for activists from the other campaigns who wish to convert them. They tried to turn what were organizational tools meant to help run a campaign into forums for debate and conversion which was a pain in the ass. Posted by: dorsano at February 7, 2004 03:20 PM | PERMALINKThe kind of simplistic analysis that seeks to isolate one very visible characteristic of a phenomenon, in a vacuum in terms of all of the other factors, is the best way to describe this nonsense. First, the Internet caused a great buzz for Howard Dean, and, in terms of the affect on likely voters, in terms of polls, it served a function of putting Dean on top in terms of name and numbers. If anything though, Dean peaked too fast, as he became so popular, the other main candidates, except for Lieberman, pretty much accepted the Dean emphasis on issues and the agenda, appropriated them into their campaign, and then played dirty and took advantage of the Big Media characterization of Dean as "angry" and having a "bad temper" by being the sane and positive alternative. The Internet phenomenon actually worked in terms of the issues and agenda, influencing and shaping the platform, and, as far as Dean, he was sunk because he was characterized as the wrong guy, or messenger, for the job, and for nebulous and false reasons of character and demeanor. The Democratic Party mainstream was complicit in not defending Dean against this Big Media coverage, and what we discovered is that the Internet can only do so much at present in terms of influence as compared to the "push media" of television and radio. Now, you hear from the Democratic Party that we should stick up for the Democratic candidates, and specifically the frontrunner, against unfair attacks. Sorry, I'm not buying it. My memory can't possibly be that short. The Internet did not fail Howard Dean, the integrity of the Democratic Party and Big Media did. You can't blame Big Media, since Howard Dean came out and said he would downsize them, so the answer there is to do something about the nature of Big Media and how it is so successfully positioned to champion its self interest. As for the Democratic Party, there is no excuse. Sure Dean was calling them out, but the bottom-line is that the party, and the chairman, have lost a lot of credibility in my opinion, because the best time for the party and candidates to have stood up to Big Media was in the most clearly egregious case of their treatment and mischaracterization of Howard Dean, with Fox News actually running a "breaking news alert" that Howard Dean had cut off a rabble rouser at a rally who he had let speak for a number of minutes already without a response. In an adult, modern democracy, a major news network had a "breaking news alert" that Howard Dean, a presidential primary candidate before any vote had even been held had "lost this temper". Boy, somebody had Howard Dean at the forefront of their attention, didn't they, and even before the first caucus or primary. Dean made a mistake here too, by not at least individually defending himself and making an issue of the whole "angry" and "temper" meme by using Fox News as the absurd example masterstroke. Since he didn't, when "the scream" happened, he was not already on the offensive in calling Big Media directly on its lies and mischacterizations, and for the first few days had little ability to counter the dominant interpretation of a standard campaign rally that was conceived as a setup by Drudge and Rove as a perfect way to further spread the meme or virus that Dean was "angry". Posted by: jimm at February 7, 2004 03:38 PM | PERMALINKThough neither Drudge or the RNC could have anticipated the added bonus of "the scream". Posted by: jimm at February 7, 2004 03:41 PM | PERMALINKTo answer your last question: matching funds. Posted by: praktike at February 7, 2004 03:50 PM | PERMALINKjimm:>"You can't blame Big Media, since Howard Dean came out and said he would downsize them, " Wrong. I can blame the Big Media. They are quite blameable. We can blame group or individual who does something that's both wrong and also in their self-interest. Having a self-interest is no excuse for having no ethics. However, we should't be surprised. Posted by: Joey Giraud at February 7, 2004 05:41 PM | PERMALINKThere's a name for politicians who blame the news media for their misfortunes: "losers." Finally someone "gets it" The "failing" of Howard Dean had nothing to do with over-reliance on the internet, a so-called bubble or any of that crap. Repeat after me, 10 times slowly. It's the media Stupid. But there more to story... Corporate America decided that Dean must be savaged, and its media sector made it happen. Read this editorial that has excellent perspective THE AWESOME DESTRUCTIVE POWER OF THE CPM ( CORPORATE POWER MEDIA ) rachelrachel, love the generalization. thanks. how do you think that Dean came to be considered "unelectable", "angry", and with poor temperament? again, thanks. Posted by: jimm at February 7, 2004 07:21 PM | PERMALINKChris K: but lately I think he's taken it as far as he is capable of. Couldn't agree more. Thank you, George. We'll take it from here.Now there's a mnemonic that works. Show grace and gratitude in the first paragraph thereby giving his supporters cover to bail out, then wham him with uninspected container ships and whatever else says "out of his depth," then tie a bow on it: Thank you, George. We'll take it from here. 90-second stump speech. Posted by: fouro at February 7, 2004 07:23 PM | PERMALINKWhile it is certainly tempting to blame failure of some faceless outside force, it is hardly constructive to do so. Did the media play a role in Dean's demise? Yes. Were they the sole reason for said demise? No. Does Dean himself and the Dean campaign itself bear some of the blame? Yes. Wake up Deaniacs and stop blaming the bogeyman for everything. Posted by: Eric at February 7, 2004 07:30 PM | PERMALINKI see "blame the media," but not a lot about why? Howard Dean was a viable product thanks to a medium that has them all confused about the future of their business: His success negates their self-ascribed gatekeeping function and confirms their fears of looming irrelevance and devaluation. Visit their feelings toward blogs: Uppity everymen, and -women, with the information harvesting power that only Nexis/Lexis and clipping services could bring up until recently. And cheap distribution. And "no accreditation, no editors!" Heavens. Since the demise of the backroom for primaries, etc, the press has been a "real" player, not just reactive, and they like it. It makes them feel... "special". Threaten someone's specialness or become a proxy for that threat, and they'll come after you with more than words. Corporate America didn't kill Howard Dean, they were just the arms dealers. Posted by: fouro at February 7, 2004 07:40 PM | PERMALINKFrom my observations of national tracking polls, nationwide support for Dean, Edwards and Clark has been fading since Iowa at about the same rate. If we're going to blame the Internet or the media for Dean's collapse, why hasn't Edwards or Clark emerged as the clear anti-Kerry in Dean's stead? Posted by: Seth Gordon at February 7, 2004 08:52 PM | PERMALINKJust had a drink with a neighbor who went downtown to hear Clark, Kerry and Sharpton speak. "...in thirty years of politics I've never seen a group of people, who can't even agree on what kind of pizza to order, want to kick the same guy's ass so badly" He's an old-line Virginia democrat, which means he's a Republican in 20 other states. Tuesday should be interesting, November even better. Posted by: fouro at February 7, 2004 09:37 PM | PERMALINKWhat do you mean it didn't work? It was incredibly effective. It's not a question of why wasn't it effective. It's a question of why wasn't it sustained? And the answer is that it worked so well it drew a big indelible bullseye on Dean's back that his competitors fired at over and over and over. Then the media piled on, as usual, and Gored him with the scream -- a scream which when played back with any kind of fidelity to how it played in real life was a complete non-event but which the media whores twisted and twisted and played over and over and over again until Dean was successfully slandered and the world was made safe of consolidated corporate Kool Kids once again. Posted by: The Fool at February 7, 2004 09:48 PM | PERMALINKAlthough CharlesK's analysis pretty much says it all, I'll add two items to the list of why things haven't gone better for Dean: 1) Not enough sleep. Dean wasn't thinking clearly when he needed to think outside the stump speech box. 2) One huge missed opportunity after the scream speech. If ever there was a situation calling for eloquence, this was it. He had the ear of the entire media. He should have said he was vocal in rousing his supporters, just as he, as President, would raise his voice for the American people. Yes, fragments of that idea surfaced, but they weren't well put. Imagine a real "I have a scream" speech written out of all his and his supporters' passion. Instead, he meekly admitted he hadn't acted Presidential and read a contrite Top Ten list. I don't excuse the tv media from reading their scripts. Posted by: Matt at February 7, 2004 11:50 PM | PERMALINK"Politics is a funny business and it's hard to know why some people succeed and others don't." Yes, it's truly hard to understand the effect of all the Dean bashing done by the party establishment, from the Al Fromms in the guard towers to the kapos like Kerry, Edwards, and Gephardt. My, but it's also hard to see why the media was so scathing. Oh, what a funny business politics is. Can someone please explain it? Posted by: Zhe Mappel at February 8, 2004 03:51 AM | PERMALINKI should add that I'm the last to say that the media is solely responsible, and also that I'm not a Deaniac. I was interested, however, in seeing Dean get a fair shake, and for reasons that I thought his platform and organization were the best out there (but, one must see how things develop). This is why I was desperately bombing his campaign and blog to DIRECTLY confront Fox News when they ran a "breaking news alert" that Dean had "lost his temper" when cutting off an individual he had already let speak for several minutes. Directly confronting Fox News would be the best way to call attention to their idiocy, the overall unfair coverage of Dean as "angry" and so on, the fact that George W. Bush has a bad temper and a "mean streak" that has been previously reported (but seemingly not acknowledged now), and to force the Democratic Party to take a stand one way or the other against unfair media portraits and characterizations of its candidates. Dean didn't hear these warnings, or didn't heed them. Instead of raising a million bucks plus by circulating the screenshot that Tom Tomorrow had taken of the Fox News "breaking news bulletin", the Dean campaign ignored it and by doing so were not in a position to fire back when "the scream" happened (since, if they had brought it up when the Fox News bulletin came out, the other news organizations would have commented about Fox News doing this (a great opportunity for them to pile on a competitor) and would have been more wary of the public opinion of airing "the scream" 653 times since Dean had made it a focus of his campaign a week earlier that Big Media were scared of him because he wanted to downsize big media corporations. Whew! Dean didn't do any of this, failed to rally other Democratic candidates behind a common cause (or make them look bad for not joining in or commenting), and was left vulnerable. With that said, that's a criticism of Dean for not doing everything he could to deflect the influence of Big Media in undermining him. All you have to do is look at the evidence and you will see that the primary reason for Dean being seen as unpresidential and losing in the image game was his negative and untrue portrayal by Big Media as angry and not having presidential temperamant. There were other reasons, but anyone who wants to argue, based upon the evidence and the record, why Dean's popularity declined in terms of his being "presidential" is welcome. I will debate anyone on the matter, upon any notice, in any forum, and that's that. If you want to take up this challenge, more than name calling will be needed. Posted by: jimm at February 8, 2004 04:43 PM | PERMALINKAll that aside, Dead did win the ideas and issues battle. If Kerry wins on experience, perceived sanity, the cooptation of sizable portions of Dean's message, and his battle against "special interests" (a laugher), so be it. Dean won the battle of ideas, and lost the battle of style, though even this loss is imaginary, since his real style too won out, but the style that the media and other Democrats appropriated onto him lost. That's the game, but I'm only interested in the message, ideas, and platform anyway. Thank you Howard Dean! Posted by: jimm at February 8, 2004 04:49 PM | PERMALINKOnline Casino : Virtual City Casino - Vegas Palms Casino - Fortune Room Casino - All Poker Casino - The Sands Casino - 49ER Casino - Show Down Casino - Vegas Towers Casino - 7 Sultans Casino - River Bella Casino - Online Casino Bonus - Penis enlargement pills - casino 3k Internet Shareware: Evidence Eliminator - Internet Eraser - History Kill Posted by: Virtual City Casino at July 1, 2004 12:04 AM | PERMALINKBest XXX Sites - Best XXX Sites - |
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