I have invested enough of my ego and my career on the Internet that I do not want to see "Internet campaign" become a term of political derision, like "Al Gore's endorsement." So, even though I thought that Howard Dean was the second coming of the Internet Bubble and was bound to burst sooner or later, I was sad to see him do so poorly in Iowa.
My guess is that Iowans tend to cast their votes based on personality. It's sort of like the article I read recently about job interviews, which said that studies show that a good rating at a job interview tends to correlate with being liked by the interviewer rather than with job performance. I think Iowans decided that Kerry and Edwards were nice and folksy, while Dean failed to connect. I don't think that the caucuses really sort out issues or message.
But the Internet smart mob proved to be far less potent than even I would have expected.
I'm really not that surprised by the outcome. I never bought that his campaign was that fundamentally different. Winning at party politics is still all about the dirty work, getting out the vote, manning the phones, etc etc. Back in my political activism days I would happily stay up until 2 AM working on the state party web site that I maintained. But I don't think I ever went to any rally or political type function in my 2 or 3 years of helping out. I suspect Dean has many people like me. Glad to work, and work hard, if they can do it from the comfort of their computer. Those folks can't win you an election though. Not yet anyway.
Posted by Chris ODonnell on January 20, 2004 09:02 AM | Permalink to Comment