The Invisible primary ? the race to raise money ? took an interesting turn last week. Presidential hopeful Howard Dean announced that during the second quarter he raised seven and a half million dollars ? a good part of it over the Internet. The New Hampshire primary is a long way off, and Dean?s insurgent campaign faces an up-hill battle. But as New Hampshire Public Radio?s Raquel Maria Dillon reports, Dean broke new ground with his campaign?s innovative use of web.
Politicians are a familiar sight at Concord?s Barley House Restaurant across the street from the Statehouse. But this crowd is different. They came to hear Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean address his supporters ? via streaming video playing on a computer set up on a bar table.
SOUND Dean desktop video
It was the Internet that brought his supporters here, specifically a website called Meetup.com. Bill Twybill says the campaign emails lured him, and Dean?s message inspired him to donate to the campaign.
TWYBILL :12 Not very much, I?m retired. But a decent amount for me. I?ll be getting more in. I like his health program, environment, economy.
Around the country, at similar meetings organized through the MeetUp website, Dean enthusiasts gathered to write letters to Iowa voters, plan local events, and raise more money.
Dean?s headquarters in Burlington, Vermont is where the campaign staff hatched their new ideas. Campaign manager Joe Trippi is showing off his latest trick.
TRIPPI :05 Casey sit! Would you rather work for John Kerry or be dead? (pause) Good girl! Hehehe?
The white terrier flops down, rolls over, and plays dead. Truly a political animal.
The Dean campaign is trying any way they can to reach supporters online. They?re using cell phone text messaging; they won big in the MoveOn.org online primary; and of course, there?s campaign weblog: blogforamerica.com. It?s a website that?s updated several times a day with campaign news and links. It?s more than you would ever want to know about the Dean campaign. Staffers say the site is successful because users can answer back ? and the campaign listens.
ZEPHYR :09 I?d say 90% of what we do online and off line comes from ideas that local supporters have.
Zephyr Teachout is responsible for communicating with
Dean supporters across the country. She says there are 400 independent listserves, or email mailing lists, plus a couple dozen websites. There?s Brooklyn for Dean, Hawaii for Dean, Nurses for Dean?
ZEPHYR :24 almost all our flyers come from flyers that people themselves have made up. they send us a copy, we check the policy, put our own legal requirements on it and make it available for downloads. People are making suggestions, refining ideas, talking, thru listserves, blog.
Teachout says there was no grand strategy to decentralize the campaign like that, just a willingness to experiment. Perhaps this worked because it evokes the one of the original aspirations for the web ? an egalitarian community where everyone can participate. It also might have helped that that attitude is consistent with Dean?s insurgent campaign message.
University of Michigan professor Paul Resnick studies how people use the Internet.
RESNICK :23 it?s not that the people on the internet are more predisposed to like Dean as a candidate. It?s that the internet is more suited to a certain style of campaigning which Dean has adopted. Get them involved, let them set up own groups, don?t try to control it all from the center. That style of grassroots involvement is correlated with certain political positions as well.
Resnick says Dean?s staff understands that the Internet is more than just a broadcast medium, it?s interactive and it takes advantage of supporters? personal networks. Campaign emails fly between family, friends and coworkers like jokes or weird news stories.
Columbia University journalism and new media professor Sree Sreenivasen says that?s what makes internet organizing powerful.
SREE :15 These are not your everyday voters. We have underestimated what the internet can do in terms of getting people interested in a topic and now getting people to part with their money.
And hit up their friends for campaign donations, and invite them to watch Dean on TV, and go to rallies.
But G-O-P political consultant Dave Carney is not impressed with Dean?s digital campaigning.
CARNEY :19 it?s gotten them 3 weeks of favorable press, gotten them to the 1st tier. I?m sure it?s driving the Kerry campaign to drink. This is Kerry?s state. Dean was supposed to be a fringe candidate. ? if they didn?t have this internet schtick, what would they have?
Carney says the internet always attracts attention and exaggeration. He says anyone who thinks the web can compete with traditional campaign tactics ? such as TV ads and direct mail ? will be very disappointed.
CARNEY :13 QVC channel sells more stuff than Amazon.com. Because everyone has a TV and a phone. The internet is somewhat limited. It isn?t going to take the place of the more traditional forms. It?s just a tool to enhance what you?re doing.
Other campaigns would like to duplicate Dean?s success on the web. John Kerry?s campaign recently partnered up with MeetUp.com.
But if another candidate does exactly the same thing as the Dean campaign is doing online, he might not get the same result. Without Dean?s up-start image and his outsider status, the medium won?t be the message.
For NHPR News, I?m RMD.
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