Internet will not save Howard Dean - Broder

[question everything]

(snip)

Dean offered the Democratic Party a different model of organizing, a distinctive approach to political mobilization. Its conspicuous failure in its first road tests in Iowa and New Hampshire carries a message bigger than Dean himself. It brings into question the whole notion that Internet-based populism is the wave of the future for the Democratic Party.

(snip)

Trippi's gift was to grasp that the Internet could be used to link these separate supporters to headquarters and, more importantly, to each other, so the energy of their individual efforts would be contagious.

(snip)

It had struck me that what Dean and Ganz and Trippi had created was really a contemporary version of the "O'Brien Manual," the organizing bible that Larry O'Brien wrote for John F. Kennedy's 1960 campaign. O'Brien used the model of Kennedy's Senate campaigns, where the women in his large family hosted tea parties to recruit volunteers, who then were asked to invite their friends to help out in the effort. "You just keep enlarging the circle," O'Brien said, "and as soon as someone volunteers, you give her an assignment."

What I forgot – and I suspect the Dean folks did, as well – is that behind this seemingly spontaneous grass-roots effort was the wealth of Joseph P. Kennedy and the iron discipline of Robert F. Kennedy, his brother's campaign manager. When it was time to get tough in the Wisconsin and West Virginia primaries, the muscle was applied.

In the wake of Iowa and New Hampshire, Dean has abandoned all pretense of a decentralized campaign. Trippi was demoted and resigned. Roy Neel, the longtime Al Gore aide who is now in charge, told The Washington Post that Trippi had "an extraordinary vision in organization and message," while "mine is more about helping bring discipline and focus to an organization, particularly an organization that is under a great deal of stress right now."

(snip)

Broder can be reached via e-mail at [e-mail].

Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/sun/opinion/news_1e1broder.html

[aquart]

1. And his point?

[question everything]

3. Obviously that the novelty of the Internet

was no substitute for traditional organization and experience.

Don't get me wrong. I am grateful for Dean for mobilizing so many voters, especially young ones; for turning the ho-hum campaign into an interesting one. And I do think that the Internet is the way to go. There is no turning back. It is just a matter of incorporating it into traditional (for lack of a better word) campaign.

I think that what finally doomed Dean is that he generated too many negatives. That his intensity finally scared many voters, especially the usually stable non excitable Iowans.

But this is the way history goes. You have revolutionaries, visionaries, mavericks who blast the way but then are being pushed aside by the ones who know how to convert such visions into some kind of orderly way of governing.

Look at the way Microsoft ran with Apple's "point and click" way of working with a computer when it came with the Mac.

[The Zanti Regent]

2. Broder has been brain dead for years.

and he's just like every other whore who writes for the Whoreshington Post!

[BeatleBoot]

4. Broder is spot on

IMO

There is no substitute for face-to-face campaigning.

I like Dean alot and I will vote for him if he's the man this November. He and his wife are very endearing. He mobilized alot of people through the internet.

[0007]

5. I know Border Collies that are smarter than David Border

Kerry will go belly up on some stupid issue and Howard Dean will over take him coming down the strech.