Shirky compares Hillary to Oprah Winfrey: Voters will react against her by the millions, in public

[StefanX]

Social-software expert Clay Shirky says the situation with Hillary now is like when Oprah's fans rebelled against her when she acted like it was no big deal if one of the writers she promoted wrote his "autobiography" by making things up. Now the voters are rebelling against Hillary because she's acting like it's no big deal if she wins the "nomination" by stealing it. What Oprah and Hillary failed to factor in was "social software" (the Internet) which means that not only can she talk to us, the voters -- but we can also talk amongst ourselves, and we are, by the millions, in public, and what we are saying to each other is this: it is a big deal when a politician wins a "nomination" by stealing it.

http://www.shirky.com/herecomeseverybody/2008/02/senator-clintons-million-littl.html

Senator Clinton's campaign has launched one of the oddest bits of political propaganda in the history of modern politics. Called DelegateHub.com, it is a web site that does nothing less than lay out, in glorious policy-wonk detail, their rationale for stealing the Democratic nomination.

DelegateHub is a mix of tone-deaf assertions about superdelegates ... and endorsements from politicians who support her goal of thwarting the will of the voters.... The idea that the campaign would spend its precious time, money, and energy in a public rebuke to voters in their own party suggests that they really don't understand what we are objecting to. ...

Remember ... James Frey's 2003 memoir? When important chunks turned out to be fiction, the most interesting public reaction didn't happen to Frey, it happened to Oprah Winfrey. Winfrey had praised Frey's book on air, selecting it in 2005 for her prestigious book club and adding millions to its sales. When the scandal broke in early 2006, she went in front of her adoring fans with what might be called the Hollywood defense: "Everything done for public consumption is a little bit fictionalized anyway. That's how it works. If Frey went farther than most, well, what's the big deal? As long as the book made you feel real emotion, what does it mater if the events didn't all actually happen?"

This did not go over well. Winfrey's audience turned out to care a great deal about the truth; writing about being in jail for three months, while never actually having spent even a night there, struck them as a violation of trust. Prior to 2006, Winfrey might have been able to weather the discontent she created in her audience with classic political techniques -- go publicly silent and deal with the complainers in private and one at a time ("Dear long-time Oprah fan, We were very sorry to get your recent letter...") A couple of months of that, and the whole thing should have blown over.

But it didn't, because of the internet. Winfrey had embraced the internet as a way to talk to her fans, and to let them talk back to her (or at least her staff). What she hadn't understood, 'til Frey, was that her fans were also talking to one another, not just in book groups of five or eight, but by the thousands, in mailing lists and bulletin boards all over the net. When her fans reacted, they reacted in public, and once they could see how general their anger was, it emboldened them. They didn't back down, it didn't blow over, and in short order, Winfrey, the most universally beloved television figure since Walter Cronkite, had to call for a do-over, this time going on air and castigating everyone involved on behalf of her fans.

Which brings us to Senator Clinton. Faced with fears that she may be planning to ignore our votes, she has gone public with what we might call the Washington defense: "Of course I'm planning to ignore you if you don't vote for me, because I want to win. That's how it works. If I get elected by seating the bogus Florida and Michigan delegates, and convincing party members to vote for me no matter what you want, well, what's the big deal? As long as the process selects a candidate, what does it matter if it isn't the one most of you want?"

This will not go over well. Democratic voters turn out to care a great deal about process; Gore's Electoral College loss in 2000 was a calamity, and the idea that that sort of end-run might be perpetrated on us again by a member of our own party strikes us as a betrayal of trust. And there is no way to integrate Florida and Michigan after the fact, because no competitive election took place there, so no one knows the will of the people in those states....

And of course, the Democratic voters are starting to talk to one another about this, not just in groups of 5 or 8, but by the millions and in public. Given the Clinton campaign's willingness to use the rules of the election to undermine the its purpose, that public conversation is going to get louder, and when the voters see how general our anger is, it will embolden us, forcing a reaction. ...

Mods: Shirky's blog is licensed under Creative Commons, so I hope it's ok to quote more than 4 paragraphs!

[MojoMojoMojo]

1. Obama followers dont care that Obama Lies

He implies that hes not influenced by big business .He says he takes no lobby or Pac money."%90 of his donations are from small $25-50 donors."
He tried to decieve supporters into thinking hes a populist financed candidate.
When in fact he takes as much corporate funding as Hillary.
Not ever going to jail seems like a pretty small lie in comparison.

[Lucky 13]

5. Show me

Can you point me to any evidence you have about Barack taking corporate or PAC money?

[Why Syzygy]

2. Yeah .. and

MSM didn't care about Frey. They care about the election.

[DURHAM D]

3. Wow - what a stretch of logic.

I will have some of what he/she is smokin'.

[anamandujano]

4. Nice fantasy, if the writer has to put his spin on her words, he's just a liar.

Conversely, they have to spin Obama's words everytime he says something stupid, to make it more palatable for the public.