Anyone who has worked on campaigns can tell you that the smaller the office, the greater the reward for the work. A campaign for city council provides the greatest impact for the work of the individual, while a volunteer in a presidential campaign works hard to keep from concluding that he is just a drop in the bucket. Campaigns are traditionally top-down affairs, and the very notion of those at the bottom being in control is simply absurd, by all acceptable notions.
This election season has thus far seen a surprising development: the rise of Howard Dean as a frontrunner at the expense of John Kerry. Why has this happened? Dean's campaign managers recognized that the Internet presented an opportunity to do something not yet seen before, a major grassroots presidential campaign, buzz spreading from one computer to the next. While the other candidates were busy courting unions, interest groups and high-power endorsements, Dean's campaign went after rank-and-file Democratic voters over the Internet and by word of mouth. Using this method, they have led the pack in fundraising on small donations and generated media attention that is further causing rival campaigns to choke. The strictly top-down presidential campaign may be a thing of the past.
A recent news event further demonstrates this. Early this year, a former activist with liberal group MoveOn, John Hlinko, grew dissatisfied with the field of Democrats, and decided, as a sign of his discontent, he would put up a Web site called DraftWesleyClark.com. Clark, a retired Army General and former Supreme Commander of NATO, had been traveling the country and giving speeches against President Bush's foreign and domestic policies. A rumor was circulating that he was interested in a political career, so Hlinko's site contained information on General Clark, a form letter for people to send urging him to run for president, and other resources.
The last thing Hlinko expected was that other people had the same idea and were setting up their own Web sites, or that tens of thousands of people would end up sending those letters. They even raised enough money to run radio and TV ads in New Hampshire, as well as commission a Zogby poll showing potential for a candidate with Clark's background. They sought to put out a message to Clark that there existed an audience for someone like himself, with their letter-writing, volunteers and donations to back it up.
One could easily dismiss this as simply proving there were a lot of crackpots out there, but it wasn't that simple. As Clark kept traveling around the country, more and more people paid attention to him. He spoke before unions, the New Democratic Network and various liberal groups. Some members of Congress then started saying great things about him. A consensus formed that Clark was the odds-on favorite for the vice-presidential nomination in 2004.
Then something else happened. ??Clark began meeting with political consultants, many of whom had worked for an obscure southern governor making a late start in the presidential campaign of 1992. ??Bill Clinton made a much-noticed remark that the Democratic party had \two stars,"" Hillary Clinton and Wesley Clark. Congressman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., one of the most powerful Democrats in the House, indicated that he would round up endorsements for Clark. Yesterday, Clark declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president.
What was dismissed as an interesting novelty, the draft sites have actually succeeded in their goal and created a serious candidate for president. I had the chance to interview John Hlinko over the summer, as a Clark candidacy was looking near-certain, and he gave me an interesting perspective on all this. ??
""People are empowered to have a movement like this in a way that really wasn't possible before. In the same way that the Internet has enabled a series of markets that simply could not have existed before the Internet, like eBay, for example. ??Maybe this is the eBayization of politics,"" Hlinko said.
Clark's candidacy faces a multitude of challenges. He has to raise a lot of money, and fast.??Name recognition itself will not be a problem, as the free media in the last several days is probably just the tip of the iceberg, but he will have to campaign non-stop in key primary states. His grassroots following must be merged with the campaign organization, run by people used to the top-down model. Whatever happens in the coming months, Dean's grassroots following may have been outdone; instead of a candidate creating an Internet presence, an Internet presence successfully created a candidate.
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