With so much praise being given to the Obama campaign for his strategy behind using the Internet to fundraise, organize groups online and essentially, win the election, many forget to offer credit to the political frontrunners that began using technology before Obama to also succeed in their campaigning efforts. While no candidate used technology to the extent that the Obama campaign did, Howard Dean was a pioneer in Internet fundraising and took the first step towards using technology to fundraise online and solicit small donations from multiple audiences.
In his book The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Joe Trippi discusses the power of the Internet in campaigning. His fundraising success speaks for itself: Dean’s campaign began with 432 supporters, each pledging to find one more person to contribute whatever they could to his nascent campaign. Nine months later, his campaign had 650,000 supporters and had raised more than $50 million, in average contributions of $77.
So the question is: can a frontrunner candidate effectively utilize the internet, or is it a tool to be used by underdog candidates?
With the precedent that Dean and Obama already set in place, I think any candidate will need to use elements of technology to stay competitive. A frontrunner candidate may have the needed resources (i.e. money) to use more sophisticated online tools (Google Ad Words, Facebook, video technology), though my guess is, the basic elements of technology – from blogs to a savvy campaign website with embedded social media tools – is no longer something we will study as innovative. These are now necessary, almost traditional tools a candidate will have to use to successfully campaign. It will certainly be interesting to see where technology takes us over the course of the next four years.
This class has introduced me to a new world of political campaigning. Though it is impossible to overlook the power that the Internet has on our daily lives, when studied closely, it is amazing to see how politics has evolved over time – especially with the advent of various technologies.
[The Dean campaign is] the story of dozens of committed people who waged a political campaign unlike any in history. It’s about the things that we did right, the mistakes we made, and the lessons we learned that can be applied to every election, every product, every issue in America. It’s about the man we rallied behind, a politician who had the courage to stand up and question the country’s path when all the others seemed to want nothing more than to hide.
But most of all it’s the story of people standing up and making themselves heard. It’s the story of how to engage those Americans in a real dialogue, how to reach them where they live, how to stop selling to them and start listening to them, how to make better use of the most revolutionary idea to come along since the f irst man learned to light a fire.
No, I’m not talking about the Internet. Or computers. Or telecommunications.
I’m talking about democracy.
- Joe Trippi
