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August 03, 2007
On "Modern" Campaigns
Just wrapped up a fascinating session on modern campaigns, moderated by Simon Rosenberg of the New Democratic Network. (Note: Houtopia was an early backer of Simon's brief candidacy for Chair of the Democratic National Committee.) The panelists were Joe Trippi - of Howard Dean fame - now working for John Edwards, Stephanie Cutter, who did communications for the Kerry campaign, and Jerome Armstrong, an early influential blogger and top-drawer netroots consultant. It was a great group.
Interesting that in a different panel with a different subject, tension with the "MSM" mainstream media bogeyman was in abundance. A number of national reporters were there covering the session, including Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post and Kate Seelye of the New York Times, and both Rosenberg and Trippi pulled no punches ripping their profession for missing the boat on the emerging power of Internet activism. Rosenberg was particularly hot, lambasting the press for characterizing attendees at Yearly Kos as nothing more than "left-wing wackos", rather than modern-day activists responsible for reconnecting millions of disaffected Americans to the political process. It will be interesting to see what the MSM coverage looks like when the presidential show rolls into town tomorrow.
Rosenberg also had much to say on the continuing waste of campaign dollars on network television buys, despite the Big Three's (NBC, ABC & CBS) precipitous decline in market share over recent years. He estimates that cable now constitutes 60% of the market share, and noted that commercial advertisers now spend equal amounts on cable vs. network, while campaigns still choose network TV by a 10:1 ratio. Crazy.
Simon also touched on the budding Hispanic political market, and the unconventional ways to reach Latino voters (DJs, text messaging) that proved successful with the enormous organic immigration rallies that took place around the country in 2006. Lessons to be learned here, for sure.
Trippi focused on the exponential growth of the Web in politics since John McCain first pioneered its use in the 2000 campaign. To put it in perspective, in 2000, McCain signed up 40,000 people online and raised a couple million bucks for his first insurgent presidential bid. Skip to 2004, when Howard Dean had 650,000 sign-ups and raised $59 million in the Democratic primary. Kerry of course went on to leverage that network in the general election. Of course, 2008 candidates on the Democratic side are on pace to shatter those numbers yet again.
Trippi stressed here, as he did in a recent You Tube video we mentioned several days ago, that the GOP is woefully behind in this medium, and has a "deep and abiding" problem. We concur.
Cutter and Armstrong also added valuable insight into what was a most informative afternoon session.
Tomorrow the presidentials! Stay tuned...
Posted by houtopia at August 3, 2007 06:00 PM