Red All Over

High-tech disingenuousness

From a AP article on a Cahill-Mehlman forum at the Kennedy School:

Both sides also agreed that the Internet and other emerging news technologies have transformed the political process by making it more democratic and encouraging more people to become involved.

I certainly hope so, but you couldn't tell that from how they ran their campaigns. I got nothing but a constant torrent of lame fundraising asks from Cahill and/or her candidate via e-mail, and while I never successfully subscribed to the Bush list, my understanding is that they excelled in distributing tawdry attack ads they didn't or couldn't broadcast. Yawn.

Political pros, particularly at such a high level, are concerned with precisely two things -- raising money and winning votes. Which is fine -- it's what they're paid to do, and they do it well (well, at least Mehlman does). What drives me nuts, however, is when they try to fashion themselves as elder sages focused the health of the republic by repeating vague conventional wisdom.

The internet has significant potential to turn highly-motivated partisans into donors and door-knockers, and both campaigns did that with some success. But there's nothing particularly revolutionary or democratic about that. Neither of them showed any real interest in using the internet to invite meaningful participation in the campaign process, which is revolutionary (and seems to pay off in fund-raising in a big way, if the Dean campaign is any indicator).

Maybe I'm sleep deprived and reading too much into a single paragraph in a wire story. It looks like archived video from the forum in question will be available online (last week's forum with Joe Trippi already is), so I'll reserve final judgement until then.