Howard Dean's fatal system error

[wyldwolf]

If Howard Dean were an Internet company, would he be the smash success of eBay, or the now-defunct Pets.com? The momentum Dean established over the summer and fall bore a striking resemblance to the straight-up curve of the dot-com boom. But, post-Iowa, that curve is pointing in a different direction, and now the question is, as was the case with so many of those dot-coms, was there every really a good product beneath the hype? Or is Dean really just buzz, nothing more than a pet food-selling sock puppet who, buoyed by his campaign's Internet savvy, momentarily came to seem like a really good idea?

Now that Dean has lost a little bit of his luster, it may be the fate of his campaign to suffer endless comparisons to the dot-com crash. Live by the Internet, die by the Internet. Before he became a hit, Dean's Internet strategy -- composed of blogs, Meetups, e-mail groups and countless other Web-based doodads -- was dismissed by his rivals as nothing more than gadget obsession. Then, in the summer, when the Web began paying off for Dean, pundits hailed his digital sophistication, and his rivals leaped into the chaotic blogosphere. Now, conventional wisdom regarding the Internet's power in politics may be poised to shift again. After Dean's poor showing in Iowa, how can anyone still argue -- as some of Dean's supporters were maintaining just a few weeks ago-- that the Internet has fundamentally altered the playing field of presidential politics?

On Tuesday morning, reeling after Iowa, some of Dean's fans were asking similar questions. On Dean's blog, supporters wondered whether, in their passion for the former governor, they may have missed signs of danger on the ground. "All those worries about whether you were preaching to the choir on the blog -- yeah, those were spot-on," said one supporter, identified only as Natalie. "We got really excited about the movement and forgot about the candidacy. It's all well and good to cheer each other on, but clearly that's not enough. If 'the movement' doesn't translate into votes, it's a tempest in a teapot. In Iowa, this campaign was clearly not a revolutionary change in politics so much as a 600,000-strong exercise in navel-gazing. So let's talk about what we're going to do about it."

Others said that Dean's online community -- which can be thick with insider jargon -- had the air of a cult, turning off outsiders. "The heavy duty over-the-top cheerleading of 'us' drove a lot of people away,' wrote Darwin Overson, a 37-year-old Dean supporter in Salt Lake City. "People are looking at over-the-top supporters and saying, I don't want to be one of them. It reflects on Dean poorly ... We should no longer be Deanies, Deany Babies or Deaniacs. We are Dean supporters."



http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2004/01/21/dean_internet/index_np.html

[On the Road]

1. The One Good Thing for Dean This Week

is that he is still the center of media attention. Inevitably, this translates into votes.

[Democrats unite]

2. Yep tranlsate into votes for the other candidates.

eom

[Dookus]

3. Now be fair....

John Hinckley may get a day-pass on election day and vote for Dean.

[fshrink]

4. Too bad we can't bet!! ;>) (nt)

[Feanorcurufinwe]

5. What Howard Dean learned -- or did he?

On Dean's blog on Tuesday, supporters didn't seem to be leaving Dean -- but many were clearly disappointed, and they offered many ideas for the candidate. The most popular one seemed to be "Be positive!" as one poster wrote repeatedly. Howard Dean should lose the anger and start talking about his record, many advised.

"We all learned lessons in Iowa," says Jeff Jarvis. "Howard Dean learned the biggest one -- stop being an asshole."
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2004/01/21/dean_internet/index.html

ROTFL!!