Sunday, February 3, 2008
Mousepads, Shoe Leather, and Hope; Is Huckabee the Republican Version of Dean?
As I mentioned yesterday (in my last rant), I read "Mousepads, Shoe Leather, and Hope: Lessons from the Howard Dean Campaign for the Future of Internet Politics" this past week. I unfortunately did not have the opportunity to read it prior to Wednesday's class, when we were going to be discussing it, because of the fractured onlive v offline world of half.com. In a virtual world where instantaneous gratification with e-commerce has become the norm -- per my shopping habits -- the delima of needing to wait two weeks for the USPS to deliver a tangible good purchased online when all I really need is a soft-copy frightens me. Ode to the music industry parable. But, back to my book review.
I echo the points made in class about the book. Beyond it's over-arching bias that Dean is/was/still could be the savior of the Democratic Party and/or the World, the book had some interesting gems. First, I was surprised to learn that Howard Dean wasn't the mastermind of the '04 Internet strategy that brought the Vermont governor to nationally recognizable status and a formidable opponent to Kerry and the other Democratic hopefuls. I found some elements of the book to be mildly inconsistent to that point and to fact:
1) The glaringly incorrect references to "Action Alerts" being a phenomen of 2004 were hard to look past. I was using them in my trade association, through a license agreement with an online advoacy group for years preceeding 2004, and as discussed on Wednesday, Capitol Advantage had been offering that service since 1996. I could agree that that in '04, the practice of using email action alerts for grassroots broke past the tipping point and reached a critical mass, but that wasn't their arguement. They said it was a new technology.
2) The introduction mentioned that Dean could hardly operate e-mail when the campaign kicked off but in the interview with him and subsequent chapters it was unclear about who masterminded the plan. Obviously Joe Trippi should and is given credit for leveraging Meetup and for the fundraising success, but they also credit dumb luck as a factor. That was my arguement while reading "The Tipping Point" last week; that sometimes all of the stars need to align for their to be a credible "hope" for a plan like Dean/Trippi/JoeInternetUser's to work.
While reading the book, I couldn't help to also draw the comparison of Dean to Mike Huckabee. Obviously these two politicians views on issues are on polar opposite sides of the liberal/conservative litmus test scale but their characters and personas are quite similar. Both candidates peaked early and the traditional and new media outlets overly hyped them up as spoilers or underdogs that could take the whole she-bang. But the ol' rabbit vs the turtle metaphor didn't pan out for Dean and it doesn't look like it is going to for Huckabee either. But the turtle-y (can i use that as an adjective???) wisdom of both and both of their success has catipulted both from small state governorship obscurity to major party powers.
Dean became Chair of the DNC after the race. Yes, he was Chair of the National Governors Association but that didn't get him the job...his charisma and success in '04 landed him the position. Huckabee too looks primed to be a contendor for McCain's vice-president. Huck's conservative base and their mutual public respect for each other will certainly make it a strong ticket in '08. And I can't see McCain picking Guilini (too polarizing and doesn't win McCain any states he couldn't pull on his own) or Leiberman (I think he's still a democrat and wasn't he the VP-nominee for Gore a few years back...I can see that tearing him apart in the debates). So it's back to the guitar playing, constitution changing, disbanding the IRS preaching, former baptist minister from Hope, Arkansas. It's a strong ticket that would certainly give Clinton problems and for those ignorant Americans who would have issues voting for a minority (woman or African-American) the McCain/Huckabee ticket certainly appeals to their demographic.
All could be told in two days as Super Duper Tuesday unravels the clear leader for the Republicans. I don't think much will change with the Democratic side. I'm pretty certain it's going to to the DNC convention...and that brings us back to Dean (the savior of the party)!
I echo the points made in class about the book. Beyond it's over-arching bias that Dean is/was/still could be the savior of the Democratic Party and/or the World, the book had some interesting gems. First, I was surprised to learn that Howard Dean wasn't the mastermind of the '04 Internet strategy that brought the Vermont governor to nationally recognizable status and a formidable opponent to Kerry and the other Democratic hopefuls. I found some elements of the book to be mildly inconsistent to that point and to fact:
1) The glaringly incorrect references to "Action Alerts" being a phenomen of 2004 were hard to look past. I was using them in my trade association, through a license agreement with an online advoacy group for years preceeding 2004, and as discussed on Wednesday, Capitol Advantage had been offering that service since 1996. I could agree that that in '04, the practice of using email action alerts for grassroots broke past the tipping point and reached a critical mass, but that wasn't their arguement. They said it was a new technology.
2) The introduction mentioned that Dean could hardly operate e-mail when the campaign kicked off but in the interview with him and subsequent chapters it was unclear about who masterminded the plan. Obviously Joe Trippi should and is given credit for leveraging Meetup and for the fundraising success, but they also credit dumb luck as a factor. That was my arguement while reading "The Tipping Point" last week; that sometimes all of the stars need to align for their to be a credible "hope" for a plan like Dean/Trippi/JoeInternetUser's to work.
While reading the book, I couldn't help to also draw the comparison of Dean to Mike Huckabee. Obviously these two politicians views on issues are on polar opposite sides of the liberal/conservative litmus test scale but their characters and personas are quite similar. Both candidates peaked early and the traditional and new media outlets overly hyped them up as spoilers or underdogs that could take the whole she-bang. But the ol' rabbit vs the turtle metaphor didn't pan out for Dean and it doesn't look like it is going to for Huckabee either. But the turtle-y (can i use that as an adjective???) wisdom of both and both of their success has catipulted both from small state governorship obscurity to major party powers.
Dean became Chair of the DNC after the race. Yes, he was Chair of the National Governors Association but that didn't get him the job...his charisma and success in '04 landed him the position. Huckabee too looks primed to be a contendor for McCain's vice-president. Huck's conservative base and their mutual public respect for each other will certainly make it a strong ticket in '08. And I can't see McCain picking Guilini (too polarizing and doesn't win McCain any states he couldn't pull on his own) or Leiberman (I think he's still a democrat and wasn't he the VP-nominee for Gore a few years back...I can see that tearing him apart in the debates). So it's back to the guitar playing, constitution changing, disbanding the IRS preaching, former baptist minister from Hope, Arkansas. It's a strong ticket that would certainly give Clinton problems and for those ignorant Americans who would have issues voting for a minority (woman or African-American) the McCain/Huckabee ticket certainly appeals to their demographic.
All could be told in two days as Super Duper Tuesday unravels the clear leader for the Republicans. I don't think much will change with the Democratic side. I'm pretty certain it's going to to the DNC convention...and that brings us back to Dean (the savior of the party)!
Labels: Barack Obama, hillary clinton, howard dean, John McCain, Mike Huckabee
// posted by Jason Langsner @ 12:42 PM 
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