Owning the Campaign

I was interested to read The Marketing of the President article about Howard Dean's grassroots internet organizing and it brought up a common theme of this section of the course: Campaign Ownership.

We've already seen how the Amway model or top-down model worked for Bush, but the Dean campaign was the anti-thesis of the Amway model.

Dean's campaign empowered volunteers to register voters and caucus for Dean. All over the country, groups acted in "cells" (as the article put it) to help Dean win the nomination. From letter-writing to making signs or posters, the Dean campaign used many traditional campaign methods. But they did it in a different way than had ever been done before. Dean used his blog and the internet to keep track of the "cells" working on his behalf throughout the country. They also allowed other supporters to link up and meet, free from the traditional heirarchy of the campaign. And most importantly, it was interactive.

Joe Trippi, Dean's consultant, said that the campaign wanted people to feel ownership of the campaign so they did not censor remarks on blogs. The Bush campaign (Amway model) censored some of the internet content on their blog, which would have made it dull and dry. Dean's blog, however, was probably more interesting to read because it lacked censorship. It allowed competing ideas to flow freely - either for or against Dean. Where else in the history of politics could you effectively offer your opinion to the higher-ups if you did not agree with a policy? Or even call out the candidate himself if you wanted? The "Blog for America" made it all possible.

While many consultants would look at Dean's model as "managed chaos," their internet team did a remarkable job of empowering their volunteers. By establishing a sense of ownership in the campaign, Dean forever changed the way that the internet will be used in elections.