Lawrence Lessig wrote recently in Wired magazine, "When they write the account of the 2004 campaign, it will include at least one word that has never appeared in any presidential history: blog." He goes on to say that "the blog may be the first innovation from the Internet to make a real difference in election politics." He specifically points to the Howard Dean campaign as the model for success, and for good reason. As Lessig puts it, "The trick is to turn the audience into the speaker." That is exactly what the Dean campaign has done. Howard Dean's blog has made his supporters feel as though they are an integral part of the campaign team by allowing them to leave comments on blogs posted throughout the day. Until this Presidential campaign, most voters felt removed from the political process. Well, most probably still do, but blogging has proven to be a way for a voter to keep track of a candidate on a daily basis, and to let that candidate, his staff, other supporters, or potential supporters know exactly how they feel about those day to day activities.
Lessig is certainly right to point out the Dean campaign. Dean was the first candidate to really tap into the power of blogging, and until recently he was the only candidate who was doing it successfully. What happened to cause some of the other candidates to start blogging? Well, it has been clear for a couple of months now that Dean's campaign has demonstrated an extremely successful grassroots campaign online. So, all the other campaigns started paying attention to what Dean's campaign was doing. It is a good thing they did. You may have heard that Dean raised almost 15 million dollars in the third quarter, almost all of which was from online contributers. They all want a piece of the Dean action.
Many will argue that Dean's success is more to do with his consistent criticism of going to war in Iraq, or that he has tapped into an anger that has long been brewing in the liberal wing of the Democratic party. I think those two things are indeed true, but I think that blogging has also been a key to his success. I know that might sound like a hard pill to swallow, but think about his base: mostly young, middle-class white people. These are the people most likely to spend time online.
Dean has been running as an outsider, but the way that he has been most successful has been to make his online supporters feel like insiders, and blogging is the way that he has done this.
Now, supporters of John Kerry will want to say that Kerry has had a blog up for months, and they are right. The problem with Kerry's blog was that there was usually only one entry a day, sometimes not even that, and very few comments accompanied those entries. However, if you go to John Kerry's blog today you will find that it has been improved greatly. His campaign blogs about half a dozen messages a day, and there might be as many as 150 comments on any given blog.
Gen. Wesley Clark's campaign got off to a slow start, but quickly had a functional blog page up just a few days after he announced he was running. The problem is that his blog is inconsistent (much like his campaign has been thus far). Some days they may run one entry, others they may have six or seven. Even the comments are inconsistent. When I was there I saw a range of about 30 to 530 comments on any given blog (Incidentally the blog with 530 comments was about designing a new logo for the blog).
John Edwards, who is really suffering in the polls, has made a valiant effort to join the other candidates in the blog world. Unfortunately, his campaign is asking you to create an account before you look at their blog. They offer you a short list of the most recent blog entries that you can look at without registering, but it is too short (when I was there it was a list of three). Still, I gathered from what I saw that the Edwards' campaign leaves only a few blogs a day with anywhere from 10 to 20 viewer comments, but the really great thing about Edwards' blogs is that each blog has its own page and the comments are displayed right underneath the blog. That is, I think, an even better way to make supporters feel like an integral part of the campaign.
Dick Gephardt hasn't seemed to learn much of anything from Dean's successes. He seems to be one of those that believe that Dean's uprising has more to do with voter anger than an online grassroots effort. So, Dick has tried to tap into some of that anger that he believes makes Dean successful (Hence all the "Miserable Failure" rhetoric), but Dick has it all wrong. After a quick search of Dick's website, I did not find a blog link anywhere. Dick, I think this makes your campaign a miserable failure.
Also, Joe Lieberman, who has had serious trouble raising money, does not have a blog. He does, however, have a campaign diary that he contributes to a few times a month, which is absolutely worthless.
It just goes to show you that when candidates get caught running a campaign without their eyes open, like Gephardt and Lieberman, they will pay the price. Both of these guys have chosen not to take Dean's lead like the other contenders have, and this will be to their detriment. Mark my words, the Democratic Presidential candidate will have a blog, and he better have a damn good one if he expects to be President.