For reasons that I don’t quite understand, I feel duty-bound to enter the “YouTube Debate” debate, even though it’s a subject that I care very little about. I think it was Patrick’s post in the wee hours of the morning that finally stirred my conscience. Patrick frets that Republican candidates and campaigns aren’t developing the internet infrastructure they’ll need to be competitive with the Democratic juggernaut on the other side.
To illustrate his point, he looks back to 2004 when John Kerry’s online supporters erased what everyone thought would be an enormous Bush edge in fundraising. Patrick recounts, “The Kerry campaign planned to wage a conventional Democratic campaign in 2004, being outspent by the Bush machine by 2 to 1 or more. Until something incredible happened. Kerry became the nominee, and the money just started pouring in from the Internet, and it was enough to almost match the fearsome Ranger-Pioneer apparatus.” Patrick then quotes former Kerry apparatchik Zack Exley:
However, if any of the GOP campaign managers are expecting the same thing to happen when their guy emerges as the (2008) nominee, they’re setting themselves up for one big disappointment. What they need to realize is that the potential for online fundraising and mobilization that the Kerry campaign worked to maximize had been entirely created by the progressive movement at large: the blogs, MoveOn and other large and small online grassroots organizations and the campaigns of the other primary candidates, above all the Dean campaign.
As Joe Trippi noted the other night in Charleston: that online base-building process has not yet happened on the right. Walking away from the YouTube debate is just one more way that the Republican establishment is stubbornly refusing to get started.
I COME HERE TODAY not so much to talk about the YouTube debate, but to address the subject of spurring online activism. First, one minor quibble with Patrick’s history of 2004. Savvy, non-self-aggrandizing observers (a category which likely excludes Zack Exley and definitely excludes Joe Trippi) knew Kerry would raise as much money as he needed as soon as he sewed up the nomination. Why was this? Because the Democratic base was extraordinarily eager to defeat George W. Bush; it was willing to open its collective wallet as much as necessary to do so. Please note, John Kerry did not provoke this enthusiasm. He was its beneficiary, but it arose not because of him, but in spite of him.
The reason I boldfaced the Trippi quote is because he has the process precisely backwards. Campaigns and consultants and national parties don’t and can’t do online base-building. The political tactics of “the Republican establishment” will have precious little do with the development of a fearsome right-roots entity. Trippi’s comments are obviously self-aggrandizing, suggesting that some deliberate planning by guys like him built the Progressive internet juggernaut. But that’s not how it happened at all.
The development of an online grassroots base must necessarily be a bottom-up phenomenon. The Daily Kos arose because there were hundreds of thousands of angry people looking for a place to vent and become involved. Same thing with Moveon.org. It happened spontaneously, without a master plan, and it came from the people. That’s the way it was on the left, and, when it happens, that’s the way it will be on the right.
To offer another example, take the Ron Paul on-line phenomenon (please). This movement’s rise has had nothing to with anything the Cuckoo-for-Cocoa-Puffs congressman or his campaign tactically did. It came from the people. Lonely, desperate, pathetic people to be sure, but still take note – it has been a bottom-up phenomenon.
WHY IS THERE NO REPUBLICAN ON-LINE COMMUNITY to rival the Democrats’? As I often urge politicians and campaign workers, read the blogs. That’s where the grassroots are, and they’re proffering their opinions for free.
The right wing base is, to put it mildly, dispirited. The two most prominent Republicans over the past seven years, John McCain and George W. Bush, have made a habit of maddening the base. None of the presidential candidates electrifies the base.
Here’s the key point – the Democratic base in 2004 was energized. Super-energized. It was so energized that even a stiff like John Kerry could instantly tap into it and raise tons of money and have genuinely enthusiastic backers. Once again, it didn’t become energized because of Democratic campaign tactics. Will the same thing happen for the Republican nominee? Only if the enthusiasm is there.
So what’s this have to do with the YouTube debate? Nothing. Republican candidates and politicians can’t develop an online community by pretending to care (or even actually caring) about things like YouTube. Nor can they do it by having nifty websites or even interesting campaign blogs. A conservative online community that rivals the Progressive one will only develop when conservatives are as motivated and passionate as liberals have been the past five years.
Here’s some more bad news: It’s a lot easier to be motivated and passionate when you’ve been steamed about being out of power (and a million other things) for the past seven years. Our problems are a lot more profound than the ones Patrick lists like our campaigns’ collective failure to turn out Sopranos knock-offs or to catch Democrats saying “macaca”. Really now - would it make a hill-of-beans worth of difference if our candidates began announcing their candidacies on-line instead of on “Larry King”?
Should the Republicans do the YouTube debate? To that question, I offer a resounding “Eh.” Speaking personally, I think when you’re seeking office you should try to present yourself in only the most favorable light. With goofy YouTube videos running cover for CNN’s agenda journalism, one can easily imagine several questions being asked at the CNN/YouTube debate that would never be asked, and indeed have no rightful place, in a mature political dialogue. Overall though, this is an argument about what I consider not-particularly-interesting political tactics, precisely the kind of debate that always fails to blow my hair back.
Sorry to say, the reason that Democrats like Obama and Clinton have raised so much more money on-line (and off-line) than their GOP counterparts has nothing to do with the way their campaign’s embrace or use new technology. Both on-line and off-line, Democrats are a lot more enthused about ’08 than Republicans. That’s a real problem, and there’s no technological or tactical fix to it.
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