TITLE OF PAPER: Digital Democracy #1 URL OF PRESENTATION: N/A PRESENTED BY: Joe Trippi REPRESENTING: Ex-campaign mgr of the Howard Dean campaign CONFERENCE: Digital Democracy Teach-In DATE: Monday February 9, 2004 LOCATION: San Diego, California -- Westin Hortin Plaza, California Ballroom -------------------------------------------------------------------------- REAL-TIME NOTES / ANNOTATIONS OF THE PAPER: {If you've contributed, add your name, e-mail & URL at the bottom} {Don't forget to put personal comments in brackets to distinguish it from a summary of the presentation itself.} Press: couldn't figure out what the Dean campaign was, but now feel they're qualified to decide if the Dean campaign succeeded. [KM surely the voters decide that] Mistake to buy into broadcast spin. Broadcast politics has failed the country miserably. [Except on the net, no one is discussing the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.] Nixon-Kennedy set stage for TV - took people out. Dean campaign was trying to change $2000 check system whereby it no longer mattered what real citizens thought, only who you could get to give you money to buy TV time with. Only one platform that allows the American people to take the system back, and that is the Internet. It's not gonna' happen on CNN or in the LA Times. It's going to happen because millions of Americans decide to act together. Still believes that Dean has a real chance in Wisconsin and turning this into a fight all the way. [TEC: I don't know if I believe that - let's not forget that this thing gets reported on and it would be a pretty major headline if Trippi said that Dean's campaign was effectively over.] there's a reason we don't have health care in tis country and it's not because it's the wrong thing to do, it's because the large-scale corporate interests don't want it. [km wtf - plenty of health care here; you don't see people flying out of the US for specialist treatment...][ds: he means single-payer, gov't run health care][KM: I know, but the rhetorical formulation is very revealing IMO] This is not a dot com crash, it's a dot com miracle. We started January 1 with 7 people, 152,000 dollars and 432 known nationwide supporters. He wasn't even an asterik in most of the polls. He was at 0 in Iowa in the polls. Howard Dean broke Bill Clinton's record in fundraising in the third quarter. [But it's not about money, right?] [ds: Here's what Trippi's said about money in the past (ref:): "And we are not trying to kid anybody -- particularly anyone here -- we know we ain't perfect -- and that we don't get it all -- but we are trying to get it -- trying to reach out to everyone using every tool we can -- because as someone who you will probably regard as a political hack -- who has worked on 6 Presidential campaigns -- I can tell you what you already know -- ITS ALL ABOUT THE MONEY -- The only way to put power back in people's hands is for the people to buy their government back. A million to two million Americans contributing $100 each or whatever they can -- will be a force that will not only win the Presidency -- but will also strike enough fear into everyone else in Washington -- that we can change our country's politics. The biggest challenge is to cut through people's cynicism -- nothing will change if we can not get beyond that and get people to participate in their self-government again -- and believe that together we have the power to protect our rights, and our civil liberties, and reclaim our government."] Meetup is one of the more important lessons of the Dean campaign. Tools online that fuel energy offline. The campaign wasn't happening on Russert, it was happening over the water cooler and the dinner table, and the media didn't understand that. Meetup.com [moveon?] taught the campaign a lot. They wanted to share their best practices with anyone who wanted them. The scream tape ran 933 times nationwide. It wasn't news, it was entertainment. That was damaging, not what the governor did, but what the media did. Now they're apologizing. Now they're the ones saying "This didn't work." But it did work. Other candidates are "borrowing" Dean's message. Dean energized the democratic party. Where would the party be if Dean hadn't gotten in this race. Bush is vulnerable today because of the blogs, because of Howard Dean, because the debate is hapening in this country again. Broadcast politics is on the wane. The media jumped the shark the first time on the war, and they jumped the shark on the Dean campaign. What's going to happen now is something that must happen for democracy. Our democracy is really threatened right now in ways the people haven't grasped yet. You can't have a system that's all about big money. FEC stat: Republicans raise more money under $100, $1000, $10000, up to a million. Over a million, it's the Democrats. [TEC: I think this figure is wrong reported here - I'm pretty sure over 1million it was the republicans too. The democrats, I thought, were getting money for people at the really-low end? Did I get this wrong? (JK: It's true; the GOP historically rules small-dollar fundraising. Think Rush Limbaugh, Church Drives and lots and lots of direct mail) BS: you might check www.opensecrets.com or www.tray.com. ds: my recollection was that these were the #'s Trippi gave, but he thought that it *should* be different] It's a betrayal of the people's party. The Dean campaign turned that on its head. [Answering my earlier question...]It IS about the money. [ds: read the quote of Trippi's I pasted in above. BS- I did. And I agree. I was just playing devil's advocate.] If less than 1 % of Americans donate $100, it'll change the system. The Dean campaign is at 670,000 people. A 'you guys...' moment coming see tnh: Hunt Comission (post-Carter) set up Democratic primary system so that no one could get nominated again that wasn't "blessed" by the Democratic establishment. The current primary calendar was set up by this same group in order to get an establishment candidadate nominated. If you can win Iowa & NH, you are the establishment, and that's what Dean was trying to do. What happened was Al Gore endorsed. It wasn't a bad thing. It didn't make Dean's anti-establishment campaign establishment, but it led to the other candidates beating up on him and the media putting him through the ringer. Conspiracy theory - media said "kill Dean now." [It might be conspiracy theory, but what did happen was that everyone did hit Dean hard simultaneously.] "Iowa wasn't a dot com crash or dot com failure. It was a dot com miracle being shot down." "You have done something absolutely amazing. It must survive regardless of what happens to the Dean Campaign." Anecdotal things: an email " I sold my bike for democracy - $79 sent to campaign" put 50 signs up "Iowa for dean etc - 3 minutes later: they forgot 'Puerto Rico' - fixed that - 'Americans abroad for dean' - This all happened in ten minutes. Bryant Park rally, at the end of the Sleepless Summer tour. 45 minutes before, someone on the blog said that Dean should take the stage with a red bat and say, "You did it" to mark raising a million $. In that time, a staffer found a red bat, got it to the rally, and gave it to Dean to take onstage. The blog commenters knew that they were being listened to. Do I buy the garbage that 3500 orange hats put Iowa off? No. We sent 1000 people in for Mondale before; 3500 out-of-staters wouldn't be that different. [KM he lost too, right?]In some states, out of staters would matter, but Iowa's not one of them. [TFS Q: Does the Dean campaign offer aggregate data on the types and origins of their donations and the social metrics of their blog/contribution site (eg. for social science)?][ds: I don't believe so] [BS: They've released some data in spurts on the blog, but nothing overarching.] [TFS It seems like if we're to really learn from what's happened, that it would be important to have logs and interview people running the sites to find out where to go next, yes? Anonymous, of course.] It drove me crazy that the blogosphere... There has to be some way to unify people so we are all working for the same thing "No one's going to change the country for you, we have to do it for ourselves." [deanies stand up and clap][ds: Not just the Deanies.] about 25% stood up, so that is more than Dean's share yes ;) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q&A: Q:What worked in terms of software in terms of getting out to vote? A:Tools that let people online work together offline. We experimented with everything under the sun. Deanlink, was like friendster. The top person who got other people to sign up was a 14 year old kid from Alaska, the second highest was a 47-year old retired union organizer from Illinois. There was an 89 year old guy called and said he had been reading the obituaries, and then had heard Dean on the radio and went out and bought a $500 PC and became the meetup organizer. We sent 135,000 letters to Iowa. We need better authentication for real online communication. Anyone could get on the blog, say they were me, and say anything. People could also use the letter writing tools to send letters for Edwards or Kerry. Or Karl Rove could sign up 25 people to go to Iowa, get the orange hats, then rob a bank. [KM: Seems like a bad choice of blogging software, or their ongoing confusion between a blog and its comments] [BS: Interestingly, the campaign told their people to do the same thing with the Bush site. Bush has a great tool for finding every media source in a location, newspapers, broadcast, radio, everything. Luckily, the tools were open, and so the campaign used those open resources. Similar things are happening with DeanSpace. I just talked to a far-right republican who's building an anti-Kerry site with DeanSpace.] [ds: media sources are different. What Joe's talking about was the outreach to undecided Iowa & NH voters] Q: Ther has beeen talk about your pay: the net is supposed to be more cost-effective. talk about the joe trippi gtetting rich thing A: A misunderstanding of what we were. Kerry (or anyone) would do a $1m dinner and spend $350k on china, steak entertainment get $2k/plate folks - spend 350k to get $1m. IN dean we went for $100k of media in texas - to get cash, to get coverage in texas. Raised $1m off $100k buy in Texas. Cheaper rasing this way than catering. On the Get rich quick scheme -not sure if I'm bothered - he personally made $165,000 on the Dean campign in 2003. "Saying I'm a thief doesn't bother me so much as saying that I'm a bad thief." He says he didn't know what the media buy commission arrangement was. Q: How well was/is the campaign able to incorporate ideas from the grassroots? A: one of the biggest problems was making sure we were seeing all of it. Meetup, the turkey sandwich, all ideas from the blogs. People like Doc Searls, Lessig, Weinberger all made suggestions. Q: How applicable is the Dean experience to statewide and local races? A: Look at meetup.com. It started with presidential, but now senate candidates are using it. If we don't do it, it will never be done. If we don't keep turning now, there may be a time when we can't turn it. There's just too much power in the wrong places. We're maybe 4-8 years away. Q (From audience): Another explanation of what happened; the meetup between the virtual and the real candidate. I came to know Dean through articles in websites and posts, and when I had a chance ot meet him, it was different from what I expected from the internet. Was there any disconnect between the perception created online and the real-life Dean. A: That's what's going on with John Kerry right now. If you don't know a guy's opinion on an issue, you assume that he has the same opinion as you. But that didn't happen in Iowa [ds: or NH], because they got a chance to meet him and see him up close. There was a change in the way people were thinking after Gore endorsed; the press stepped up its scrutiny, the other campaigns stepped up their attacks, and the campaigns made some missteps. The one I did and I know I did it: we spent about $1m on TV during sleepless summer. I thought Wes Clark wasn't going to get in, and it was our time to set the agenda. I miscalculated, because clark got in, and that's a million dollars. We raised 1.2 mill, so it was a wash. But I would take it back if I could. Our internet supporters were complacent. They thought, "we have more money, we're ahead in Iowa and NH." And people had been sacrificing for so long, once he was ahead people decided, "He's on top, he's winning; honey let's go to a movie this month." We had no way of communicating how high the stakes were at that point. The comments on the blog were all, "why does Joe sound so desparate?" [Joe inserts Skoal on the sly] Q: (From Glenn Kenney) I was the first candidate to run a campaign online in '92. All politics ain't local. Net politics is global. When do you expect it to be that you can have an online local constituency running a congressional campaign and how would you do it? A: I'm not sure the net's mature enough yet to do that. We don't have enough access to do that in urbarn and rural areas. In Iowa, connectivity is almost non-existant. [KM: over 50% of the US is online - this excuse doesn't wash; JK: true internet access is now more widespread than voting. However, the age is skiewed young (e.g. many people are online and < 18) and there's a difference between voting and running a campaign FWIW.] [Again, I wonder why the campaign isn't offering aggregate data such that technology people and social scientists might learn f] We had 2600 in iowa signed up online. If John Kerry has 20,000 volunteers in the state of California, and 15,000 contributors can not win him California. The same is true about Howard Dean even if it the numbers are quadrupled. Sooner or later you've still got to get into broadcast politics. I believe the failure right now is broadcast politics. The Dean campaign helped put this on the map to make it easier for congressional candidates. I think 4 to 8 years from now we'll all be laughing at how primitive the Dean Campaign is. Q: (from Dan Gillmor)let's say for the sake of argument that the press screwed this up royally for you guys. What will it take the people in this room in order to change that equation in order to change journalism into something that has real power and authority? How long will that take? A: I think that's starting to happen. Trent Lott issue comes from the internet that bubbled back up into broadcast media. It took the media until June to figure it out, when we were the hottest thing around from January to June on the internet. Most didn't write about it until the money. All of a sudden the press discovers the campaign, and all they can talk about is the money. Q: Everyone here must drop what they're doing and listen to my commercial announcement about my friend's film!!!!! Spam in Q&A Q: (Micha Sifry of The Nation): in 1993, Ross Perot created something very much like what you're describing. 1.2Million dues-paying members ($15), but he wouldn't let anyone look at his lists, and we all know what happened with that. If/when the campaign folds, who owns the blog & lists? A: I don't know. We tried to open the mailing lists up, giving local people access, but the problem was that the local conversation; so much email about Dean, it was hard for people to decide what to listen to. The mails from HQ were not getting the attention they wanted. [KM: sign up AKMA's service] Regardless of what happens, I'm not outta' the fight. Irregular verb: I ask for your help by email, you send unsolicited mail, he spams rom their experience] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- REFERENCES: {as documents / sites are referenced add them below} -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTRIBUTORS: {add your name, e-mail address and URL below} Ben Stanfield, ben@macslash.org, http://acaben.typepad.com Tom Coates, tom@plasticbag.org, http://www.plasticbag.org Kevin Marks, kmarks@technorati.com, http://epeus.blogspot.com Dori Smith, dori (at) dori.com, http://www.dori.com Trevor Smith, trevorolio at mac dot com, http://trevor.smith.name/ Josh Koenig, joshk@outlandishjosh.com, http://www.musicforamerica.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- E-MAIL BOUNCEBACK: {add your e-mail address separated by commas } ben@macslash.org, tom@plasticbag.org, kmarks@technorati.com, trevorolio@mac.com, joshk@outlandishjosh.com, shrub@mac.com [TFS: I'm gathering together any and all public notes here: http://trevor.typepad.com/blog/2004/02/oreilly_emergin.html I'll post this document, but email any others my way to join in: trevorolio at mac dot com (last year's notes: http://trevor.typepad.com/blog/2003/04/etcon_notes.html )] [i noticed this sessions i being taped. where/when/how will that tape be available?][ds: it was supposed to have live streaming audio (per ). Dunno if it actually is, though.][I can't seem to get that stream to work, WMP on OS X just hangs on it] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTES ON / KEY TO THIS TEMPLATE: A headline (like a field in a database) will be CAPITALISED This differentiates from the text that follows A variable that you can change will be surrounded by _underscores_ Spaces in variables are also replaced with under_scores This allows people to select the whole variable with a simple double-click A tool-tip is lower case and surrounded by {curly brackets / parentheses} These supply helpful contextual information. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.