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First and foremostm, Howard Dean's online campaign
does not have a life of its own, separate from the offline/"official"
campaign. In fact, the web very much appears to be the
hub of his campaign organization, providing a wealth
of resources and information and featuring sophisticated
outreach communication innovations.
The Launch
The launch of Dean's campaign was organized online,
via Meetup.com, a free service designed to facilitate
online coordination among registered members to meet
"in the real world". Today, more than 43000
people have signed up for the Dean 2004 group on Meetup.com,
with organized supporters in every State who can be
conveniently contacted via email.
Let's Blog Together
Shortly after the campaign launch, Dean gave in to
one of the latest trends in Internet campaigning: the
official campaign weblog. More than a fad however, a
weblog can be a useful addition to a candidate's site:
Personalization: as a diary maintained by the
campaign and occasionally the candidate himself, the
weblog allows for a more personal, more intimate contact
with readers.
Net-linking: a key functionality of weblogs is
the possibility of adding links to other sites or blogs
of interests. Links between weblogs contribute to creating
virtual communitites with reciprocal links and shared
content. In the political context, these links can contribute
to attracting more traffic to the candidate's blog and
his official site. Aditionnally, these peripheral sites,
among which will probably blossom Dean supporters' weblogs,
contribute to spreading the campaign's message and generate
oline buzz across web communities. Time will tell whether
these peripheral sites and blogs will eventually carry
attacks against political opponents.
TV More than Ever
Howard Dean is not discounting any media format on
his website, least of which television. Like GW Bush
before him, Dean uses video capabilities to broadcast
his programme and the highlights of the campaign trail.
Keep in Touch with SMS
SMS is the new "new thing" in the still-young
field of online campaigning. This technology should
provide Dean, and other candidates, with interesting
capabilities during this election cycle. Dean has created
two sign-up lists for SMS updates and alerts: one for
the public and one for the media. It will be interesting
to see how Dean, and others decide to use this technology
for GOTV efforts and "rapid-response" media
relations.
Online Primaries
One could not complete this overview of Dean's internet
savvy without mentioning the MoveOn.com straw poll.
MoveOn.com, the hyper-active progressive group behind
such initiatives as "censure and move on"
during the Lewinsky scandal and the recent "virtual
march on Washington" to protest the war in Iraq,
recently organized virtual primaries among the nine
democratic contenders. Dean claimed an overwhelming
victory with 43.8% of the 317000 votes cast online.
John Kerry took the second place with only 23.9%. A
virtual victory of course, but noentheless a demonstration
of the Dean campaign's ability to mobilize their troops
at such an early stage in the game. The moveOn primary
also turned out to be a great fundraising opportunity
for the candidate who raked in 3 million dollars in
the days following the results.
It is too soon to tell whether Dean's online campaign
will have a significant impact on the real primaries,
but it is now certain that the bar's been raised a little
higher for all the candidates.
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