Kismet Arts Tangent

“Organization Man: Joe Trippi Reinvents Campaigning” from The New Republic Online by Noem Scheiber (10 November 2003); (2) “The Race of the Web Sites 2004″ from ACM Interactions by Kathy Gill (November-December 2004) http://faculty.washington.edu/kegill/pub/gill_ACM_2004.pdf;

As Noem Sheiber describes Joe Trippi, “part campaign insider, part pundit, and part pure bravado” and completely overrated. The article says that he was considered to be a computer geek by many critics, and I have to say that probably quite as replacable. There always has to be a pioneer in any intersection of technology and life, and he just happened to be at the right place and the right time to turn every campaign he touched into gold… or promises, anyway. He used the Internet space to get voters out of their homes and it worked. Though he started by lemonade stands. Word to Trippi, though he probably knows: it’s illegal to bribe people to vote! Even lemons, you lemon!

Anywho, it was (and still is!) the game of campaigning. Information technology relates to acquiring demographic characteristics. They want to cater to you! Getting people in those voting booths meant a lot to the campaign and they “targeted” people. Mr. Trippi wanted a more efficient way to do that. Back to a traditional formula: lower cost of campaign= victory?

With his insightful focus on the internet, Trippi claims to have empowers the supporters of the campaign to not only join the effort to elect Howard Dean, but to make improvements and additions that the staff of the campaign couldn’t have foreseen. Can we believe anything that Trippi says about getting involved, if even he admits that the battle for taking the white house is based first on money of the candidate, then the quality?

So after the steps made with online marketing of the presidential campaign, Bush and Kerry had their turn to shine– to be considered a revolution. And they spend their opportunity on disfunctional sites. I would like to know what Ms. Gill thought of the Obama and McCain sites. Any improvements? Are we innovating the right aspects of what was considered to be the most effective part of the Internet’s intersection with politics?

Ironically, red state voters didn’t have the up to date technology to support their candidate’s website. Just think of any rural Texan with a 1024×768 monitor. Bush’s “campaign goals” topic, rather than “voter goals”… the user must register before checking out local volunteer options. Bush blog allows no commenting, has anonymous authors. How discouraging. Has winning the presidency has come down to widgets?!

With my cutesy idealist view of the world, I hope that Americans take upon themselves participate in a political revolution that causes them to get up from their seat.

Questions:

(1)What was the most effective and innovative part of the Dean campaign?

(2)Considering Gill’s list of site faux pas, what do you think are the qualities most appreciated by political netizens?

(3)How has political activism become easy and convenient during the past hundred years? How does that affect the mentality of the voter?