(Please welcome author Garrett Graff, author of The First Campaign: Globalization, the Web, and the Race for the White House in the comments — jh)
Days after graduating college, Garrett Graff began work as a communications staffer in the Howard Dean Campaign. His desk, actually a folding table from Staples, was sandwiched in between the campaign’s legendary bloggers, Zephyr Teachout and Matt Gross, and the Web team led by Nicco Mele.
Garrett had a ringside seat to see how the internet was, is, and will continue to change EVERYTHING about how political campaigns will be run and won.
The title, The First Campaign, refers to his central premise that the 2008 campaign is the "first" campaign of the new globalized information age. Just as "campaigning 1.0" with cross country whistle stop train tours and reliance on newspapers and direct contact with voters was replaced by "campaigning 2.0" which centered on advertising in 30 second spots on network television and the filter of the punditocracy, so too will "campaigning 3.0" replace that outdated model.
Garrett describes a phenomenon that will be very familiar to this community: a new democratized information age where anyone can record and "report" the news, thanks to cellphone and digital cameras and the rise of sites like YouTube, anyone can make their own campaign commercial (remember the delightful "had enough"), and presidential debates now feature video questions from real Americans instead of softballs from network anchors.
2008 is the first full fledged campaign of the new 3.0 political world, and one of the biggest factors in it–say it with me folks–the blogs.
Some of the best parts of this book are Garrett’s analysis about how the medium is changing Democracy itself. Instead of interest groups and large donors deciding what the platform is and trying to shove it down the throats of their party’s voters, the internet with its direct AND TWO WAY communication has changed that paradigm, and in a refreshingly democratic way.
Garrett summed it up with a particularly insightful quote from the speech Governor Dean gave on the opening night of the last Yearly Kos convention [some of you were there and may remember this bit].
Traditional campaigns have relied upon enormous amounts of TV advertising, thirty second spots, aimed at you, telling you what we think, and what we think you ought to do. The new campaign, the two way campaign is: we listen to you before we start talking, and we, throughout the campaign, have a dialogue between the people whose votes we’re hoping to get, asking for their advice as we go through, and taking it to heart…. This means real two way campaigns where the views and the opinions of the American people have an impact on the leadership, so leaders are with the people instead of seeking to lead folks that aren’t interested in being led by them.
When I first came to the Lake I felt as if I had stumbled upon an old fashioned Village Green, where concerned and engaged citizens talked about the news and events of the day and discussed the problems facing our nation and the world, in other words–government and politics. You know what I liked best? We never got all breathless about missing white girls or who Paris Hilton was dating.
When I come here I think that maybe Edward R. Murrow is smiling down from heaven. Every day we are realizing his dream of a journalism medium that teaches and informs and critically analyzes information.
Let’s give Garrett a warm puppy welcome and I’m sure you have lots of questions for him.
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LHP!
Garrett welcome to the Lake.
Thanks! I’m happy to be here.
This is my stab at hosting Book Salon and I want to thank Garret for being here with us today.
Welcome Mr. Graff!
You’ll be great, lhp
How did you get started in the Dean campaign?
I actually grew up in Vermont and my first job in high school was as an intern in then-Governor Dean’s press office in 1995. Two years later, I was asked to build the governor’s first website and I became his first webmaster. The irony of today is that at the time Howard Dean was the last governor in the country to go on the web.
After I graduated from college in June 2003, I joined the campaign right away. It was just before that really historic week when Dean’s “bat” first appeared on the site and he raised hundreds of thousands of dollars online to upend the Washington establishment.
Welcome, Garrett! Were you as surprised as the pundits were about the results of the New Hampshire primary? If not, why not?
I’m gonna get the ball rolling with the first question. A little background first.
A while back I was a student at the Women’s Campaign School run by Yale Law School. It’s a bi-partisan effort to train women to run for office. You are exposed to consultants from both parties (as an aside, why is it that the republican consultants always seemed much more interesting in whether they actually BELIEVED in their candidate/clients and the dems were so much more concerned with being “professional” enough to sell and pig with lipstick on? Drove me nuts)
Anyway, in the section called “web 2.0 meets Campaign 3.0″ you describe one of the reasons that dem consultants seem resistant to fully utilizing the web: You say “the internet is the least scaled advertising medium that exists. And it’s so hard; it’s not intuitive; it’s tie consuming, unscaled and not very profitable.”
Couple of questions
1) What does the term “scaled” mean in this context?
2) If Dem consultants are resistant b/c they don’t make enough comission on blag ad placement (maybe blogs should be charging more for their ads?) Shouldn’t it be an easy thing for them to find a way to adjus their fee schedules to account for this?
3) If the web is so fantatically cheap compared to network TV, have we somehow solved the problem of too much $ in politcal campaigns, and we just don’t know it yet?
Hi, LHP! Welcome, Garrett!
One of my warmest political memories – watching those bats climb. Good times.
That must have been an exciting time, to realize you just tapped into a new world.
Ah, slowing but surely we are wooing people back from their football viewing. *g*
I was — I have to say that I think everyone who was closely following the election expected a different outcome. Most telling, I think, is that every Hillary campaign staffer I’ve spoken with in the last week expected to lose until moments before the polls closed.
Another question
Now that people can watch TV (sorta) on their cellphones, do you think that’s gonna be the next big micro target for camapaign advertising?
I just realized I said “big micro”, feeling silly
Split eyeballs.
Welcome Garrett, and I surely do remember the Dean campaign. It was having heard a sound bite of his “What I want to know…” speech that got me to ask my computer son-in-law to get me a computer. He did, he plugged it in, turned it on, and I typed in Howard Dean. And my world became new — and much more informed.
My one moment of brief fame was when the format of DFA was changed and I did not know how to change the script larger, and Trippi changed it back (for a while) rather than lose me as a supporter. He said that it is the new people coming on board that would change everything. And he was right — at least about that.
That was my life time political ‘ah-ha’ moment and it remains a bright spot for me.
Thank you, Garrett, for all you did back then, have done since then, and are doing now. When I want to give up, I know that Howard Dean did not give up, Jane and Christy are not giving up, and nor should the rest of us hangers-on give up.
Welcome Garrett – it’s great to have you at the lake! This is certainly a topic we care a lot about!
Welcome Mr Graff and thanks lhp for hosting!
Great questions!
Right now, online, an ad buy of $100,000 would be hugely significant — a major investment in resources and online placement. You could probably buy every ad on all of the major NH and IA websites and blogs for less than that. But that’s a drop in the bucket for TV. Romney, some said, spent close to $20 million on TV advertising in Iowa alone. As there are more outlets for internet advertising and as the prices increase (already happening), we’ll see consultants more willing to take this seriously. Another answer? Flat fees for media consultants, which we’re beginning to see with this cycle, where they get paid a certain amount for placing ads regardless of how many or in what medium.
To the other question, I think the real answer to too much money in politics is either public financing or small dollar online fundraising. The problem we have isn’t so much the “too much money” itself, it’s the influence the people who raise that money have over politicians. If someone funded a campaign just by getting lots of $25 or $100 online donations, that’d be a great answer to campaign finance reform.
Mr. Graff, given the vast amount of information out there, how does one test the reliability and fidelity of these mixed signals? The use of our new media sources are both a blessing for their speed and range of distribution…but at the same time it also has the risk that outright lies can be spread “unfiltered” through the ether. Such things as Obama Barack being a covert Muslim Manchurian Candidate, for instance.
As well, these so-called independent sources of information can easily be financed by those that wish to have their identities obscured. It seems to me that a whole new world of information also means that there will be a whole new world of deception and co-optation.
Do you support some sort of regulation of these “new media”…either by regulating construction or contributions to the sites as campaign-related expenditures when they are specifically anti-candidate (as in the Swift Boat groups against Kerry) or pro-candidate. Or perhaps something that would delimit campaign contributions and expenditures to actual “citizens” (thus cutting out corporate campaign contributions altogether).
I’ve see some changes in process on the margin, but very little change in results. Certainly not on the national prez level, and only a few (though very important ones) on the national members of congress level. Consultants still reign supreme, Obama states in his book about hope that the only way he can reach large number of voters is thru TV ads, Hillary’s “listening tour” was a sham, and on the R side, the internet is used as a megaphone for R talking points.
When is campaign 3.0 going to be something more than just a marginal part of the process?
Here’s an essay I wrote for TechPresident.com this summer you might enjoy:
http://techpresident.personald….._yearlykos
I think that Howard Dean’s campaign radically reshaped the Democratic Party and that the full impact is still years ahead in the future. Someday we may see the Dean for America campaign as people now see the Barry Goldwater campaign of 1964—an unsuccessful campaign that changed a party for a generation.
I have a real problem with this idea. It seems to me that if the consultants don’t make enough on the blog ad placement, that should make them happy! The reason I say this is that it means that their budgets can afford many more adds on many more blogs. I doubt that it takes up much time to place an add on a blog. Seems like they can even do it on-line. If this is the case, most of the popular blogs on the lefty side should be plastered with ads galore! And the consultants get to win, which enhances their chances of a job for the next election. Do I just not understand the problem?
I love this topic—in fact I teach a graduate course at Georgetown University that centers on almost this exact question. I talk about in the book how difficult it is to separate fact from fiction online. Over time, I think we’ll see people begin to understand that they can trust certain sites over others, just as we can understand from history that there’s a spectrum of reliability in old media from the National Enquirer to NPR. Sites like FDL and TPM that provide original, thoughtful reporting will rise to the top of the blogosphere, while less reliable sites will be seen for what they are–fun places to traffic in rumors but not a place to trust for serious discussion, sort of like late-night talk radio is today.
One problem with the internet is that your audience size may be incredibly small, and I’m not sure there are good measures of audience size. Any advice on how to make a story viral? How to prevent a story from becoming viral?
If all stories were true I wouldn’t be so concerned about preventing something going viral, but the Kerry swift boating was so successful that not preparing for something similar would be naive.
Garett, that’s kinda where my own thinking was going. If blog advertising allows for signifigantly greater micro targeting, and it is so much cheaper and a more flexible format–you’d think that a smart candidate would be turning handsprings with happiness. Just think how much further that advertising dollar can go.
Also, you have the opportunity fo more than just an ad. Hillary did a guest post here and Dodd has done live Q and A with us taking questions jsut as you are now and answering them via webcast. I loved that one.
It would cost a fortune to do that on TV
Welcome, Garrett!
In reading through your book, one of my favorite lines was this:
You talk from there mostly about candidates, but I’d like to hear your take on the journalism side of thing. From my point of view, I think the parallel comment would be that journalists covering the 2008 campaign need to consider the people they meet as both potential consumers and competitors. No longer is a reporter going to be the “sole source” of news from a campaign event — and if some of these other people don’t like what the reporter has written, one or more of them are likely to go online and take the reporter on about it.
Journalism is just starting to realize what a shift this will be for their world as well.
I argue in “The First Campaign” that this will be the first campaign of the information age, where the race is transformed and shaped at every level by technology. Candidates are talking about tech issues and how to use technology to address problems like health care and education and jobs even as they campaign on YouTube and Facebook and on cell phones. What’s big and different about this election is that you’re seeing ALL the candidates take the web seriously (at least on the Democratic side). In past elections, there might have been one or two candidates who was serious about the web, but this time everyone understands that the web can be hugely influential.
I devote a big chunk of the book to talking about how the GOP faces a real challenge in how their ‘Netroots aren’t as active or excited or engaged as the progressive bloggers. That’s a big problem for them now and it’ll be a bigger problem for them come November.
Isn’t that what Edwards says he’s doing? How do you think that’s working out for him? Also, if you put an Edwards up against a Romney, with (almost) more money than Gawd, would he stand a chance? How would that work? It scares me!
OOooh! Great questions
I’d point out that in medicine, technology is a large part of the problem, and not part of the solution.
So you’re saying that the reason why we haven’t seen any results of campaign 3.0 is that the 08 race is the first. So your book is a forecast?
Exactly! One thing you’re certainly seeing is perspectives from on-scene bloggers who disagree with how the traditional press is reporting something. Journalism really doesn’t know what to do with this.
One of my favorite stories in “The First Campaign” I got out of Timothy Crouse’s legendary book “The Boys on the Bus” about the 1972 campaign (I highly recommend the book if you love politics). Walter Mears was the AP’s reporter on that campaign and all the other reporters knew that they had to lead their stories the same way Walter did or their editors back home would call and ask questions–the AP got to decide what the big story of the day was. So everyone at the end of an event would clamor, “Walter, Walter, what’s my lede?”
Can you imagine that happening today? A single reporter (other than Drudge) getting to decide what the day’s headline would be? It’s MUCH more small d democratic today.
Welcome, Mr. Graff! The matter of trusting one site over another is very subjective. Do you think that, by and large, web denizens will really be able to distinguish quality from (pardon) crap?
Sort of, yes. The argument of “The First Campaign” is that this SHOULD be the first campaign of the information age—there are big questions ahead about the U.S. and its role in a global economy and we need tech-savvy leaders who understand the challenges ahead.
There’s no guarantee someone this time will run The First Campaign, but I hope they will!
Substitute press secys name for Walter, and you have the MSM & the W admin. Don’t think things have changed much.
Even bloggers who are not “on-scene”, but who criticize traditional press reporting and punditry on a prima facie basis, drive the traditional press absolutely crazy. Glenn Greenwald is a very prominent example.
Yes, given some time and some experience. No one stumbling onto the web the first day will be able to determine fact from fiction, but people who spend time online will. Also, there’s a continuum of truth online: It’s hard to verify a story in the initial moments of a story being posted, but if, for instance, a rumor about Barack Obama gets posted online on DailyKos or FDL and within a couple of hours the campaign doesn’t knock the story down, there might be some truth to it.
I think the latter question is the great unknown. What could the Kerry campaign have done in 2004 to stop the Swift Boat attacks earlier? Maybe respond more aggressively earlier.
There are a lot of tried and true methods to making something “viral” online. Try posting a top ten list on Digg.com, for instance. How to stop something from becoming viral is another story. Maybe someone will invent antibiotics or a Sudafed for the web. :-)
OK. I think I’ve got a handle on the gap between the way you & I think about the role of internet (or tech more generally) in campaigns. You understand what tech can do, which is much more than at present, and I look at results, finding little influence.
IMO, this is typical of the application of technologies. They mostly start out small and grow gradually over time. In retrospect, they seem revolutionary (my mother was born before TV, autos, telephones, at least as common goods), but year to year, the changes are small.
Do you agree, or do you think that use of tech in politics will change things more rapidly?
I agree. But there is not the immediacy people have been conditioned to having by The Tube. Breaking news, woo hoo! Bells, whistles. And by and large, no alerts. My own system, developed over time, is to hit a couple of trusted sites several times a day, but the onus is definitely on me. Which, in a perfect world, it should be. But the learning curve is relatively steep, given all the material in blog-world. So what am I asking? Hmmm. How does blog-world educate and orient the uneducated and disoriented? It seems like a hit-or-miss proposition (don’t yell at me, pups, please!). And we have miles to go before we sleep. How to ratchet up awareness, audience, participation? I know. I should read your book!!
Garrett thanks very much for being here. I look forward to getting hold of your book.
Two questions. 1) Given your software familiarity/expertise, what do you think is the best solution to the uncertainty we have with so many touch screen voting booths, and their easy hackability and propitiary software from companys who are huge Bush contributors (and even if they weren’t huge Bush contributors) as shown here:
The Lack of Mandatory Manual Audits of Voter-Verified Paper Records: Map of US
2) Are you bothered by the schedule of primaries and caucuses and the fact that after 2/48 states have voted with small populations, that so many candidates have already been eliminated by events that took place (ignoring the long preparation of course) in just 5 days between January 3 and January 8? The DNC has invoked sanctions as you know against Michigan in this frantic push to be first in line.
Or even far simpler things like what Media Matters and ThinkProgress (and even the MRC) do in fact-checking reporters is a huge step forward. There’s too much that gets said or casually thrown around in cable talkfests that’s just patently untrue.
No doubt. I have adopted the rule of thumb that if a smarmy asshole in a suit and tie says something on teevee, the truth is likely to be the diametric opposite.
One of Washington’s problems is that people here speak in insider short-hand that makes no sense to anyone outside of Washington—and that’s the language of a lot of the talk shows. It’s also why statements like John Kerry’s “I voted for the 87 billion before I voted against it” actually mean something to insiders like him. There’s nuance here where there’s not nuance elsewhere in the country.
Aha, but that is not the final solution, even if it were true. You must look at the MSM to find out what info most voters are getting. In politics, it’s important not just what truth is, or what you have seriously found out is accurate, but also what all the other voters think and what kind of info they’re getting. The DC pols are caught in their own bubble. We should try to avoid getting caught in a bubble of our own making.
One of the things that strikes me about the blogs, is that we have this huge instant research capacity. So often someone will pose a question on a thread and with 1/2 hour there will be a number of links to authoritative sources and often experts in the field will chime in with explanations and analysis. MSM TV formats are not flexible enough to do that, so a blog viewer learns much more info in a shorter period of time and it crafted to their own specifications.
How can campaigns make better use of that?
I agree. That stuff just makes my head hurt too much.
To be honest, I don’t even attempt to observe or interpret political commentary in the mainstream media. I rely on a handful of trusted sources like Firedogloake to do that for me, and tell me what I need to know.
Hillary’s campaign asked (via email) what I thought Hillary should be doing to help her become elected. I suggested that she do something really big, like take a leadership role in demanding an end to the war, restoration of Habeas Corpus, or telecom immunity. So far, I think I was just talking to myself.
I think the “bubble” question is a huge challenge for the web. It’s really easy to self-select your favorite (and most trustworthy) sites and realize there’s a ton of other viewpoints of varying reliability. Often saying something loudly that’s false will be more effective than saying something true softly.
One example: This question of the false rumors about Barack Obama being Muslim. I’ve had first-hand conversations with very well-informed Washington insiders who believe that Obama is Muslim. I had long dismissed those rumors, figuring they had been dealt with and dismissed, until I stumbled into a conversation where someone swore to me very matter-of-fact that Obama was Muslim. It terrified me, but you can easily forget on the web to do some “red team” analysis of what information others believe.
My badly-worded comment above can be summarized thusly:
Much of the blog-world seems to be about preaching to the choir. How can bloggers, commenters, et al expand our “base”? Because that’s where the payoff truly is, IMO.
Greetings Garrett,
I would guess, from what you’ve told us about yourself, that you are of a more recent ‘vintage’ than a fair number of those welcoming you here today.
This question is somewhat OT, however I suspect that you may well have pondered it or at least considered it.
Are people your age and younger (all possessing computer skills well beyond my own) cognizant of the fact that they will be dealing with very serious political, economic, social and environmental consequences long after many here have shuffled off?
Bluntly, what sense have ytou regarding your generation’s sense and sensibilities?
My generation has brought us both Bush and the madness of money being all that matters.
Is your evident political savvy widespread, or is it internet saavy alone which most sets apart our generations (discounting the times in which each grew up and the prevailing mythologies of the differnt eras)?
Do people your age have the same sense of a ’stake’ in ‘what’s happening’
as many in my generation did regarding Vietnam,for example (consider ‘war’ in Iran and potential ‘war’ with Iraq)?
Listening is what the Dean campaign did really well that Hillary’s campaign often seems not to understand. Remember her failed attempts at “listening” conversations online in her web chats a year ago? Who did she think she was fooling?
For its many faults, the Dean campaign and Joe Trippi specifically made sure people were listening and responding to what happened online. The campaigns that emulate that model today will get a huge boost over their competitors.
I think this difference also is part of the reason why the MSM is so enraged by the critical analysis they are subjected to by blogs. They used to be able to say whatever the hell they wanted, and no one ever spoke back, calling them on their bullshit, sloppiness, or biases.
Bloggers, on the other hand, know that whatever they say is going to be scrutinized, and they are going to hear back about it. The MSM is not used to being held to account in this way. And they don’t like it one bit.
LOL.
In ref to my complaints about her doing nothing as my senator, she didn’t have to wait until she was running for prez to take a leadership role in any of these issues. She’s in the senate, and there is the filibuster, as Dodd has discovered, is all else fails. Hillary is, at best, a doer, not a leader.
And tech isn’t going to solve that problem.
hat should be: if all else fails, not is all else fails.
Mr. Graff- Has anyone ever looked into the use of alternative radio stations as a means of conveying in-depth analysis to the public. These are often non-profit, educational stations and have public affairs programming that is accessible to thousands of students and members of their communities. Many are more organized as “community radio stations” rather than college stations, but they fill an important niche that is often ignored by the mainstream. Some of these stations also broadcast over the internet.
One cannot actively run campaign ads on these stations, but there is a wealth of activities that can be done that would do precisely what is needed in this country to improve the Democratic process and inform the public of the real issues and choices that confront our nation.
BTW Arbitron actually ignores these stations since they ARE Non-Commercial. They simply drop any data they receive from their listenership. But I have seen some surveys that indicate that these are often the #2 or #3 radio stations in their communities. And some of these stations are over 10,000 watts, which can reach formidable listenership areas. Yet I see people spending tens of thousands of dollars on ill-targeted radio and TV ads when a few hundred for a non-partisan “get out the vote” campaign on a College Station, or helping out a Public Affairs program through sponsorship would have a much greater payoff…particularly in areas where races are close and the voice of the progressive has been cut out, either through lack of funding or the stolid control of the message in the corporatized media.
There are literally thousands of these stations, each involving scores, if not hundreds of volunteers. many are footsoldiers in the effort to create a progressive culture in their communities. Ever wonder where all that “alternative rock” originally was played? That was on college and alternative radio long before Commercial stations considered it a viable format.
We are not talking about actual mobilization of these individuals for a partisan campaign…but just getting them involved in registration and voter and activism outreach to their peers. One can make available funds to improve their informational Public Affairs roles. Getting them into communities, making contact with ethnic minorities, union leaders, community activists and even with progressive analysts and voices on their own university campuses.
Imagine if one had an office devoted to setting up interviews or providing tapes and programming with these alternative media? Or offered grants or awards to improve Public Affairs that related to Community Coverage. Or sponsored programs on the Threats to the Constitution. Or Amy Goodman. Or touring authors on progressive issues. Or having candidates craft specific messages relevant to college students or specific communities or regions…to be simulcast on these stations.
As a former staffmember at these stations, we were entirely ignored except by a few local politicians who were savvy enough to realize that the radio station actually did have considerable listener support. Mostly what are received are some inappropriate Public Service Announcements. It seems that the national parties simply have no strategy in reaching out to this form of radio. Yet imagine if the Republicans had ignored “talk radio” or “religious radio” in their strategies. But that is, in essence, what the Democratic party has done. There is no effort to understand the resources these stations have, what the law allows them to do, and how to reach out to and mobilize target audiences that listen to them.
I think that one of the most interesting factors this campaign was how Obama mobilized the youth vote on college campuses. I will bet you that he (or his college-age support groups) used Alternative radio stations to get the word out.
I think step one is for campaigns to stop with the patronizing stereotyping bloggers and those who read them.
Campaigns do research into the reporters who cover them — who do we call, when we want to get *this* story out? Who to we talk to, to reach *that* particular audience. (Think Dick Cheney and Tim Russert, for example . . .) Serious campaigns ought to be at least as familiar with the larger political blogs as they are with the various television networks and print media outlets.
I’m not talking about campaigns trying to spin the right blogs, but the very simple, ordinary, and eternal campaign question: “who do I talk to if I want to make a major statement about subject X, and get the biggest, most enthusiastic, most immediate reaction?”
Campaigns, as Garrett said (but I can’t find the quote!), are now two-way events. Most candidates and consultants, however, don’t realize that — and even fewer know what that means and how to make it work for them.
Yikes, that’s a tough one. Yes, I’m a “mere” 26, the leading edge of this “Millenial” or “Net Generation” or whatever you want to call us.
I think there’s a dawning realization, driven if by nothing else the huge issue of health care, about the importance of the decisions being made today on our future. Ditto for Al Gore and “An Inconvenient Truth.”
I focus in the second half of my book, “The First Campaign,” on four policy issues that will guide the success of the United States in the 21st Century: tech investment, health care, education, and the dual puzzle of energy and the environment. The way that we answer these questions/challenges will have a huge impact on whether my generation’s standard of living is better or worse than that of our parents’.
I’m very heartened to see in the early states of IA and NH the strong young vote that turned out (and, perhaps not surprisingly, voted strongly on the subject of “change” and went for Obama by almost 40 points). The under-30 vote in IA was three times what it was in 2004. If that continues throughout the year, not only will there be a huge Democratic tide nationwide, but we might begin to see some real change on these huge issues.
I think Keith Olbermann is doing his part to educate people about blogs. Not so much the others. They see it as a threat, I’m guessing.
Shorter MSM: “Hey! You damn kids get offa my lawn!”
I think the Clinton mindset is a little more complicated than just “doer vs. leader.” The lesson the Clintons learned from health care in 2004 is, unfortunately, that lots and lots of tiny, incremental programs and initiatives will over time add up to substantial change. The problem is that our country needs a lot more than that today.
Incremental change isn’t going to do anything to solve the big problems we have today.
You can tell the folks who read us, like Dodd, Like KO and Shuster. They literally speeak our language. You see the same phrases and figures of speech coming from them that we use here
The traditional media also has a hard time understanding that so many bloggers don’t blog to “break news” and be “respectable.” A small percentage of blogs, including FDL, do believe in media ethics and responsibility, but most people love writing blogs just to rant, talk about their lives, and focus on niche topics.
Lumping all bloggers together, like the traditional media does, is akin to talking about equating newspaper journalists with people who photocopy fliers at Kinko’s. It’s all “paper,” isn’t it?
Actually a lot of it is understood but since it consists of White House talking points, it is not agreed with.
On a different subject, I would say that the blogosphere has poltical influence but none of the Democratic candidates have interacted with it in any meaningful sense. Hillary had Peter Daou as her internet go between but he has been largely invisible for over a year and Hillary has shown she has no sense of or use for the blogosphere. Obama isn’t much better. He has facebook or whatever but has he shown up much in the blogosphere? Is he at kos? Edwards is more in tune with the progressive side of the blogosphere but after being burned early on in how he dealt with a couple of bloggers he hired I haven’t heard much from him.
True enough, if she were doing those things for the country, she would certainly be doing them for her constituency. I thought, this morning, that you were speaking specifically of what she had done for New York.
LooHoo @ 61 (reply button doesn’t seem to be working for me)
This may be a situation where the “market” may work. KO is doing very well by, among other things, paying attention to blogs and public opinion. His success should (after initial jealousies play themselves out) encourage more MSM types to do the same.
Garrett, which candidate organizations do you think have the best grasp of the two-way nature of the new world of campaigning?
That is a very important point. Sara Robinson has a recent series of posts at Orcinus that address this issue. She talks a lot about the transition from a “manager” style of politics to a “leader” style of politics that can take us through these transitional periods of very rapid change and uncertainty about the future.
I think that what voters thirst for right now–at least progressive voters–is a leader, not a manager.
Ahh, candidate ORGANIZATIONS is a difficult one. It’s hard to see any of the whole campaigns doing the web particularly well. Obama and Ron Paul are the two leaders overall, I think, but many of the campaigns have individual staffers who get the web really well. Tim Tagaris at Dodd’s campaign put together a great web effort but was hampered by the fact that Dodd never caught on. Peter Daou, at Hillary’s campaign, who was mentioned above as well, knows the web much better than her campaign has used it.
The Dean campaign made a splash online because Joe Trippi, at the top of the campaign, got the web better than anyone. No other campaign has that influence at the same level this time around. Maybe in 2012!
Mr. Graff,
Since almost all of us here are older than you & some a lot older, what have we not asked that we should have? What (in addition to reading your book) do we need to know in using tech to influence politics?
Garrett,
Could you give us a bit more of a taste of your Part Two with regard to “tech investment, health care, education, and the dual puzzle of energy and the environment”?
Excellent response and heartening. I hope that you may find the time to visit FDL occassionally to share your insights on whatever topic strikes your fancy; even OT excursions by an astute observer such as yourself are of immense value and I now include you on that list of younger souls (who may well be older souls) whom I regard most highly and to whose obviously capable hands I am comfortable consigning the more intractable absurdities of the human condition when I am no longer in a position to wrestle them.
After the gross mismanagement of the last 7 years, it will take more than bandaids to set things right. I don’t understand the point between leader vs manager. A leader who can’t manage is exactly what we have in the White House at the moment. What I want and the country needs is a leader who can manage.
Although I would say that Mike Bloomberg, who has made his political name for being a great manager, would be an attractive candidate if he decides to run. The other interesting person on the field, who can’t run because of the Constitution? Arnold Schwarzenegger has become probably the most thoughtful and forward-thinking leader in the Republican Party on a lot of issues.
That’s what Obama’s campaign is trying to portray him as. His problem, IMO, is that he’s very unclear about where he’s leading us, except into that great land of kumbayah, where we all get along.
Is this peak oil vs. global warming? As we head into a recession, I would say economic stimulus, taxing policy, and job and wage growth are going to be pretty important too.
Rather than try to give a second-hand rendition of Sara Robinson’s point–which she develops over thousands of words of detailed analysis and elegant prose–I’d rather just suggest that you go over to Orcinus and see for yourself.
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2…..usion.html
Sure — my argument is that the U.S. is facing pressures from the globalized economy that we’ve largely ignored for the last eight years in response to 9/11 and the Iraq War. We’re not at all prepared, as an economy or a government, to compete in a “flat world” and our political campaigns have focused too much on the past (Iraq and Vietnam in 2004, for instance) and not enough on these questions of how does the U.S. raise, educate, train, and care for a workforce to compete with India, China, Ireland, Finland, Israel, New Zealand, and all of the other smart tech innovators out there.
“The First Campaign,” the title of the book, refers to the idea that we need a campaign that focuses on the challenges of the 21st century. We’ve lost much of the last eight years on many of these issues thanks to the Bush administration and the answers aren’t getting any easier.
I disagree completely with all of this statement.
The manager takes care of the more mundane but necessary issues, so that the leader has time to lead. Seems like this should be the job for the Vice President to me, rather than someone to take over in case of the death of the president, or worse, the contortionist criminal Cheney has used the office for.
Oy. Bloomberg. Good manager, no vision, negative charisma. Have you ever heard him speak? Just because he has $7 bil he thinks he can buy the presidency. Even more hubris than W. Exactly the opposite of what the U.S. needs.
Have you ever visited his offices? All cubes, including on-air radio broadcaster. (There is a TV studio.) This emphasis on bare bones strikes me as OCD related behavior, not standard business practices. Most employees can’t wait to graduate from cubes into offices.
I bring this up as a specific I know about how he runs things that make me doubt how much bigger he can get & still be competent.
And I do not disagree very much, if at all, with yours. Bloomberg and Schwarzenegger are both corporate oligarchs, and there is no reason whatsoever to expect that they would not represent the interests of the corporate oligarchy if elected.
Hugh, I argue in “The First Campaign” that the answers to a stronger economy and better jobs lie in leaders who recognize that we have a government that is propping up industrial age relics instead of promoting information age advances!
Jobs in the coming years and decades will be information-based, but we still have a primary education model that was set-up to allow students time-off to plant and harvest crops!
One example: Why isn’t any candidate talking about universal broadband or deploying wireless technologies?
Sorry to be late.
Yep the Dodd people (Tim and MBH) did an amazing job, and the fact that they were working for a candidate that didn’t get much media attention meant that many of their groundbreaking efforts were never seen. But what they manage to do is what other campaigns will be doing in the future — the reason we don’t have retroacive telecom immunity today is because of what they did, and Dodd’s courage. I don’t think anybody in this campaign can lay claim to that kind of an important political success story.
Bloomie & Schwarz are corporate oligarchs? Bloomie started his own business & Schwarz made it on his own as well. I think of corp oligarchs as execs in large corps.
BTW welcome Garrett, and thanks so much for being her. I think we have some mutual friends.
a real pleasure!
I think I’ll ask advice from garrett;
we know that the media is making sure edwards is not considered, they cover hillary and oboma, it’s “oboma won, hillary lost” or the reverse with aboslutely nothing about the most likely candidate to win, john edwards
how to fix?
I think a lot of people would agree that if Hillary was a little less cautious she’d be doing better today. If she’d “cried” a few times last year, shown herself vulnerable and human-side instead of campaigning like an policy-oriented robot, she might have been able to run away with the nomination.
It’s all about which narrative is more interesting to the media on a given day. I feel like the GOP race isn’t getting nearly as much coverage as the Dem race, even though the Republicans have FIVE candidates who might end up as the nominee: Guiliani, Huckabee, McCain, Romney, and Thompson. Their race is way more open, unknown, and confusing than the Dem race, but the story isn’t as compelling as Hillary vs. Barack.
Yep. But the problem is even bigger than that. The PTB (powers-that-be, both parties guilty) won’t even maintain old-economy infrastructure (think collapsing leveees, falling bridges), let alone recognize there’s a govt role to be played in new-economy infrastructure. Rs want everything private, which is inefficient & unaccountable, and Ds are both slaves to their corp donors & cowed by the Rs. Europe & Japan are leading U.S. in this, just like they are in education, and medical care, but pols keep shouting that U.S. is best, and voters go forth in ignorance.
Garrett, thank you for being here today. It seems you are very forward in your skills and thinking. I am concerned that while many students are moving in your direction, the majority are really floundering and will not be assets in moving our country ahead in the future. You allude to this in your comments about what is happening in China, India, and etc. In terms of the bulk of US students, what do you see?
That and he doesn’t understand tat Government has to STAND for something. He tolerates a certain amount of waste, fraud and abuse (corruption) as a cost of doing business. He doesn’t understand that it’s not just an economic cost/benefit ananlysis at stake. It’s a vision thing.
Bloomie seems like a nice guy, but I think he is business man who doesn’t “get” what government is really about.
But going back to Garrett’s book, I am surpised that a guy who made his money in media is not much more Web involved.
One thing that I bet most candidates will NOT DO is offer up responsive Q&A’s on blog sites. I’ve seen it here a few times and it basically became a vitriolic attack on the individuals being interviewed. The Dodd interview, primarily because he had recently stood up against the FISA Wiretap Revisions, did go well. But I can imagine where it would have focussed if he hadn’t taken such a strong stand on that legislation (i.e. his involvement in the Bankruptcy Bill and his ties to Corporate Interests in Connecticut).
And I noticed one time that some folks slipped in on an announced Book Salon by “irregulars” that ended up monopolizing the conversation with their attacks. When the respondant “ignored” their attacks they went ballistic.
There’s a certain degree of “blood in the water” that can occur in this sort of format (BTW you are weathering it well).
Yeah it’s my wish that the Democratic candidates prove what they can do and fight George Bush in a way that they haven’t done, stop the grind of the campaign trail and the carping and prove that they have substance beyond what they say. Webb Amendment? Hello! Let’s see someone fight for it.
Won’t happen, but it’s a nice thought.
Maybe it’s a technical term that I am using incorrectly, but I mean it more broadly as those who have massive interests in the financial markets and whose interests are aligned closely with those of huge corporations.
In the 1800s, it was the government that recognized and funded the railroads to facilitate interstate commerce. In the 1950s it was a REPUBLICAN who recognized how critical the investment in interstate highways would be to the growing country. Who today will be the leader on wiring the country for the information age? It’s not going to be TimeWarner or Comcast, that’s for sure.
Do you have any comments about the MSM’s ofttime vitriol over the “blogs” that appears to pop up every so often. I get the feeling that the Old School mainstream media are reacting like the the scribes did when Gutenburg invented moveable type.
Re: Blogger attacks on candidates.
I don’t share your concern. I think that pols should be able to defend themselves against attacks, including the most vitriolic. Answers like: It is apparent that you feel very strongly about whatever, and my vote is not what you would have wanted, but my vote was complicated by whatever, or words to that effect. More discussion of this sort, of the real problems that pols face in voting yea or nay, would advance voters’ understanding of how complicated the legislative process is.
And the nice thing about live blogging is that you can ignore Qs you don’t want to answer.
it seems to me more contrived, it really looks like these two candidates are emininantly more beatable then edwards and that’s why edwards gets no play
Well, they’re certainly threatened by bloggers—it’s destroying our (I’m a magazine writer, after all) business model and threatening a lot of jobs.
But I think that blogging is making journalism better and more accurate.
I think there’s also Edwards fatigue. This guy has been running for president for five plus years now. Obama is (very) new and Hillary is exciting.
As an economist, though an elderly one, I am fully aware of the history & positive externalities of government spending on infrastructure, which today means wireless broadband. Clinton (Bill) actually had (mostly old-style) infrastructure on his 92 platform, but it got trashed when the Rs took over Congress in 94. An abiding sorrow of mine that this is not happening.
There’s certainly an element of “into the lion’s den” in taking questions online, but candidates should get more comfortable with it. People want to know and feel like you’re listening. We elected you, after all.
I am beg to disagree that “Arnold Schwarzenegger has become probably the most thoughtful and forward-thinking leader in the Republican Party on a lot of issues.” Just look at his current budget recommendations! He is trying to balance the budget at the expense of those who can least afford it! He wants to cut education by 300+ plus million this fiscal year and cut another 4 billion from education next cycle. He refuses to raise taxes, just like any other Republican I have ever read about! He sways this way and that way on social issues but always, always sticks to the basic Republican tenants of low taxes and just a trickle for social needs. IMHO he needs to meet the same fate as Governor Grey got for the energy crises, which as we now know was caused by Enron and other energy Corporations just to stick it to the people of California and make fat profits on the back of the good people of California!
Conservatives do not want any of THEIR money going to help pay for education of of those less fortunate. Educating our children is in the best long term interest of our state and country. An educated populace leads to many advances in society and lessens crime as the populace is better able to make a living wage!
OK.
Actually, Edwards is being emininetly beaten now, and there has only been one caucus and one primary in 2/48 states.
Edwards may get his chance on the ticket.
Hugh, PhysioProf and perris;
The lad appears educable, he seems made of sturdy stuff. I say let’s invite him back, subtly gang up on him, read him the riot act, ask him if he’s payin’ attention and offer him the wisdom of our venerable insight.
If he’s the person I suspect him to be he’ll take us up on this. Time spent with you three, Kirk, Ian, lhp, Jane, etal can only do him good.
What say you?
I was talking mostly about climate change. He’s really one of the only GOP leaders in the nation who is taking climate change seriously.
Education, as you mention and bgrothus at #93 says, needs more investment and much reform if we’re going to be successful in the coming years. As governor in Vermont, Howard Dean understood that if you put more money into education, it saved you money later on in terms of prisons, social services, job training, and unemployment. We need leaders today who are willing to make investments today for pay-offs later.
And your point is exactly one of the big points in my book, “The First Campaign,” about why the GOP has a tough road in the 21st century ahead: They don’t like investing.
Garrett, in your book you mention Ned Lamont and his campaign against Joe Lieberman.
A couple of days ago, Lamont stunned a number of folks, including more than a few regulars at FDL, when he endorsed Obama. During his senate run, Edwards was the only major presidential candidate who came out hand worked on Lamont’s behalf, and Obama actually encouraged CT Dems to vote for Lieberman (pre-primary, that is).
When the endorsement hit the news, I noticed an interesting dynamic. Instead of a “My old hero Ned has endorsed Obama — I ought to take a look at Barack” reaction, what I saw was “How could Ned have endorsed Obama over Edwards?” instead.
I raise this, to ask you if you see any shift in the meaning of endorsements in this new campaign 3.0 world? What some had seen as a web-savvy Lamont campaign in 2006 seems (by this endorsement) to have lost its two-way connection to the netroots and simply tossed out an old-school kind of endorsement — and the Obama camp does not seemed to have tried to reach Lamont’s old netroots supporters in any meaningful way.
All this makes me wonder how a campaign might make the most of endorsements in a two-way, campaign 3.0 world.
Yep. I agree with your comments on Bloomie too.
You misunderstand me. I’m not saying that it’s right or wrong…it’s just that it is something that will prevent a lot of candidates from using the medium. I suspect that they will insist that the interview will be restricted to a “host” rather than answering questions in a Q&A format. Word will get out pretty quickly that certain blogs are too difficult to handle and they’ll avoid them. Or they’ll stick to blogs identifiably oriented towards their campaigns or have hard-core moderation.
Thanks for reminding us, Jane. Dodd is my hero too.
Good on you for letting her know what’s really important.
Truthfully, I haven’t given this topic of First Campaign endorsement much thought, but it’s an interesting point. Thanks for bringing it up.
Bingo.
Actually, for a political party that talks constantly about how important “investment” is, meaning private investment, I think they don’t understand the concept at all. If they knew what they were talking about, they’d instantly understand the importance of public investment, including investment in human capital. And that isn’t even new. Were it not for public schools, the country would not be what it is today.
I haven’t read your book but will put it on my list! I am sick and tired of Republican’s narrow focus on themselves and their money! Penny wise and pound foolish… with the growing spread of the truth on the internet the
Republicans are destined to become a dying breed!
You’re quite welcome.
When this question gets answered in your next book, you can just give FDL a tip of the hat for planting the seed.
*g*
Seriously, there’s a lot to chew on in what you’ve written already. Thanks for writing it, and for coming by to chat about it. Anytime you want to try out some hypotheses in the future, come on by again and drop in on us in one of the FDL discussion threads.
Garrett thank you for coming to the Lake and sharing your new book and experiences with us.
Thanks for explaining. I hadn’t quite gotten your point.
I agree candidates would select sites where they got a freindly audience. Fan clubs (think Ron Paul) are so much more fun than concerned & active voters’ groups. But back to my point: if candidates exposed themselves to more probing questioners (not saying a D has to go on Faux News or whatever the wingnut websites are), they would become stronger candidates.
Garrett can you comment on how the instant dissemination of information forces campaigns to repsond on the fly?
This morning Hillary was on Meet the Press and right after it ended the Obama campaign was responding to that appearance
In this kind of compressed time frame, candidates are more exposed than ever to making hasty mistakes.
Actually, it may be the other way around.
I think we’re coming to the end of our Book Salon time, so I just wanted to thank everyone for chatting on a Sunday afternoon. I enjoyed the banter and good ideas, especially folks like eCAHNomics for keeping me honest.
Communities like FDL are what are making “the First Campaign” possible, so I admire what you all are doing and creating here. Keep up the good work.
If you have further comments or, after you read my book want to respond, don’t hesitaite to email me: ggraff AT washingtonian DOT com.
Onward and upward!
The railroads is a good example of how government promoted a new technology because they regarded it as essential for national development. As I recall they gave the railroads a quarter-mile frontage on the sides of the tracks for the railroads. Thus Union Pacific and other Railroads became immensely wealthy, not so much from the railroad, but as real estate brokers.
In a more interesting manner Governments created Land-Grant Colleges and Universities by making a contract with those who established stakeholds in the newly opened territories in the West. In order to get a stakehold in the great land rush (or the more practiced ones further North and West) one had to pay taxes to support a State University.
Thanks Garrett, I appreciated your interesting comments. It is always fun to interact with someone on the cutting edge of things.
Garrett thank you so much for being here with us today and for answering so many of the questions. I can’t wait for the post mortum analysis after election day to see what new lwsson the First Campaign of the new media age has taught us/
P.S. I’ll swing back by later tonight and answer some more questions if people leave them after we’re finished.
I’ll take that as a compliment! *g*
And thank you very much for spending time with us. It’s been a great discussion.
Not sure what you mean. Could you explain a little?
Garrett,
I do hope you don’t mind overmuch my funning with you, I sincerely meant what I said way back @74, but I am serious when I suggest that you might wish to befriend some of the older souls on this site. If ever there were a group who might stand-in for the founders of this nation at a moment of desperate national crisis, when the nation is on the cusp of actually losing the potential for genuine participatory democracy, it is this group.
Garrett, do not miss the opportunity to learn from such as these. You are wise beyond your years, but bolster it with the wisdom of those who have the years and the scars and the tears and the dreams that have come with them.
What eCaHNomics said. Investing in the good people should be the first priority of the government, all else will happen because of it. As the old ads against communism postulated “an educated populace will become a free society”! Just look at recent history.
DAVID! So glad to see your name here again! I guess I’ve missed the posts you’ve commented on, and I’ve been worried about you!
Garrett~ I just got back from Singapore. Everywhere you go in the city is connected by a Wi-Fi network, and most residents have high-speed broadband internet. It’s government supported and mandated for new buildings. They’ve had it for years. In many areasof SE Asia there has been a complete leap-frog over land-line technology (which they never had) and a move to Wi-Fi.
The governments over there recognize that these are imperatives to future growth, even when very few people in some rural areas actually have computers. They are loooking several years into the future, and want to be ready.
Meanwhile the State Capitol of California cannot get anyone to make a deal for a widespread free Wi-Fi program outside of a few blocks of the Capitol. The Federal government seems to want to scare cafes and private businesses away from making free Wi-Fi available by attaching riders on bills that make employees “Porn” police, etc.
If we had better, stronger candidates, they would be visiting every available forum of discussion, and would be willing to take on more probing questions.
Is this the part where we all show our scars? *s*
Yes. And the dreams.
Shade of LBJ!
Thank you. I agree. I had your comment completely twisted in the opposite direction. I thought you meant that being challenged would make an existing candidate weaker. The cliche about what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger came to mind.
This is such a no brainer. I was thinking that Bloomie might think about wi-fi for NYC, but no such luck. LHP-another example of Bloomie having the no vision thing.
Endorsements in The First Campaign . . . hmmmm . . .
I think the Blue America candidate chats are a part of the cutting edge of The First Campaign. We’ve had a wide variety of candidates come by, generally vetted by Howie Klein & Co., but it’s been up to the candidate to take that endorsement and make it into something. They are the ones who have to step up and answer the questions, they are the ones who have to step up and get folks excited, and they are the ones who have to “make the sale” and get people to volunteer, contribute, and (if in the right district), vote.
Some candidates were much more at home in the BA chats than others. Future campaigns might want to browse the BA archives, to learn from the mistakes of the past.
Just, no lifting up dogs by the ears, okay?
Re railroads and land grants:
http://www.coxrail.com/land-grants.htm
Nobody could get away with that these days! Way too non-PC–but thanks for reminding me, I’d forgotten that one.
Obama actually talks about this in his hope book, but never makes the leap that the RR & Land Grant colleges of 150 years ago are the public wi-fi of today. He does talk about how important higher ed is & how lower ed should be reformed for modern times, but his policy prescriptions are wishy washy.
or firepups either….
Ah Laura, so good to ’see’ you again. You and many others here have been in my thoughts since last we spoke.
Thank you for your concerns, but not to worry, I am prone to take time for inner balance and rekindling my own hopes, dreams and positivity. Though
I’ve not been commenting much of late, when time permits I check in and reaffirm my sense that caring, compassionate souls are yet in sufficient abundance that I feel neither alone nor hopeless.
I hope things go well for you.
ditto
garrett, with this and other comments you’ve made, is it fair to assume that you’re wanting to see obama with the nomination? it seems to me that there is a very deliberate intent in the msm to ignore edwards.
Things are fine, thank you. I pulled back a bit myself around the time of the fdl format change for a number of reasons, but primarily because of a death in the extended family. Have many times wondered how you were doing and even tried googling to see if I could discover a way to send you a note. Did you know there is a Bartoo Hall at Tennessee Tech?
Any way, I’m very very glad to ’see’ you again.
And howdy, Raven!
Hi! Nice seein you as well. Spent the day with the rescue pupster. . .man she is so sweet but so many issues!
Ooops, no OT on author visits, my bad.
Then, I’m guilty too, although I’m under the impression that the salon is over and folks are waiting for the next post to begin….(I think I hear murmurs in the antechamber….)
Why I remember, way back ’twas when LBJ done lift his shirt, that I vowed to not engage in public scar display especially of the soul, better I think to realize that everybody’s got ‘em. Some scars reflect nothing other than stupidity (oops!) some are unavoidable, but some are simply unnecessary and even gratuitous, the result of society gone bad. It’s the ones we pay for in our hearts and in our souls that determine the depth and essence of our individual humanity. A nation too, may have scars, some of which are shameful (slavery, TORTURE, and so forth) but some build character in a people if they are acknowleged and acted upon. I suspect the ’scars’ of our recent past might fall into the latter category.
Laura, that Hall was named for my grandfather.
Bartoo Hall is named for Dorr R. Bartoo, head of the Tennessee Tech Biology Department from 1929 to 1943. Constructed in 1916 to serve as a men’s dormitory, it was originally named West Hall. It later housed the Biology Department, and is now the location of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. It also houses a Learning Resources Center and educational support services.
Don’t suppose Mukasey would regard that as torture.
Now Raven, how did you know that?
Wow. VIP in attendance. Raven sez you grandfather was a biology prof. Is that also your field?
I’m not surprised to hear this. I have a feeling that the Bartoo family has contributed much to society, over the years.
He’ll never say…
He might say if we lift him up by his ears. It’s very important for national security, you know.
Clearly all the candidates should be asked if they will do this as President :)
Mahalo for coming to the Lake, Garrett!
No, my ‘field,’ when I was in it, was psychology.
As an aside, while the Bush family generations sought world domination mine sought education, and not just for themselves, they were early and strong champions of universal public education.
I confess to feeling fortunate in my heritage, and very lucky in the people I have met in life including those at the lake, as well as finding myself sometimes at the right place at the right time.
I certainly feel today I’m in the right place/right time. So very glad to reconnect with you; you’re among the people I count myself fortunate to have met (even if ‘only’ in cyberspace!) (The new Bartoo Hall!).
Two things about this…
One, it’s very indicative of how interested the residents of inside the Bubble are in their constituents….not much.
Two, this hasn’t changed, why would it after all, as Obama repeated Kerry’s ‘nuance’ just recently.
Garrett, if you do come back later, thank you so much for coming here, diving in, and really engaging. It is young folks like you that are the hope for this country’s future.
Why thank you, Laura. As you must know, the feeling is mutual.
Da google rules
: )
Garrett,
I am sorry to have missed you during your live commenting on the thread and hope that you do stop back to reply.
It appears to me that you embrace neoliberal policy focus and the message control of the DL21C. I view these policy positions as a more humane, “softpower”, means to the same policy ends as the neoconservative hardpower approach.
Which policy institutes have you found that most influence your policy positions? Do you think, post Bush, having the precedent of a strong executive in the White House will be beneficial for future generations of Americans and their policy?
Thanks for stop by FDL and taking the time to answer questions.
Throughout the book, I point to my favorite thinkers and think tanks, Washington-based and otherwise. Two that I’d really recommend you look at that aren’t on enough radars are the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation and the Council on Competitiveness. They’re some of the only groups really focused on how America can compete in the coming years. The Council is especially interesting because it’s a mix of labor groups, corporations, and academia—groups you don’t often see all on the same side.
That’s very kind of you! I had a lot of fun of doing this and it was an honor to be interviewed here. Firedoglake is part of an incredible movement that is changing the way politics is conducted here in the U.S.
I know you all will stay involved in the campaign–you have a front row seat for what I’ve been calling “The First Campaign”….
Thanks for the follow-up Garrett. Not all of us will have the opportunity to read your book so I am especially appreciative of your reply.