Dean vs. Clark (Continued)

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Dean vs. Clark (Continued)

I just heard Gore is going to endorse Dean. That's huge for Dean and bad news for everyone else, including my favorite Wes Clark.

It will be interesting to hear why Gore is supporting Dean. I think Gore is a very smart guy, but he was a terrible candidate who lost his home state.

And I also feel as my friend Cliff said to me today that the train is leaving the station before the debate has even been held before anyone other than the core activist wing of the Democratic Party. I just fear this is going to backfire badly in the general election.

Comments (15) | Posted December 8, 2003 in Politics

Comments

CLARK IS SO OVER. READ IT AND WEEP MY FRIENDS. ;^)

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20031208/D7VAF64G0.html

Posted by: Robin | Dec 8, 2003 5:59:06 PM

i am debating whether i should delete your comment Robin. it's not your sentiment that bothers me, its the tone and tenor of it.

i leave the comments on so that people can debate what i have to say.

but i won't let them become like Yahoo's message boards.

Posted by: Fred Wilson | Dec 8, 2003 6:50:39 PM

save your keystrokes. if you are so rigid that you can't take some harmless ribbing over politics, then I won't grace your blog any longer. word of advise though, if 'this' is the kind of light fare that ruffles your feathers, I'd suggest turning off the comments feature before you get feelings hurt. tah tah

Posted by: Robin | Dec 8, 2003 7:50:56 PM

perhaps this is total outsider optimism and political naivete, but i do not think that dean would get the trouncing in a general election that conventional wisdom dictates. instead, i think dean, and possibly clark, have the ability to win the election not just by garnering the same democratic voters who voted in the last election, but by expanding the entire democratic base. dean might not be able to win w/yesterday's active voter pool, but he may be brining a whole lot more new voters to the next election.

it seems to me that w/only around 45% of the country even bothering to vote in the last presidential election, we have ample room to grow the base. also, given that so many states in the last election were decided by 5% or less margins, that the base does not need to be expanded all that much to tip the tables. bring a bunch more dems to vote, and dean can win. my personal feeling is that republicans have already nearly optimized their voting base and don't necessarily have the room to grow that the dems do.

indie voters who actually vote as independents (ie frequently splitting tix, etc) are a shrinking group- most independents actually tend to vote along partisan lines. so that means the true independents must be wooed, but only if the expanded active dem base cannot be grown to outsize their influence in the election.

in short, dean may be partisan, but so is bush. bush's appeal beyond the true believers is that he seems to be a guy people want to hang ot w/. dean's appeal is that he is angry and is willing to do something constructive about his discontent. personally, i think bush comes off as smug, but so does dean a bit too. if dean can tap into the broader sense of unease about america's place in the world, he may be able to be our next president. plus all the money soros is throwing into the race should help unseat bush too ;-)

GRG

Posted by: gordon | Dec 9, 2003 12:19:44 AM

I resent what Al Gore did. Not a vote had been cast and not more than 20-25% nationally support Dean. That leaves 80-75% that don't. I remember that I was not all that thrilled when Gore ran. I also remember being happy that Gore chose not to run again. I believe that Gore is doing his "Thing". Problem is we already had the last election stolen from us after it was done. Looks like this one was stolen from us before it started. I will continue supporting Wes Clark because I still believe he's the only one that can win. I don't see anything in Dean that I can buy into. When you really examine his stances, there are a lot of inconsistencies. His speeches don't excite me one bit. The Draft Al Gore site is pissed that he did this by a 75% ratio. This might backfire....because althought the press don't like Clinton and therefore Clark, I don't believe they have anymore love for Gore. I can't imagine the media wanting a frontrunner all the way until late January. So we'll have to see. I did call Al Gore's office to let them know how disappointed I was that he took over our democratic process. Also mentioned that, just as they had done with Nader in 2000, the conservative website Polipundit.com (25,000+ traffic) have been pushing contributions to Dean since last March. At that time it was to get Kerry out of the race. They have links everywhere on their websites that link to Dean's contribution page. They also mention other republican websites giving to Dean as well. All you have to do is go to that address and see. It's pretty blatant! Their favorite chant is "Go Dean Go". Maybe that's how Dean raised all that money that gave him his such high media profile to begin with. I, for one, am not at all impressed.

Posted by: Catherine | Dec 9, 2003 2:34:29 AM

"Dan Gillmor blogs about Al Gore's endorsement of Dean and explains why it makes so much sense. Nice one Dan. I hadn't thought about it that way, but it makes total sense." -Joi Ito

link to Dan Gillmor article:
http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/archives/001569.shtml#001569

Posted by: Robin | Dec 9, 2003 10:41:00 AM

Fred, as you're somebody who (a) watches the Dean campaign with some interest (even if it's ultimately for Clark's benefit) and (b) who invests in social software, I have a question.

Do you think there's any merit in the idea of a large marketeer, say, Proctor & Gamble or GM, instead of spending x-million buying media from CBS, deciding to instead spend it on building a network, a-la Dean? I ask this because all the talk I'm hearing about this new phase in the internet and networks seems to be about politics and journalism, whereas I think the big story is in business and marketing.

I read the big Dean story in the NYT and kept on thinking that a big brand/advertiser could use the same methods and be quite successful.

I hope that's not too off-topic...

Posted by: hugh macleod | Dec 9, 2003 5:51:37 PM

i think that many marketers are doing it. but they don't have the media coverage that Dean does. i believe that Target stores has a bigger email file than Dean does. and they use it to communicate regularly with their customers and drive sales.

Posted by: fred | Dec 9, 2003 8:42:24 PM

i think hugh is right to look @ how social software can be applied to biz/mtg but, imho, social software is not a panacea. Just as not all products can be virally marketed, not all products offer the inherent lifestyle interest/intesity that can make people care enough to invest the time/money in joining- or exposing their profiles- on such networks.

i am wiling to wager there will be some truly tortured applications of consumer-marketing driven social software apps coming out in the near future. there wil also be some great ones too- but these will be driven by tribal identities, not necessarily by the brands per se.

Posted by: gordon | Dec 10, 2003 1:23:00 AM

Yes, I pretty much agree with Gordon, too.

Mountain Dew attaching itself to the X-treme Sports crowd is a pretty good example of a large brand trying to go "tribal". Sprite countered with "Obey Your Thirst" but I'm willing to bet Mountain Dew gets far more bang for its buck than Sprite.

"Tribal" implies very strong bonds, emotions and loyalties. It's easier to go tribal when your schtick is highly emotive, like Apple, Mercedes, or political candidates. But when you're talking about toothpaste or soap, it gets painful, really quickly. But that's also where the big opportunities lie, methinks.

Posted by: hugh macleod | Dec 10, 2003 7:17:53 AM

tell me when the vertical challange starts and where it shall take place

Posted by: mad cracker03 | Jan 2, 2004 11:38:38 PM

Back to politics guys~ here's a question who is telling the American public what each candidate stands for? It sure isn’t the "who is going to win" focused media. You talk about expanding the voter base and this will be what does it. Apathy in America is caused by thinking all politicians are the same so why care. If Dean, Clark, or even Braun and Sharpton manage to get people excited about issues they will do better than expected.

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