Listen here. There’s a nice chicken-and-egg argument to be had whether Howard Dean harnessed the bloggers or, contrarily, the blog zeitgeist found and inflated the Dean candidacy. 
Either way, I think the late Theodore (Making of the President) White would begin his narrative of the 2004 cycle with the “open thread” of the Dean blog, from the moment last Spring when the Dean people relaunched their main page on comment-friendly Movable Type software, called it “Blog for America” and turned a campaign into a public conversation. Mathew Gross, 31, was the stray volunteer from Utah, a writer-blogger who’d also been a rock drummer and a Colorado River guide, who put blogging at the center of the Democrats’ nominating campaign. Since 1960, he remarked in our conversation this afternoon, “presidential politics has been a broadcast medium and a spectator sport.” Blog for America may have changed that forever. The Internet money machine for Dean is important, of course, but so is the blog discourse–hip, disciplined, hopeful. Matt Gross sets the tone: “Widen the circle,” he writes. “We must build the community now. We have to stay focused.” Anticipating Dave Winer’s BloggerCon at Harvard in October, Matt Gross had his own interesting forum the other day on “how blogs can create/are creating a better election.” His is a blog getting hundreds of posts and now 30,000 visits a day. The open thread reads to me not like agit-prop. It’s more nearly a sort of soundtrack, with abundant links, of center-left Democrats trying to make up their mind that the ex-governor of Vermont is tough enough, and good enough, to take the country back. It’s the lefties that are holding out. I was struck by the response from Mike in CT two weeks ago:
A Case Against the Case Against the Case For Howard Dean: Can We All Stop This Madness? …Truth be told, I’m still waiting for a minority radical feminist who puts renewable energy above everything else and guts the military budget to invest in renewable state-of-the-art public schools (including free college education). But you know what? I’ll be waiting a little while longer. While I could write articles saying Dennis Kucinich isn’t my dream candidate – “After all, one need not point out that our candidate of hope is not EVEN a minority radical feminist.” – while I could do this, I don’t. And why? Because today there is a bigger fight to be fought.
Clever writing. Serious politics. Here’s Matt Gross. As the old pols say, get to know him before you need him.
{ 16 } Comments
What the hell is a “blog zeitgeist”?!?!? More vacuous attempts at profoundity from our resident psuedo-“intellectual”.
Yeah, Chris, please don’t use any more words that people might have learned in college or from old issues of Spy magazine.
Huh, get a dictionary or go read the funny papers.
Yeah, it’s so easy to sling barbs from behind a computer screen, ain’t it?
This is OT but I just wanted to say that I downloaded the complete collected interviews yesterday, and made a CD of them that I have been listening to in my car.
Wow.
The best thing about the interviews is that they fire off so many of my neurons listening to them. It’s the opposite of the sedating, numbing, “receive only” character of a lot of media. I’ve been blogging a few of the ideas that occured to me while listening.
oops. For some reason the end of the post got cut off.
I’ve been blogging a few of the ideas that occured to me while listening. I’m not sure you can post embedded URLs in these comments, so here is the link: http://www.cadence90.com/blogs/2003_09_01_nixon_archives.html#106351387257846795
Why isn’t anyone interviewing Dennis Kucinich? I listnend to his comments in one of the disscussions involving all the candidates and he seemed to be the only one speaking for the real working Americans. It seems the whole blogging world is gushing over Howard Dean while the other candidates are just being ignored. How is this different from CNN ignoring candidates they don’t like? they have their Pets and you have yours. The thing that seems to make Dean so special is that he was able to get people to pay. But the “new new media” needs to give a fair chance to all folks. Not the ones they like.
Just a little mirror for all the Blogging-pom-pom shakers. Take a look in the mirror. and try to be fair and balanced. (not a’la the “Lying Liars”, but for real, for a change).
Maybe you should try to get Dennis Kucinich in here yer blog pages Chris?
christopher,
seconding lnin yo’s comment, i’d love to be able to listen to you interview dennis kucinich… i hope you will consider it. thanks! love your site…
Nice post and blog
Thanks for sharing
“presidential politics has been a broadcast medium and a spectator sport.” It is common problem in most of the countries. Even it is not good for sports
You are the best. Thank you
Howard Dean while the other candidates are just being ignored. How is this different from CNN ignoring candidates they don’t like? they have their Pets and you have yours
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Yes… The best thing about the interviews is that they fire off so many of my neurons listening to them. It’s the opposite of the sedating, numbing, “receive only” character of a lot of media. I’ve been blogging a few of the ideas that occured to me while listening.
The best thing about the interviews is that they fire off so many of my neurons listening to them. It’s the opposite of the sedating, numbing, “receive only” character of a lot of media. I’ve been blogging a few of the ideas that occured to me while listening.
Dean’s approach did not make a public conversation…it was a gathering of the like-minded affirming themselves.
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