Barack Obama has become recognized as the connected guy in this year’s presidential campaign.
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Joshua Green led the pack with his piece in the Atlantic, likening Obama to an internet startup. Jim Memmott of Muckety wrote about Silicon Valley’s ready support for the candidate earlier this month.
Today, Roger Cohen writes in the New York Times: “It’s the networks, stupid.”
More than any other factor, it has been Barack Obama’s grasp of the central place of Internet-driven social networking that has propelled his campaign for the Democratic nomination into a seemingly unassailable lead over Hillary Clinton. Her campaign has been so 20th-century. His has been of the century we’re in.
That’s not surprising. Obama spent only 10 years of his adult life in the split world of the cold war, double that in a post-Berlin Wall world of growing interconnectedness. MAC — mutually assured connectivity — has replaced the MAD — mutually assured destruction — of cold-war days.
As Green noted, Obama claims more than 1.2 million donors, most of them courted over the internet. Clinton and McCain can’t begin to compete. Nor, says Cohen, have they demonstrated any real understanding of connectivity.
But it’s not that McCain and Clinton are ignorant about networking. Party politics is itself an intricate web of office holders, staffs, candidates, committees, PACs, think tanks and supporters, bonded not only by political outlook but by money and votes, promises granted and promises owed.
Where the elder candidates made their mistake was in believing that this network would continue to dominate. The connections are a-changing, expanding well beyond the control of party bosses and elected politicians.
Obama and his tech-savvy staff and supporters not only understood this. As new kids on the block, they counted on it.
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1 Comments
#1. crat3 05.26.2008
Obama “claims more than 1.2 million donors.” Obama’s connection to Rezko certainly raises the concern that close scrutiny or investigation is needed of his “1.2 million donors.” Do they really exist as live bodies? Are they legitimate, legal donors? Do any of these “1.2 million donors” have any stench like his Rezko connection? What are the foreign connections to these “1.2 million donors.” The fawning media on Obama are certainly enthralled by the huge number of his donors. But there is an obvious need for some journalism with integrity on his “1.2 million donors.”
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