Frank Rich (NYT): Napster Runs for President in '04 (Dean & Internet)

[Dudley_DUright]

Even after Saddam Hussein was captured last weekend, all that some people could talk about was Howard Dean. Neither John Kerry nor Joe Lieberman could resist punctuating their cheers for an American victory with sour sideswipes at the front-runner they still cannot fathom (or catch up to). Pundits had a nearly unanimous take on the capture's political fallout: Dr. Dean, the one-issue candidate tethered to Iraq, was toast — or, as The Washington Post's Tom Shales memorably put it, "left looking like a monkey whose organ grinder had run away."

I am not a partisan of Dr. Dean or any other Democratic candidate. I don't know what will happen on Election Day 2004. But I do know this: the rise of Howard Dean is not your typical political Cinderella story. The constant comparisons made between him and George McGovern and Barry Goldwater — each of whom rode a wave of anger within his party to his doomed nomination — are facile. Yes, Dr. Dean's followers are angry about his signature issue, the war. Dr. Dean is marginalized in other ways as well: a heretofore obscure governor from a tiny state best known for its left-wing ice cream and gay civil unions, a flip-flopper on some pivotal issues and something of a hothead. This litany of flaws has been repeated at every juncture of the campaign this far, just as it is now. And yet the guy keeps coming back, surprising those in Washington and his own party who misunderstand the phenomenon and dismiss him.

The elusive piece of this phenomenon is cultural: the Internet. Rather than compare Dr. Dean to McGovern or Goldwater, it may make more sense to recall Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy. It was not until F.D.R.'s fireside chats on radio in 1933 that a medium in mass use for years became a political force. J.F.K. did the same for television, not only by vanquishing the camera-challenged Richard Nixon during the 1960 debates but by replacing the Eisenhower White House's prerecorded TV news conferences (which could be cleaned up with editing) with live broadcasts. Until Kennedy proved otherwise, most of Washington's wise men thought, as The New York Times columnist James Reston wrote in 1961, that a spontaneous televised press conference was "the goofiest idea since the Hula Hoop."

Such has been much of the reaction to the Dean campaign's breakthrough use of its chosen medium. In Washington, the Internet is still seen mainly as a high-velocity disseminator of gossip (Drudge) and rabidly partisan sharpshooting by self-publishing excoriators of the left and right. When used by campaigns, the Internet becomes a synonym for "the young," "geeks," "small contributors" and "upper middle class," as if it were an eccentric electronic cousin to direct-mail fund-raising run by the acne-prone members of a suburban high school's computer club. In other words, the political establishment has been blindsided by the Internet's growing sophistication as a political tool — and therefore blindsided by the Dean campaign — much as the music industry establishment was by file sharing and the major movie studios were by "The Blair Witch Project," the amateurish under-$100,000 movie that turned viral marketing on the Web into a financial mother lode.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/21/arts/21RICH.html

[Eric J in MN]

1. The article repeats the canard that Dean didn't know how many

The article repeats the canard that Dean didn't know how many troops were in Iraq at the time of his Meet the Press interview.

The Daily Howler reported that he gave as good an estimate as anyone could have.

[Dudley_DUright]

2. Very true

I don't know why Dean was castigated about this since he was right to within about 5% of the correct number. Too bad even our "friends" in the so called liberal media (SCLM) can't get their facts straight. Otherwise I think Rich makes some interesting points about the transformational power of the internet.

[NJCher]

3. Rich doesn't just make interesting points

He makes a powerful case, which is summed up in the last two paragraphs.

What a superb piece of writing! I intend to use it in my classes next semester to show how a writer forms a thesis statement with an edge and then, point-by-point, marches forward to a conclusion.

Rich has always been tops at writing thought provocative columns but my appreciation for him has reached a new high with this one, which has required an intensive observation and analysis of Internet culture. He has also tied it to significant developments of presidential elections and the medium, which up until recently has, of course, been television.



Cher

[depakid]

5. Agreed

That was a truly fine piece of writing. It's so rare these days in the "popular" press that it shouldn't go unnoted.

[Demeter]

4. Frank Rich Has Only Half of the Equation

Consider this scenario--

1. A well-established, well-funded, rigidly orthodox power elite controls the Western world. While founded on moral principles, it has fallen into the trap so well explained by Lord Acton: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

2. A startling advance in technology permits the common man to read and write and broadcast to others without any intermediary controlling the message: i.e.: the power of the press.

3. An energetic, driven man, seeking to reform the power structure, nails 95 Theses on the cathedral wall. (Gotcha!)

The Catholic Church has never been the same.

GO DEAN!