Blogs and Presidential Politics
Dave Winer (moderator), Scripting News
Matt Gross, Dean campaign
Joe Jones, Graham campaign
Cameron Barrett, Clark campaign
Eric Folley, DNC
will let them speak in the order they agreed to appear; all Democrats because Republicans chose not to come
Dave: link to everything; bring on "pied pipers" - don't just bring in people from the campaign... bring in people from the outside, too (also deprives competition of the talent); have bloggers on the press bus; should have independent bloggers; present advocacy guidelines (to prevent flaming, etc.); publish your schedule on your blog! don't make software - it should be agnostic; speak about democracy - talk about how wonderful blogs are for generating it!
Dave: Matt, what's it like being the chief blogger for the Dean campaign?
Matt: absolutely awesome! started the first Dean blog March 15, and on June 10, switched from Blogspot to Movable Type; that's when the blog really took off and took on a life of its own; had 100,000 since June 10 - 2,200 comments today! all of those voices on the blog are incredible; reporters now have a hard time understanding what a blog is without comments because of that; a huge community that's built up around the blog; Dean had great buzz in the blogosphere in January, but the last place you would go for info about Dean was his home page; Matt went to Joe Schippe (?) and said maybe they should start a blog for Dean; came to think of a blogger as someone as a site - when they first launched the comments, people in the comments started identifying themselves as "bloggers for Dean"; it's the users and the grassroots who define what blogging is and means
Dave: maybe they are bloggers and it's not the form but the attitude; tried to identify when he became a blogger, and it's not when he started writing in reverse chronological order
Joe Jones: 19 years-old! took him up on his suggestion to start a blog for Graham; delays meant there was no position for him when he was ready; eventually got to take over for an intern, answering email; staffer asked him if he wanted to take over the blog, which he didn't know much about; most of the staff didn't understand blogging, so was trying to explain it to them around July; brought in outside bloggers, which turned it into a multi-user blog run pretty much volunteers
Dave: Eric, you're interested in all of these blogs, right? what is your role?
Eric Folley: director of internet operations for the DNC (him and one other person); he's had a blog for a couple of years, but earlier in the year decided they could use blogs to get more content out there; it's press releases, sometimes longer form stories; can't always put the info into a statement by Terry McAuliffe and doesn't always fit into the story guidelines for the home page; in the end, they coded for a week (didn't use off-the-shelf software) to mimic blog software, had initial design, went back to group, and expected a hard time getting the name passed, but surprisingly they didn't! launched two days after they showed it to senior staff; research department has gotten involved; head of delegate selection process is now posting - getting more and more people involved (except for the communications department - they haven't figured out what to do with it yet); vetting process - 18 people can post, majority rules when someone posts something - research or communications has to be one of the "yes" votes for it to go live; no posts have been prevented from going live; give staff an hour to respond to a post before it goes live
Dave: was there a story that couldn't wait an hour?
Eric: post about spending wouldn't have gone up without the blog
Cameron: they came after him; was attending Dean meet-ups in March, but wasn't sold on him so he was looking around; Jim Lerner at the Clark campaign called Cam to ask if he wanted to participate; he quit a contracting job to do it; like Matt, he finds working a political campaign very tiring but also the most phenomenal experience of his life
Dave: reinventing a new political system
Matt: doing 12-14 posts per day; tough to read the flow of comments; no one can read let alone respond to all of the comments; doesn't know of any blog that is reaching this saturation; one of the ways the Dean internet campaign has built itself is as an open door; it's really the type of campaign where if you have a good idea, the door is open
Dave: let's take your assumption at face value and your blog gets the big traffic; what is it you're trying to accomplish with your blog?
Matt: the only way to defeat Bush is for everyone to become involved; the appeal of Dean, his campaign, and his blog is that it's a two-way street; when launched the comments system, but someone said "there's a presidential blog with comments - we've broken through"... meant had broken through into a two-way conversation, alliances, being heard; entire web presence is moving out towards that (DeanLink, get local tools, find events in your area) - measure of spreading out the interest
Dave: why not give each of your staff members a blog? will eventually get the losers and the flamers
Matt: actually, there are a number of grassroots Dean blogs out there; also providing this toolkit for new ones - solves these problems
Dave: Cam, are you going to add hosting
Cam: don't have legal authorization to do that yet, but hoping to offer one for everyone that wants a blog about Clark; legal concerns are slander and libel mostly
Eric: DNC probably won't offer hosting at this time; constantly asked why they don't host for state and local parties, but can't in terms of the technical end; barely keeping up servers now
Dave: doesn't this pay for itself? how many millions has the Dean campaign raised?
Matt: 7-1/2 million this year, 12 million total for the year (estimate)
Dave: couldn't the DNC afford some hosting?
Eric: not after campaign finance reform
Cam: 2/3 of all the money raised by the Clark campaign has been through the internet
Dave: have any advice for competitors?
Matt: no, but he will after the nomination
Cam: having problem on a smaller scale with too many comments on a post; use those people commenting to your advantage and get those people to start their own blog
Chris Lydon: what makes a candidate bloggable?
Cam: any candidate who is going to blog personally has to have charisma and the ability to write well; has to have a point
Ed Cone: Edwards writes his own blog and he's a great communicator, but his blog sucks; one supposes that he hasn't been freed up by his staff or the process to actually write it; typical crap about meeting "the great people of Texas"; on the flip side, you get Dean who can't write but has a great blog
Matt: has to be personal; there is no committee for what goes on the blog; blogosphere has a 15-minute cycle (the time it takes Matt to write 200 words); it's constantly moving and alive, and when you slow it down in a committee, you lose the uniqueness of the voice
Audience: interested in learning what the real impact of bloggers is on these campaigns; how are they responding to bloggers?
Cam: the person in charge of the blog is in charge of communication so he reads all of the comments and makes notes about how to improve the blog, the campaign; got comments in real-time of a speech Clark was making - Cam wrote them down and gave them to the speechwriters
Esther: reminds her of the "product announcement of the year" award IBM got; how does this affect the policy of the candidate?
Joe: policy doesn't matter; the average Joe on the street doesn't care about policy
Dave: but aren't blogs a chance to find out?
Joe: they're a way to create community and dialogue
Dave: doesn't go to the optimistic viewpoint; Joe's probably too young to remember, but in 2000, this whole thing melted down - why did that happen? because we were trading superficialities and buzz? people not hearing about the political process in their country
Matt: agrees; what blogs and linking, lateral sharing of information; if you're a hierarchical campaign with lieutenants at the top, the blog is just window dressing; now you can comment (in real-time), and that is a major change; it's like you're in the room talking, and you are because we're reading it and responding it; used to be that you'd send an email or call and the lowest staffer would see it and it wouldn't go any further; now have lateral communications at the national political level
Audience: blogs right now are just buzz because it's the first time they're being used in a presidential campaign, but need to wait and see how the election goes; 2% of the vote doesn't get us anything, though
Dave: but the reporters that are covering your campaign is not 2% of the population, either, and you don't demand that the NYT bring you more than 2% of the voters
Audience: but it's a lot larger
Dave: not so sure about that
Audience: it would be nice to have some data
Matt: what's been amazing how many people have come to our site; guesses that 70-80% didn't know the word "blog" before they came to the site; great for blogging; now have a realm of influence that reaches out to leaders
Cam: bloggers are definitely early adopters
Dan Gillmor: one of the things Dean has done is embrace what's going on beyond the mainstream, whereas the Clark people are not treating the grassroots bloggers as they want to be treated
Cam: wasn't involved in the rift between the draft Clark campaigns and the official one, but there were some legal complications with journalists (?)
Pat: question from student in San Francisco watching the webcast! an editor of the BlogtheVote project
Cam: definitely tapping into the talent to bring them into the fold
Matt: if you don't participate in the conversation in the blogosphere, then it's just a press release
Eric: now blogs are the first thing he looks like
Audience: what happens to the blogs if you win:
The White House blog!
Matt: Bush's message is already spinning out of control
Cam: saw earlier today a poem written by Bush
Matt: must be true if it's in print
Eric: thinks the GOP will start blogging; paid a lot of attention to what the Republicans did in 2000 because they used it so well; used it to get their user base riled up; weren't using it as a persuasion mechanism; that's what the DNC is doing now - going after committed Democrats online
Dave: are there Republicans in the audience?
Audience: would be surprised if the GOP even bothers with it; GOP put together the official Bush/Cheney blog, but when they located supporters, they offered only a sidebar feed for GOP news
Glenn: Republicans are really behind the curve on the internet in this election cycle; guesses that Rove is behind the strategy and his strategy is control; blogs aren't about control; you get power by giving up control
Dave: do you think one of these candidates will make a mistake with the blog?
Glenn: that's what the strategists worry about
Dave: how do you give Dean plausible deniability?
Matt: first introduction of journalists (political ones) to blogs; remembers when Judy Woodruff first said the word "blog" on CNN
Dave: aren't you afraid that at some point every word you write on the blog is going to be seen as an official statement by your candidate?
Matt: that's why I focus every word on NOT being George Bush
DNC: what worries him most is that they're going to be attacked - a DOS attack, a bot that spams them with 500 comments a minute
Matt: vetts posts, but he's not the policy guy so he does have to be careful and use common sense
Dave: if campaign melts down because of something on the blog
Joe: that's true of any PR, not just blogs
Matt: you really have to let go of that control and have to trust people
Dave: doesn't trust the maturity level of the blogosphere
Esther: there are a bunch of ways to lose control; how using other tools like Meetup?
Matt: there are pranksters because you're giving them a can of paint so have to watch out; as long as it's not vulgar or offensive, they leave opposing viewpoints
Cam: let the community take care of the trolls
Matt: people set up a troll fund so that any time a troll posts, folks contribute $10 for it, which raises money for Dean and stops the trolls pretty quickly
Audience: comment on precautions against campaign cyberwarfare; impressed that folks can post comments, but also skeptical about how this represents any real power or accountability; would they consider institutionalizing a relationship to the candidate by selecting one question each day to have him address it on a blog
Cam: have plans to do that, but Clark's schedule is insanely tight, so getting even 10 minutes with him is very difficult; his schedulers don't totally understand blogging, which makes it even harder
Ed Cone: going back to the 2%, obviously these campaigns have raised a lot of money through the blogs; the idea of blogs feeding the media food chain (not replacing it) - have you seen stuff on your blog drive stuff in the national media?
Cam: not yet, but the Clark blog is only six days old; the CIA leak was definitely driven by the blogs
Jay Rosen: issue of control - find this interesting about the blogs; "control your message", handlers, permanent campaign has been the norm for the last fifty years; you can decide the headline on the evening news, script your schedule so the cameras are in place to catch the message, centralizes control of the campaign in the one or two wizards who know how to do that; Dean has the most open system, but Cam, are you jealous of this openness factor? do you want the Clark campaign to become as web-literate as them?
Cam: wouldn't use the word jealous, would use "respect"; is influencing them; want to emulate it
Audience: convince me that there's truly something transformative
Matt: George Bush raised 500,000 dollars in the last quarter; Dean raised more in 10 days (I didn't totally catch the numbers)
Audience: is it just about the money?
Dave: did you just listen to the money or did it affect the campaign? as someone who believes in the internet, it seems galling to use the net to raise money for TV ads; it's wrong because we have an incredible communication medium, but we need to do something different with the money other than feed it back to Hollywood, which is the enemy
Scott (Meetup): 3 of these guys have had phenomenal mobilization of people; they write letters when they go to meetups, something they can take their non-internet friends to
Dave: that sounds like buzz; how about getting the candidate to answer one question a day from the internet, but none of you guys said you'd do it
Esther: it should be two way
Dave: just like NPR - they want my money, but not my ideas
Matt: have compiled questions and conducted interviews, but scheduling is a major problem; does the internet work best for one-on-one communication or multiple between multiple nodes
Dave: likens what happened with Dean to the dotcom boom; I'll invest because there's buzz and someone said okay, I'll take your money; if Dean doesn't do something good with the money that is different and internet-enabled, the same thing will happen
Matt: people give money to defeat Bush, not for the internet
Dave: Dean is a great speaker, but it's a politician talking and he's not saying anything that different; it's still all intangibles
Susan: with all of this mobilization and this great tool, reaching new segments and in non-traditional ways, but the traditional way is to market the candidate on television; will the same amount of budget go to TV (versus the web); what is this incredible power of meetup - will it enter into the TV ads?
Matt: absolutely - not just about volunteers and money, but about what they can do in their own communities; that will be part of the message back to the community; obviously TV still reaches a heck of a lot of people; Bush has raised $200 million that will go to TV ads attacking Democrats, and you have to respond there
Audience: can't get it unless you scroll through and read the comments on Dean's blog; it's a permission-free zone; the people there just show up and the ideas bubble up
Cam: same thing happening at the Clark blog; the only word for it is "chaos"
Amy Wohl: it's important to count the votes, not the money; on the other hand, finds it vaguely disturbing that blogs are about personality and charisma, but there's almost nothing about communicating directly with the candidate himself; seems to her that either people are suffering from a group delusion or it has more to do with theater and political spin than blogging
Matt: it's a campaign blog, not a candidate blog; it's not possible for someone to run for president AND run a blog; when you get a fundraiser letter in the mail, you kind of know it's not real, but blogging has to be real; will end up with a ghostwriter if try to have blogging at the presidential level
Dave: unless you're Glenn Reynolds; imagine a political blogger who really captures the imagination of the American people; Dean doesn't really get this; if you don't put the guy out front, I don't know who you're talking about
Matt: could see that at the smaller race level in 2004, but time constraints make it impossible at the presidential level
Cam: most of the people that comment on the Clark blog have no way of understanding the intense schedule or the amazing amount of time it takes to be a candidate
Mike : if you think the schedule is intense now, it's nothing compared to the day after New Hampshire; what is the impact on Iowa and New Hampshire?
Matt: one of the ways that the net has had an impact was through the meetup in July; letters why they supported Dean and distributed them; think that's the way that the internet reaches out because politics is personal; the human contact is ultimately the most important
Eric: that's how the DNC views it; candidate will handle the message after the nomination, and the DNC will need to find the way to find people to turn into activists and get offline activists; need another dozen tools in the toolbox to be successful
Jim: interesting to see what you're doing for democracy; idea of having a president blog is like the old idea of government as father; today people don't want government as strict father (Republicans) or the nurturing mother/father (Democrats); they're creating a platform in which people can co-create a world together, and that's what he wants a campaign, a party, and a government to do; want a candidate to back that, but don't need that direct relationship because he's not voting for a mother or father
Audience: blogs are to improve position in the race, not democracy; otherwise, you'd give each other advice and give them all their own blogs; if you can't sit at Dean's table now, how will you when he is elected?
Matt: does read the blog and some comments - obviously can't read them all
Dave: thinks you're spinning us because haven't answered if he would respond to one question per day
Matt: blogging really is a full-time labor of love to get it going and keep it going
Cam: how many people have gotten too busy to post for a few days (almost everyone raises their hands)
Josh: you don't realize how busy these candidates really are?
Dave: but someone else asked how will they have time someday if they don't now?
Josh: they're too busy for that type; each of these campaigns have already or are reaching out to a lot of different bloggers; obviously the Dean campaign has made the blog a huge part of its web operation; the idea that the candidate can have a hands-on daily involvement with the blog is crazy
Chris Lydon: waiting for a candidate to say I don't have to do press conferences where I'm unnecessarily conflicted because I can put some real time into the blogosphere and that will trickle down
Audience: if money is so important, would spending an hour a day bring in money and then it would be worth it?
Phil: what money means is that we still have a digital divide; meetups are white in Oakland; don't have the outreach in California to the core constitutencies; how do we bridge the gap? it's money, but it's also legwork; that's why you can't depend on the web alone
Joe Jones: not everyone is in the blogosphere or on the net, but everyone has a TV; it will remain the dominant medium until everyone has the net; maybe blogs will be dominant in ten years, maybe longer
Eric: has worked in net and politics since 1995 and every year he thinks this will be the year that makes the difference; in 2000, 500 votes made the difference because Bush pumped thousands of emails into that State and the Democrats didn't; finding ways to reach people the way they want to be reached; it's worth 500 votes, which is what decided the 2000 election
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