How the internet turned everyone into James Carville (ideas from the net)

[papau]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/salon/0,14779,1314715,00.html

How the internet turned everyone into James Carville © Salon.com 2004

Thanks to the net, we've all got access to poll numbers, fundraising figures and endless political gossip - and we all know exactly what the candidates need to do to win, writes Farhad Manjoo

Tuesday September 28, 2004

In late August and early September, as John Kerry's campaign for president hit one low point after another, bloggers of all stripes took to the web with pointed political advice for the candidate. They told him how he should attack Bush and how he should hone his message. They even wrote sample speeches for the candidate.

On September 13, for instance, Zackpunk, a regular contributor to the political junkie website Daily Kos http://www.dailykos.com/ , wrote in his "diary" - a kind of miniblog within the larger site - that while listening to Al Franken on the radio, two disparate facts about the Bush presidency fused together in his mind. One was the story, first reported by Bob Woodward, that when Bush told his secretary of state, Colin Powell, that he planned to invade Iraq, Powell warned the president that "you'll own it all". The other was Bush's campaign promotion of an "ownership society."

These two facts, Zackpunk said, left a "huge opening for Kerry", with an ideal speech from the senator looking something like this: "Mr President, Colin Powell told you about this war that 'if you break it, you own it'. And now you're going around talking about an 'ownership society'. Well, Mr President, let me tell you what you own. A million jobs lost. You own that. A thousand soldiers lost. You own that. 1.4 million new people living below the poverty line. You own that. 1.2 million less people covered by health insurance. You own that. A 17% medicare increase. You own that. Health care costs skyrocketing. You own that. The tax burden increasing amongst the middle class. You own that. Mr President, if you want to talk about an ownership society, let's talk about what you own."

The speech was a powerful, specific, fact-filled indictment of Bush. And on Daily Kos, when someone writes something as brilliant as that in a diary, other readers begin noticing, and if it's good enough the post can land on the Kos front page. That's what happened in this case, and Kerry's campaign seemed to notice. In a speech two days later, Kerry said, "At that convention in New York the other week, President Bush talked about his ownership society. Well, Mr President, when it comes to your record, we agree - you own it." Kerry went on to enumerate Bush's mistakes and label his term the "excuses presidency, never wrong, never responsible, never to blame". <snip>

Sites memtioned:

Pew Internet & American Life Project http://www.pewinternet.org/

MyDD.com http://www.mydd.com/

federal election commission (FEC)'s website http://www.fec.gov/

One of the hottest video games The Political Machine http://www.politicalmachine.com/game.asp?c=1&u=0

The Emerging Democratic Majority - Ruy Teixeira - Donkey Rising http://www.emergingdemocraticmajorityweblog.com/donkeyrising/ versus Mickey Kaus at Slate http://slate.msn.com/ on whether there is a need for party ID control in polls.

the Blogging of the President http://www.bopnews.com/ .

PollingReport.com and Real Clear Politics http://www.realclearpolitics.com/

Mystery Pollster http://mysterypollster.typepad.com/main/

[Lefty48197]

1. Good response.

An America that is no longer respected by the world. Shrub owns that too.

[Devil Dog Dem]

2. Cool

kick