The Impact the Internet Has On Politics

Jim Johnson links to an article on Myspace holding their own mock primary. Jim also links to a Jeff Jarvis post.

But now MySpace steals some of that thunder, for candidates will now need to spend some effort and, yes, money there to make sure that Obama doesn’t walk away with the virtual election and the subsequent rush of publicity (just watch: the winner on MySpace will end up being announced on network news shows; it would be more newsworthy than last night’s NBC Nightly News report on the voting campaign for Sanjaya).

I have never seen a mock primary have any affect on election results. Mitt Romney won CPAC and he is doing lousy in the polls. Does anyone remember who won the straw polls in 2004?

Jeff Jarvis is an idiot. He keeps saying blogs are going to replace the media. Tommy gave a speech along the same lines to a bunch of lawyers. The truth is Jarvis is a running joke amongst A list others from Eric Alterman to Atrios. He's horrible, boring and used his blog to promote AOL blogs without informing his readership he has worked for Time-AOL for years.

I haven't went to one Myspace candidate site yet. The software just presents the profile and links to blog updates. The Dean model is better for a campaign website.


Tommy Duncan makes this hysterical statement in the SOS comments.

What an interesting development. Could make all the primaries moot, regardless of when they are held… Jarvis makes good points too.

Last time I checked Howard Dean wasn't President. That comment is coming from someone who dissed the netroots and discussed our off-the-record talks online. I think I will mention he told me afterwards me didn't know what the netroots are. I love people who don't understand politics and media saying how it will magically change everything.

Amanda Marcotte wrote a good post on this subject.

Nor does the left blogosphere. There are some bloggers who do journalist work, but they are the exceptions that prove the rule. Truth told, good journalism is so utterly time-consuming and thankless that you need to farm it out to paying publications for compensation, so most bloggers who do that work will publish it outside of their blogs. But what left wing bloggers do offer is an opinion and analysis alternative, and as Mike says, a good deal of the time they simply are legions better than the paid pundits. For some reason, though, this obvious point about blogs is somehow avoided in most conversations about them.

My main theory as to why people avoid discussion the blogs’ major role in shaping opinion and offering analysis is that people are reluctant to admit outright that they look to others for opinion and analysis. The great myth of American politics is that we’re all just soberly analyzing the facts and opinions and “deciding for ourselves”, which would mean that we don’t lose out a whole lot if the field of available opinion is limited by Beltway wisdom. Unfortunately, human nature just isn’t like that. In reality, people tend to use the opinions they’re hearing as a gauge of what is possible and then reject the “extremes” of the available range of opinion and put themselves in the middle. There’s simply not a lot of thought that goes into it. Conservatives grasp this fact very well, which is why Fox News puts a bunch of conservatives on and characterizes them as left wing Democrats. Slowly but surely, they create the impression that very middle-of-the-road, boring liberal ideas are raving socialism—thus how I managed to hear this weekend from my dad how attempts to reduce carbon emissions through conservation and carbon offsets is actually a socialist plot to destroy life as we know it.

Jarvis is actually a conservative guy. Even though he doesn't want to admit it. Tommy lets is inner wingnut out with teens mooning teachers and Glenn Beck posts. They are the type of people who believe the internet will replace old media crap. Because they have no idea what they are talkuing about. People are still reading books and listening to the radio. Both were pronounced dead.

Jarvis and Tommy have never worked in the netroots. Tommy has been on the receiving end of it with the Rachel flap. I was the guy who organized the progressive blog push back. I understand online organization and journalism and Myspace will have zero impact on the election.

The funniest thing about Tommy and Jarvis's comments is they believe campaigns should spend vast amounts of money for a Myspace primary geared to mostly young people who don't vote. No sane campaign manager would take money that could go to Iowa and New Hampshire ground operations. Dean had the internet buzz in 2004. John Kerry ran a better campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire. The rest is history.