[Mb-civic] Net could create new political power

[Michael Butler]

FT.com     
 
Click Here to Print
      EMAIL THIS | Close
 
Net could create new political power
>By Ronald Brownstein
>Published: April 24 2005 20:31 | Last updated: April 24 2005 20:31
>>

The internet is a levelling force. It diffuses power and empowers new
competitors to challenge old arrangements. Elite newspapers and magazines,
for instance, dominate their markets partly because it costs so much to
build conventional hard-copy competitors. But the web has also allowed tens
of thousands of new voices to find audiences at little cost.

Some of the same effect is already evident in US politics. Once it took
years of heavy spending on direct mail and other recruitment methods to
build a national membership organisation. MoveOn.org, the online liberal
advocacy group, acquired half a million names with virtually no investment
just months after posting an internet petition opposing former US president
Bill Clinton's impeachment in 1998. MoveOn, and groups like it on the left
and right, chisel away at the power of the main political parties by
providing an alternative source of campaign funds and volunteers. But
otherwise, the two parties that have defined American political life since
the 1850s have been largely immune from the centrifugal current of the
internet era.

Joe Trippi, a principal architect of Howard Dean's breakthrough internet
strategy in the 2004 Democratic presidential campaign, is one of many
analysts who believe that may soon change. The internet, he says, could
ignite a serious third party presidential bid in 2008. "This is a very
disruptive technology," he says.

The internet could allow an independent candidate to identify more easily an
audience and financial base, just as it has allowed blogs such as the
liberal Daily Kos or conservative Instapundit to find like-minded readers.
More precisely, the internet has allowed readers to find those blogs. And
because the audience mostly finds the product, rather than the other way
around, the cost of entering the market is radically reduced. Mr Trippi
believes an independent presidential candidate could organise support
through the internet just as inexpensively. If he struck a chord, such a
candidate could raise as much as $200m over the internet "in the blink of an
eye", Mr Trippi predicts. It might not be quite that simple. But the two
parties are pursuing strategies that create an opening in the centre of the
electorate, even as the internet makes it easier for new competitors to fill
it.

Influenced partly by Ross Perot's strong showing in the 1992 presidential
race, Mr Clinton argued that capturing the middle was the key to electoral
success. After an initial lurch left, he doggedly pursued centrist voters by
breaking from liberal orthodoxy on welfare, trade and other issues. By
contrast, George W. Bush, the US president, has been more willing to risk
alienating moderate and independent voters to advance ideas that energise
his base. He won re-election largely by increasing turnout among Republicans
and conservatives.

More and more Democrats see their future in Mr Bush's model, not Mr
Clinton's. Mr Trippi argues that Democrats are more likely to win back the
White House by increasing turnout among their own supporters with a
pointedly partisan message, as did Mr Bush. Not only have liberals such as
Mr Trippi drawn this conclusion; so too have some centrists such as Simon
Rosenberg, founder of the New Democrat Network. Mr Bush's success in 2004,
says Mr Rosenberg, has rejected "for all time" the idea that the only way to
win the White House is to win the centre.

This argument among Democrats is far from settled. But a tilt in Mr Trippi's
direction is evident in the surprisingly unified Democratic congressional
opposition to Mr Bush's priorities. The result is that both parties today
are offering policies and messages aimed primarily at their core supporters.
Even strategists such as Mr Trippi, however, acknowledge that by ceding the
centre, both parties may be vulnerable to a new force.

The hurdles for an independent presidential candidate remain formidable.
Even one with a competitive share of the popular vote may have trouble with
the US electoral college vote system.

Yet if the two parties continue on their trajectory, the backdrop for the
2008 election could be massive federal budget deficits, gridlock on problems
such as healthcare costs, fights over ethics and poisonous clashes over
social issues and Supreme Court appointments. In such an environment,
imagine the options for John McCain, the Republican senator from Arizona, if
he does not win the 2008 Republican nomination, and former Democratic
senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, now that he has dropped the idea of running
for mayor of New York. If the two Vietnam veterans joined in an independent
ticket, they might inspire a gold rush of online support, making the two
national parties the latest example of the internet's ability to threaten
seemingly impregnable institutions.
>
>The writer is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times
>
>
>
 
 
 
Find this article at:
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/92974aa0-b4ec-11d9-8df4-00000e2511c8,ft_acl=_ftaler
t_ftarc_ftcol_ftfre_ftindsum_ftmywap_ftprem_ftspecial_ftsurvey_ftworldsub_ft
ym_ftymarc_ic_ipadmintool_nbe_poapp_printedn_psapp_reg,s01=1.html
 
Click Here to Print
     EMAIL THIS | Close
 Check the box to include the list of links referenced in the article.