Will he lead his faithful followers with him? They're rending their clothes on the Dean blog today, as the Internet master packs his tents and heads back to his Maryland farm. We profiled the Wizard of the Web back in October, when the DNC was posing the musical question, "Will Howard Dean flame out like an overheated dotcom?"
Sadly, the parallels are inescapable. Dean burned through a hefty $9.2M in advertising, but still finished lamely in Iowa and New Hampshire, prompting a re-evaluation of a campaign fueled largely by devoted but neophyte supporters. (Anybody remember boo.com?) So Dean turned to veteran political operative Ray Neel, a former lobbyist and Al Gore aide, causing even the Governor's faithful to wonder if the campaign was selling out to the Washington insiders it has spent months ridiculing.
Tuesday's primaries should provide the answer to whether the first true grassroots campaign since Eugene McCarthy marshalled the help of the hippies in 1968 has the fortitude to go the distance. Stay tuned.
Related Stories: | Topics:Work/Life, politics + government, Howard Dean, U.S. Government, U.S. State Government, Al Gore, Ray Neel |
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Recent Comments | 6 Total
January 29, 2004 at 7:12pm by John A. Byrne
It's over for Howard Dean. Short of wrapping Dean's mouth with duct tape in Iowa, there was nothing Joe Trippi could have done to help his candidate win in New Hampshire. And he only got as far as he did because he had a brilliant strategist in Trippi behind him. My prediction: Dean will now flame out like an overheated dotcom.
January 30, 2004 at 11:36am by Bob L.
Agree with John. If the candidate does not have a
message that resonates with a majority of the voters, there isn't enough money to help him/her.
January 30, 2004 at 12:47pm by steve o.
I agree with the prior posts. I fear that the impact of the web on politics will be short-changed for next 9-18 months because Dean didn't have what it takes to sustain the effort. He was never as outsider as or left as he claims and the grassroots appeal of the "Dean" movement appears to be entirely due to Trippi's vision.
But the fact remains, his (Trippi's) apparatus raised a tremendous amount of money, mobilized an army, and brought a lot of disaffected people back into the fold.
January 31, 2004 at 10:48am by johnmoore
It would appear that Dean's message and methods did not cross the chasm. Clearly, Dean ignited the passions of the innovators and began making inroads to the early adopters, but that is where his campaign stalled. In fact, it could be argued that his campaign stalled as it tried to move past the innovators to the early adopters.
It's a shame that the politicians who survive the political battlefield of primaries and caucuses are those that are the least polarizing.
johnmoore
for more on this topic visit: BRAND AUTOPSY
February 2, 2004 at 8:49am by Mark Zorro
I told you Dean will flame out 6 months ago. Trippi this, Trippi that, fickle is a word that changes with circumstance. At least Joe Trippi said the same thing I said in August in a recent interview with CNN - Dean's campaign is about reaching the Non-Voting 50%. Politics 2004 isn't wagging the dog, today it's about who can fly and hurl the dog the farthest. I am not a Republican, I am not a Democrat, I am a Non-Fickle Non-Voter.
M.
zorromark@consultant.com
(Mark Twain wasn't Mark Twain, Mark Zorro isn't Mark Zorro)
http://www.markzorro.blogspot.com
February 4, 2004 at 1:28pm by Heath Row
Dean's campaign may be on the wane, but it'll be interesting to see how his campaign practices affect future political campaigns.