So let's talk about the the elephant in the room. That big red one. The one that was supposed to have been banished back to the jungle by some combination of blogging, emergent democracy, and left-of-center solidarity.
Did. Not. Happen. Not only is Dubya back in office, but the Rs picked up greater majorities in both houses of the national legislature. Further, the leftish digirati most associated with this idea of the impact of the Internet rolled up an impressive record of failure along the way:
- An anti-war movement that apparently failed to delay the Iraqi campaign by one day, and became an object of ridicule to many.
- A Dean campaign that stalled and died as soon as it got outside the candidate's home turf.
- A Republican convention protest effort that failed to make any major impact, and was overwhelmed by the R's ability to gain the attention of the mass media.
There were successes of a sort along the way, and they are also part of the picture:
- The very existence of the Dean insurgency may have been largely due to Internet-borne organizing.
- The Internet allowed the Ds to raise the amount of funding they raised from small contributors (less than $200) above 25% for the first time.
So what happened? Something did change. We all felt it, the last two effects did happen, and CBS and few other legacy media outlets are a bit the worse for wear. But the fond hopes of the left technology determinists did not come to pass. If they were wrong, is there actually any pattern here, any conclusions to be drawn other than persevere and hope? Seems there's a panel being assembled to deal with the issue, but I thought I'd get my digs in early.
First, a couple of issues I won't try to tackle. Was the Left program inherently impossible to sell? Dean maybe, but a three percent gap at the national level doesn't suggest the Ds were doomed. At any rate, there are plenty of political bloggers battering this issue to death from either side. As it doesn't offer any insight on the question at hand, I'll pass, other than to note that if polling is evidently too blunt or broken an instrument to indicate answers at this macro level, it's not going to help us much in examining the Internet effects. For better or worse, we're back on anecdotal evidence and other things we've learned about citizens' media.
Further, I'm going to pass over the issue of whether the Ds and the Left can adapt in the fashion I will assume below, or whether they are to some extent in the grip of an idee fixe. That's playing out in real time, and I can make no forecast.
Starting with the most obvious, the Internet in general, and citizens' media in particular help fringe groups come together. This should be common wisdom by now. Groups that heretofore had little to no access to mass media have a way to meet up online using media they control themselves, and become less dependent on real world, face to face organizational infrastructure. But there's no particular bias toward one point of view that can be observed. For every Democratic Underground there's a Free Republic. For every Moveon, a Protest Warrior or Swiftie. The differences that might have made a difference are increased diversity and stridency of viewpoints perceived by the Internet enabled voter.
To the extent that the legacy media project a bias that is left of center, there may have been some counterbalancing effect of citizens' media. One could not - for the most part - call the media leftist, but any organization that is 90% Democrat identified is not dead center. There's Fox, of course, the exception to prove the rule. But it was CBS that was embarrassed by the bloggers, who hung yapping on the flanks of the MSM through the entire campaign, scoring lesser hits on the AP, the NYT and others. The casualty was the credibility of the legacy media, and to the extent that they average left of center, there may have been collateral damage to the Ds in the form of lessened ability to have their version of affairs accepted by the public.
Elections are won or lost in the middle of the spectrum, the land of trade-offs. The pre-election notions that Dubya's fiscal profligacy would keep the deficit hawks home, or Kerry's waffling on the war would send the left to Nader, and the post-election talking point that it was gay-bashing which turned out the right, all say more about the hopes and fears of their proponents than about reality, given the Rorschach blot nature of the flawed exit polls. It was a deservedly high turnout election, across the board. It's the movement of the independents and undecided that turned the dead heat of 2000 into the clear victory of 2004, and gave the Rs a stronger legislative majority.
Moving a real undecided or independent into one column or the other is not a fast process. I don't know of anyone who on one day saw a single argument or bit of evidence from either side, and came abruptly to the conclusion that Bush is an idiot, or Kerry a traitor. It's the accumulation of both issues and character evidence over time which makes the difference.
In this regard, the approbation of the legacy media may have formed a subtle trap for the leftist protagonists employing citizens' media. Organizations were formed and funded more quickly, and they did enjoy a greater degree of tactical agility in demonstrations and primary activities. But they may have evolved into organizations highly optimized for gaining mass media attention. However, this source of feedback - biased both politically and towards the novel and outre - is arguably not correlated to the ultimate political objective: changing votes. The networked Left entered into a fast feedback loop with the legacy media, with the American public outside watching. By the time the real evidence came in Iowa, it was too late. A new fundraising machine had been invented, but it was not persuasive beyond the true believers - it was operating on the wrong time base.
So was there any persuasion via the net at all? I think so, in two ways, neither of which benefited the Left or the Ds. I will confess up front that this is all anecdotal, and may not have been of significant magnitude in this election, though it may be a harbinger of the future.
The first way was the ability to obtain primary data or relevant analysis of the WOT or Iraq, independent of the legacy media. Often, this painted a picture very different from that in the MSM, coincidentally undermining many left arguments. The Iraqi bloggers, with first hand data and an overwhelming majority aligned to the hopes for a free Iraq, gained a wide audience. One of them, 'Hammorabi' specifically asked his readers whether he had influenced their votes. (Link is likely bloggered, look for the post of 11/3, and see comments.) Make your own judgment, but I'd say the average response was 'yes, but you mostly reinforced my beliefs'. OTOH, there are many embedded anecdotes about pass-along to others.
In absence of any official sources of military analysis, we received a steady feed of solid analysis and horse's mouth military opinion from the likes of Wretchard, Blackfive, and Jason Van Steenwyk. Let's just say their POV largely reflects the political split in the military, their analysis directly undermined the doomsayers, and counter pointed the uselessness of the 'analyst' spin patrol on the tube.
The second way of indirect persuasion is what I'll just call the 'wacko factor'. Everyone who frequents the blogosphere knows the screeching parrots from one side or the other, who seem to have nothing in their brain but talking points. Folks like Jeff Jarvis or Michael Totten or even myself who jumped off the fence one way or the other attracted flocks of these pests. (E.g., I became the Jew-baiting target of one clueless anti-Semite who neglected to find out I'm not of that persuasion.)
I'm not going to make a judgment in terms of number or rudeness one way or the other, but I suspect that the impact was asymmetric - another face of the 'Michael Moore effect'. Rightly or wrongly, an incumbent is judged by his record and the voters' impression of his character in office. A challenger is more open to interpretation, and the company he keeps is part of the judgment. Having the shriekers and the candidate with the same talking points at the same time may not have been a positive outcome. The very speed of this information flow may have had the downside of discrediting it. Just my impression, but you can sample this discussion at Roger Simon's and form your own views.
You may take all of this as a sign that I've been deluded by the cunning of Karl Rove. If so, I suggest filing it away until you reach the phase called 'acceptance', then perhaps some operational ideas will occur. If the technology determinists keep fooling themselves, it will be Mr. Rove who will have another laugh at their expense, some years hence.