In the past couple of days, I've received e-mails from Martin Sheen and Rob Reiner asking me to support Howard Dean's campaign for the presidency. OK, not directly from these illustrious personages -- both e-mail were sent with the same return e-mail address, info@deanforamerica, only the "Sender's Name" field was changed to reflect the messages' origination from on high. And I'm pretty sure that text like the following originated in committee rather than from Martin Sheen's fevered imaginings:
We need Howard Dean's bold leadership in the White House. Strong fundraising keeps our campaign's momentum going; it pays for much-needed media buys in key battleground states and it attracts new supporters to Howard Dean. And continuing strong fundraising will also help with the campaign's latest bold move: hiring a coordinator for each of Iowa's 99 counties.
(Incidentally, do we need another "bold" president?)
What happened with Dean's campaign? I gave kudos some time ago to Dean's campaign for "getting it", Internet-wise -- for using the Internet in smart and creative ways to reach out to American voters and help not just to promote a presidential candidate but to actively realize a community of democratically-minded citizens. So it saddens me to see these previously clever and progressive (in every sense of the word) campaigners stooping to the level of spam -- bombarding my in-box with pleas for support, altering reply-to information to increase the likelihood of my reading their latest missives (which wouldn't be an issue if they weren't already sending me so much e-mail that I don't have the time, let alone the inclination, to read it all).
Maybe the Cluetrain has left Dean's station for destinations unknown. What I'm beginning to see is not the logical next step in a campaign to use the Internet in new and exciting ways to contribute to the ongoing construction of a democratic civil society, but a retreat into corporate-speak and corporate-think, the replacement of innovation with marketing. Instead of an attempt to involve me in Dean's campaign, or in progressive politics as a whole, I am just a consumer of ideology at the end of a long, impersonal e-mail pipe. "Give 'em some Martin Sheen -- polls show that Americans trust Sheen, he transmits a presidential image that we can associate with our product, er, we mean, candidate." Quite frankly, I'm being broadcasted to, and I don't like it!
As the predatory manhunter Helen says in the movie Singles, "Desperation is the worst perfume." Is the stink rolling off these latest campaign effort from the Dean camp a sign of a campaign that's already losing steam, maybe shaken by the entry of another center-oriented liberal candidate with greater name recognition and 4 shiny stars on his shoulderbars? We're still 13 months off from the election, 11 or so from the campaign convention -- have progressive Democrats used all the tricks they had up their sleeves already? More importantly, having opened up the channel of communication (even while hiding behind the deanforamerica.com e-mail address), can I now consider Sheen and Reiner my friends? Could I borrow money from them? How about their cars?
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Have you looked into Dennis Kucinich (http://www.kucinich.us/) at all?
His platform is a lot like Dean's, but a hell of a lot more progressive. I think what gets me is Kucinich's passion. I haven't seen anyone like him in, well, ever.
Well, I'm not a Democrat, so it really doesn't matter whether I like Dean or Kucinich better. I'd love to live in a world where a guy like Kucinich is President -- convince the rest of the Dems to give him their vote come Primary/Caucus Day, and he may get my vote come Election Tuesday.
My post was intended not so much to reflect my preference in candidates as to reflect my growing disillusionment with the way those candidates -- and other progressive organizations -- are using the Internet. Dean seemed to have it dead right, and now all of a sudden seems willing to stoop to a nearly Republican level to raise a few more bucks. That I don't like. At this point, I'm getting so much e-mail from MoveOn, NARAL, Dean's Campaign, Democrats.org, TrueMajority, and other progressive organizations, that I'm just tuningit out. Instead of genuine voices, they all seem to have hit on the "Genuine Voice Formula (tm)" so what I'm getting is an endless stream of populist-sounding Left-speak being broadcasted at me, instead of genuine people sharing with me. Maybe I ask for too much; maybe Dean's initial surge out of the gate was just a fluke -- I don't know. I'm hoping, though, that all these groups get back to community-building rather than campaigning -- I'd rather find myself part of a strong progressive community come next November with Bush still president than having Dean or even Kucinich as Pres. with a progressive community reduced to market-speak.
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