Dean to Internet As FDR to Radio, JFK to TV

New York Times columnist Frank Rich writes that Howard Dean is to the Internet as FDR was to radio and JFK was to TV.

Returning power to the people, the Dean campaign and other online activists have taken over much of PR and advertisingís role in influencing public opinion in the 2004 Presidential race in the U.S. If the online Dean community stays focused and continues to grow, the mega-buck anti-Dean campaign soon to be launched by Bushies may not have great impact.

As Seth Godin, author of "Purple Cow," and "Permission Marketing," told me in a recent interview for my upcoming book, "Plugged In PR," One thousand people creating word of mouth buzz would be enough to get Dean elected president of the US. "It only took 550 votes to swing the election last time," Godin says.

Internet puts the people back in the mix
"It was not until F.D.R.'s fireside chats on radio in 1933 that a medium in mass use for years became a political force," Rich says. "J.F.K. did the same for television, not only by vanquishing the camera-challenged Richard Nixon during the 1960 debates but by replacing the Eisenhower White House's pre-recorded TV news conferences (which could be cleaned up with editing) with live broadcasts."

Rich notes that "From Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi's perspective, "The Internet puts back into the campaign what TV took out ó people. Ö The other Democratic Web sites are very 2000, despite all their blogs and other gizmos. ... To say that the competing campaigns don't get it is an understatement."

Dean Internet Impact Crucial for Marketers to Study
"The luckiest thing that could happen to the Dean campaign," Rich says, "is that its opponents remain oblivious to recent digital history and keep focusing on analog analogies to McGovern and Goldwater instead."

If you work in PR, marketing or media, you canít afford to ignore the impact of the Dean campaign, MoveOn and other online activists -- regardless of your political views. The work these groups are doing has made many traditional consensus-building tactics irrelevant. For more on this topic, read my July article, "Online Activists Lesson: Listen Up or Be Left Behind."

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Posted by: john cass at December 29, 2003 1:01 PM

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