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Democrats and their "netroots"

Submitted by marmalade on 12 November 2006 - 5:27pm.

Here's some more election-oriented stuff from the NYTimes.

The authors speculate about the role that blogs and "netroots" played in influencing the outcome of the last election. They basically conclude, starting with Howard Dean and moveon.org back in 2000, that "Though the netroots have forever changed how campaigns raise money and find votes, the [2006 election] results demonstrated that they cannot yet win elections on their own. But the Democratic Party cannot win major national elections without the netroots."

Sort of an interesting idea--that net is changing the politics, but it's also changing it most profoundly for one party. I know that it's generally accepted that the Republicans have a stronger "get out the vote" machinery--better databases, more efficient methods, smarter people at the phones, or something similar overall--so I find it interesting (although an obvious trend) that the internet would be seen as the main support mechanism for the Democratic party.

Funny, too, about the power in the relationship (at least according to the authors): the Democrats need the net, but the net can't make or break an election for the Democrats.

I wonder how long the tie between the internet and the Democrats will hold, too--especially considering the claim quoted in the article that the net fosters an "anti-establishment community"--and if the power of bloggers, etc., will wax or wane as time goes on.

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I think the fact that the

Submitted by Natwwal on 12 November 2006 - 7:16pm.

I think the fact that the Democrats have been using the internet for election campaigns more than Republicans lately is probably partially due to the fact that they have been the out-of-power party for the last few years. The internet tends to be a tool of challengers. As I recall, people attributed much of John McCain's early success in the 2000 Republican primary to his effective use of the internet as a mobilizing tool.

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Donkeys & Pachyderms online

Submitted by magoo on 13 November 2006 - 3:51pm.

The Republican Party is, overall, better funded than the Democrats. The Net costs money, but it costs less. So were both parties to use the Net equally, one would expect a net gain (oh, these puns) for the Demos.

Also, the Republican electorate is, on the average, somewhat older and distinctly more rural, and so probably less prone to get information online. Granted, these patterns in Net use are probably fading, but for the moment (and more over the time measured, I would think) they favor use by the Dems.

Of course, if one makes the same comparison between the Dems and some 3rd-party groups--the Greens, for example--the distinction would seem to favor the 3rd party far more distinctly.

MovingOn gave me access to democratic candidates and agendas that I (a 3rd-party, left, voter) would not have normally bothered with, and I suspect that people like me were swelling the numbers of these demo projects a bit, and may have helped sell antiwar and similar agendas to the MOR demos and their candidates.

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