The US mid-terms are over. The House and Senate have gone to the
Democrats. Does this signal the ascendancy of the Democrats' netroots
campaign style and the eclipse of the GOP's voter vault strategy? As
usual, even the impressionistic evidence is contradictory. Lieberman
actually won as an 'Independent', beating 'Net' Lamont. I'm not sure
that's a good test for the hypothesis though, given that it was one
Democrat against another. Virginia went blue, and that was partly based
on the media's framing of incumbent George Allen's racist slur following
a posting on YouTube of his 'macaca' remarks. But this was about the
mainstream media picking up a story rather than just being about the
viral nature of the net. An excellent first take by Nick
Anstead.
In the wider campaign, I am amazed that a report
from the early summer said that 'only 23 percent of Senate
candidates were blogging'. Amazed, that is, that the number is so high.
From a base of what at the 2004 Senate elections? Less than 5 percent
probably. It's also probably too low due to the fact that it was six
months before the elections. Thanks to Wainer
Lusoli for digging that one out.
A round-up of stories (will be added to):
-
Howard Dean, described by the Guardian as "one of the engineers of
this week's Democratic victory in the US midterm elections", is to advise
the British Labour Party on campaigning strategy for the Spring local
elections.
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Pre-poll
story from Joshua Holland dwelling on the importance of netroots
networks: "Doing so is easier than ever because of the emergence of a
nascent but growing liberal infrastructure organized via the internet
-- the "netroots," ActBlue, MediaMatters, MoveOn, Progressive
Majority, Drinking Liberally and a long list of others are all
starting -- starting -- to have a real impact by giving average people
the tools they need to share ideas, pool resources and influence the
media's narratives. Each cycle they've grown a little bit in
sophistication, and each cycle they've had just a little bit more
influence than they did in the previous one."
-
Ari
Melber article from The Nation reprinted at the CBS News site,
sceptical of netroots, but with several critical comments.
-
Joe
Conason at Salon on the contribution of Dean's strategy to build
the Democrats' netroots in every state.
-
Aggregated table of the 'netroots' candidates at John
Kerry's blog.
-
Response
from George Osborne of the UK Conservatives.
-
A different
take by Matthew Taylor, Blair's outgoing chief adviser on
political strategy.