Viral Campaigns

Just a little more of the political commentary, and then back to the attempts at the funny.

John Kerry is going to lose for the same reason that Al Gore did. Maybe he won't have the election stolen in the end, but Gore didn't womp the hell out of Bush for the same reason that Kerry isn't, neither one of them learned anything from Bill Clinton.

The reason that Clinton found it so easy to beat the snot out of the Bushies was that he waged an unconventional, viral campaign.

In traditional campaigns there is an incumbant and he hurls down attacks from the ramparts of the castle of his office, and if one of the besieging challengers manages to get past and over the wall, then there is a chance of a change of regime.

Clinton learned the lessons of Jerry Brown and Ross Perot and circumvented this process by reaching out to the people and talking directly to them. He made the effort to go past the gatekeepers of the media and let the people talk directly to him during the campaigns. He went on Arsenio and did the town meetings.

Gore failed because he tried to distance himself from that tactic and was unable to convince the voters with old style politicing.

Kerry is making the same mistake by simply posing for photo ops and using old fashioned PR and spin.

Dean made huge strides by bringing people into his campaign and spreading his message viraly, allowing its memes to spread on their own through the datasphere.

Kerry has no hope in winning this type of fight because Bush's people are better at it than he is.

The key is to embrace new media. Going on the Daily Show was a good step, but he still came off as a candidate on a campaign stop.

Oh well.