We couldn't figure out how to communicate to people that there was this--pardon the expression--a "holy shit" moment happening here. In other words, our Internet supporters were complacent. They were, "Man, we've got more money than anybody. We're ahead in Iowa and we're ahead in New Hampshire..."I remember sending out an E-mail that said…something like, "If you've never heard the depth of our need for your support right now, hear it now," and the blog comments were, "Why is Joe sounding so desperate? He's never sounded desperate before. We're on top of the world here. We're ahead." And so I think there was a disconnect between our Net roots' understanding of the body politic and what was happening at that moment after Gore endorsed us.
The Powers that Be had struck in a pattern predictable from before; the Governor was undergoing the trials of the frontrunner. All effort had to swing from creating a movement and building the tools for expanding it further... to grinding infantry work in Iowa: finding voters who would turn out for Dean and persuading them it's worth a shot.
At the same time, Trippi as shot caller for Dean had entered a dangerous area where only the rules of Realpolitik can win you the prize. These were not the terms that existed between the Dean campaign led by Trippi and the movement for Dean that helped bring 600,000 forward in one way or another.
and there was really no way….we couldn't figure out a way to communicate what was happening to us in a way that either didn't sound desperate — I do not know what the word is for it-- but did not ring alarm bells the wrong way...
"Figure out a way to communicate" involves the press. The conditions of scrutiny Dean had entered disallowed honest communication with the base in the very public terms the Dean campaign had half-pioneered. If you leveled with supporters and sent out the call, "we're in trouble if we don't make a big turn away from what we're doing," then the press--on frontrunner alert--would seize on that.
The master narrative has a well worn device for this: the "campaign in disarray" story. Mistakes are fodder, not only for reporters but also the comedy teams on television-- a serious consideration when you are still introducing the candidate as a person. The situation demands from Burlington an absurd level of public confidence, but it was precisely too much confidence that was hurting the campaign.
Article comments