The 2004 election is still more than 10 months away but the campaigns have already incorporated the latest in cool and are blogging. When the USA Today is talking about the power of blogs and their influence on campaigns it is more than just a passing fad. But like learning how sausages and hot dogs are made, watching a campaign blog in action may just be as nauseating.
Every major candidate for president has his own campaign blog. There is even a website devoted to "The Blogging of the Presidency." So from time to time over the next few weeks, I'm going to check in at all of them and see how the proverbial sausages are getting made. The best part is that without going all the way to Des Moines, Iowa, the blogs will tell you all about what it is like inside the war rooms of the campaign office. You can almost smell the stale coffee and the wretched stench from the interns pulling all-nighters from here.
The vast majority of people aren't going to make their decision based on reading a candidate's blog, but they are at least an amusing, and impressively self-important art form. In fact the Internet, while seriously driving Dean's candidacy in message and fundraising, still takes a back seat to television. And getting people to click certainly still pales in comparison to actually showing up in person to vote.
Take for instance, this post by on Howard Dean's Blog for America. "There is this constant activity that makes every thing seem to run on fast forward," writes campaign staffer Claire Gannon. "People walk quicker, (I've started literally running) phones ring constantly breaking up the chatter and key strokes that form perpetual background. Night falls without notice and every morning is too early, but then all of a sudden Inside Politics is on and you realize your stomach is growling because you didn't notice lunch time. Always, always, always there is laughter and humor (because we are all so clever)."
Of course all the 'Deaniacs' are funny, clever, and lightning quick worker bees and more importantly think everything the candidate does is the greatest. Like the time Dean traveled to Stella's Blue Sky Diner in Urbandale, Iowa. "Proving that he will do whatever it takes to get a vote the Gov took part in a Stella's custom. Stella's is famous for it's milk shakes. The catch is when you order a shake you have to hold the glass on the top of your head and let the server pour the shake into the glass from about 4 feet above you. The Gov was a little bit nervous - we told him not to worry because strawberry shake would make his hair shiny - but in front of hundreds of people he held the glass on the top of his head and let the shake pour in! It was a classic campaign moment and luckily I got the whole thing on my video camera. (It's sort of Howard Dean meets Fear Factor!)."
What a card that Dean is! Some of these posts are fairly amusing but others are so over the top. For New Years there was the promise of conference call by Dean and Al Gore. Nothing says New Years like a conference call. Now that’s excitement you can cut with a large knife.
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the war room is excellent@@@@@