5 ms·
No, that's when the retrospective "This is how [Obama|McCain] won" articles start about who was best organized, who used technology best, etc :)
by aneesh 18y ago
No, that's when the retrospective "This is how [Obama|McCain] won" articles start about who was best organized, who used technology best, etc :)
- unalone 18y agoI would LOVE to study Obama's campaign as a retrospect. He did things nobody else ever thought of. He is the first real Internet candidate.
- clay 18y agoHoward Dean doesn't count?
- unalone 18y agoDean was the first one to realize the Internet could be used. But Obama built up an incredibly powerful campaign force in part by using the Internet to coordinate vast amounts of people.
- mattmaroon 18y agoI think you need to get more than 8 total votes to count. Dean and Ron Paul were both web fads, but Obama used it as an organizational tool and got results from it. Even if he doesn't win, he's forever changed the way campaigns will be run.
- Alex3917 18y agoDean wasn't a web fad, he was leading all the polls until about two weeks before the first primary when he opened his mouth and started saying stupid shit.
- trickjarrett 18y agoI agree, Obama wasn't the first to capture the Internet as an organizational tool, but he did it to a new level and made it a powerful weapon in his arsenal.
- jdavid 18y agoRon Paul was the first. Obama copied much of what he was doing and brought it off line.
- andreyf 18y agoWhat did Ron Paul do that was at all comparable to Obama's my.barackobama.com?
- unalone 18y agoYeah. Ron Paul went viral, but not because of anything he did. Obama beat the two greatest political machines of our age and he did it almost entirely grassroots.
- yummyfajitas 18y agoObama grassroots? I don't think you are using the term correctly. It doesn't just mean "has popular support". Grassroots, as I understand it, is when the movement is not orchestrated, but just springs up around the politician. Ron Paul and Huckabee certainly qualify, but I don't see how Obama does.
- unalone 18y agoI'm sorry. I thought "grassroots" meant something akin to "community organization." My bad! Okay, Obama isn't grassroots. But he has still put together the single most powerful team of volunteers any election has seen. And he's orchestrated a lot of it over the Internet.
- Kaizyn 18y agoCongratulations, go to the head of the class.
- mattmaroon 18y agoNothing at all. Ron Paul was pretty much unknown to everyone who doesn't read Digg.
- ojbyrne 18y agoAs some people have said to me (I'm Canadian) - no, that's when the lawsuits start.
- qwph 18y agoIf I ran a newspaper, I'd have both articles already written, so I could hit the press as soon as the result was confirmed...
- mattmaroon 18y agoI promise you that everyone who actually does write a newspaper already does. They do that with sports or just about anything that runs late at night but needs to be printed early.
- mixmax 18y agoAnd don't forget obituaries. Usually the job of interns is to write obituaries so that they're ready when someone unexpectedly dies.
- wensing 18y agoUnless it's Fidel Castro. I work at a newspaper in South Florida. His (incomplete) obituary is very long and has not been written by an intern.
- foobar2k 18y agoYou may have seen an example of this happening recently when Bloomberg killed off Steve Jobs: http://gawker.com/5042795/bloomberg-runs-steve-jobs-obituary http://gawker.com/5042795/bloomberg-runs-steve-jobs-obituary
- commiebob 18y ago"dewey defeats truman!"
- axod 18y ago"How McCain/Palin stole the presidency even though they lost"
- jobeirne 18y agoOh give it a rest.
- axod 18y agoYou don't think that's a possible outcome given the last couple of elections? :/
- trickjarrett 18y agoThere will be rioting in the streets if there is an upset.
- axod 18y agoSurely nothing as bad as the rioting of 2000 after that election was stolen? just sayin' ;)
- kaens 18y agoNo, much worse than the small disturbance of 2000. Compare the graphs here ( http://electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Pres/ec_graph-2008.html http://electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Pres/ec_graph-2008.html ), particularly the ones that leave out the "barely" states. People are much less politically apathetic in the US than they were in 2000, and I'd bet money on a serious people-dying riot in the case of another shady election deal. The 2000 elections were close enough to fudge, this was a landslide. I can't remember another time in my life where a lot of people were overcome with emotion to the point of tears at the result of an election in the US.