There’s one interesting interesting analysis this morning on the Lieberman loss in the Washington Post. It focuses on what turned out to be the powerful combination of the netroots and grassroots for the Lamont campaign.

Zephyr (Sunlight’s National Director and the Dean campaign’s Internet brain) and I talked about whether we agreed with this analysis this morning and whether there is more to be learned. (Too bad we didn’t do it on IM or I would just put it here.)  

We agree that the breakthrough for Lamont wasn’t necessarily the use of the Internet but how he used it. Since 2004 candidates have increasingly "used" the internet, but mostly used it as an alien force, not as an aspect of every part of the campaign itself. For a campaign not to use the Internet to amplify everything you do would be like not using the telephone.

The Lamont campaign had a different — and obviously much better — approach. It used the Internet to enable people’s creativity and passions, instead of simply to direct doorknockers and mobilize (though they did that too). They brought to the campaign people with enormous creativity and passion, rather than shunning them. They used techniques like video blogging with people who were really passionate about their candidate. They repeatedly proved that openness in the process of campaigning actually works. This kind of attitude and approach — serve the people who want to work with you, enable them, ala Craig Newmark – is essential for meaningful political participation. And it results in robust involvement of real people in the campaign.

We also can’t overlook the role that political bloggers played in this race, not directly in  reaching voters (Zephyr’s hunch is that number of primary voters actually reading blogs would be less than 10 percent) but in how they shaped the race for the national press, which in turn affected local voters as they got a sense of its importance.

Lessons for all of us.

0 Comments

Earlier, Larry documented how Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) is flush with campaign contributions as his primary battle comes to a close tomorrow. Lieberman has received contributions from numerous political action committees and political allies along with contributions from people across the country. Lieberman’s challenger, Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont, is his own biggest campaign contributor having given himself $2 million dollars over the past 15 days. Lamont has also brought in contributions from a wide variety of people including top Democratic fundraisers, liberal philanthropists, and investors.

A name that clearly stood out among these last minute donors was Maureen White, former National Finance Chair at the Democratic National Committee. White came under fire from Democrats last year when she and her husband, Steven Rattner, raised large amounts of money for Republican New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. It’s certainly interesting to see White, who is associated through her husband with Lieberman’s more conservative brand of Democratic politics, supporting Lamont.

Another notable name is actor and director Tim Robbins who gave the maximum of $2,100. Two top liberal philanthropists are also supporting Lamont. Drummond Pike, the CEO of the Tides Foundation, and Katherine Mountcastle both gave $1,000 to Lamont.

Lamont’s support also comes from the business community. Lamont has received contributions from Yale School of Management associate dean Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, NYU economics professor Janusz Ordover of NYU, and a number of high-level private equity investors and venture capitalists.

Also of note is the percentage of contributions received from Connecticut. The FEC lists Lamont as receiving a total of 71 contributions between July 21^st and August 3^rd. Of those 71 contributions 35 came from residents of Connecticut. That means that nearly 50% of Lamont’s last-minute donors are from within Connecticut.

0 Comments