As Micah Sifry, an editor at TechPresident, put it today, Barack Obama would never have accomplished so much without the internet. He would just have been another Bill Bradley, another Howard Dean, another Gary Hart. Another progressive, process-oriented, reformist candidate that in the end always seems to lose against the establishment candidate.
Most of these candidates falter in the early primary states, where party loyalists reward long service, or on Super Tuesday, when vast numbers of voters speak at once and prevent all but the most well-known candidates from advancing further. Obama has already passed these tests.
If Obama has come this far, if he has accomplished so much, it is because of the way the internet has driven his campaign. By tonight, Obama's campaign is likely to have raised surpassed $5 million since the close of voting yesterday. In the month of January, his campaign raised a staggering $28 million online, dwarfing Ron Paul's entire fourth quarter.
Progressive, creative-class, web-based organizations like MoveOn, with its three-million-strong email list, as well as communities like DailyKos, are now starting to fall in behind his candidacy --- most likely a crucial element behind his fundraising surge tonight.
Some campaign aides already believe that the campaign is on track to raise another $30 million this month. A remarkable achievement, in the almost total absence of traditional, one-on-one fundraisers with major donors at fancy hotels. Indeed, only 3% of Obama's 600,000 donors have given the maximum amount of $2,300, meaning that they can remain active contributors.
But the other big change, to finally circle around to my statement at the beginning of this post, is that we are now seeing the internet's role in politics in full flower. As Patrick Ruffini pointed out here recently, no candidate in American history has ever raised $32 million in a single month -- until Obama came along and hit that mark this January. $28 million of that, the campaign says, was raised online.
It isn't likely that Clinton will be able to match this pace, and the first sacrifice will likely be that she'll take time off from the campaign trail to go back to personally fundraising on the coasts.
But it's not just the fundraising. The Obama campaign has used distributed online phone banks for volunteers to make at least tens of thousands to critical primary states, to allow supporters to set up local and national groups, create email lists, plan their own events, set up their own fundraising pages, create their own blogs --- in a way that other campaigns have attempted this cycle, but none have succeeded in generating the same activity. For every massive rally that Obama has held, there's been a network of phone-bankers contacting supporters in the area to let them know about it.
Perhaps most interestingly, the Obama campaign isn't just finding the energy and organization already online, but he's bringing traditional off-line supporters into the web community. My first blog was set up on my.barackobama.com in February. And they are also utilizing the existing internet habits of young people to spread their message --- with soaring YouTube views, massive Facebook and MySpace memberships, etc. What's so remarkable is that these tools are actually working, actually being used for progressive, political action.
It is fitting then that Obama also have the most innovative, the most creative technology plan and the most expansive vision for the role that the internet can play in revitalizing our democracy. And that his campaign has gained the support of prominent tech advocates.
As Sifry concludes:
The old winnowing process, which was mainly about wooing big donors and winning news cycles, is no more. Obama seems to be carving a new path to the nomination, one that has gotten him to parity, and maybe even given him the edge going forward. If he wins the Democratic nomination, there will be all kinds of reasons why. But if that happens, let's hope everyone gives the internet and all the campaign-driven and activist-driven organizing it has powered on his behalf a big share of the credit.
But could this be the beginning of a fundamental change in the way elections work? The moment when a candidate used the internet to launch him farther than any candidate has before, to actually break past the strongest candidate the establishment has to offer? Don't get me wrong, I don't think Obama not getting the nomination would diminish any of the above achievements, although he is perhaps in better position now than he has been at any point this cycle to succeed. Regardless, it's been a remarkable achievement of the netroots community.
Update [2008-2-6 21:9:27 by psericks]: Currently stands at $4,673,457, with hours to go before midnight. The servers have been strained on the campaign website and going down occasionally from the donations flowing in. MoveOn did this. Update [2008-2-6 21:31:17 by psericks]: You can follow the total here. And indeed, you can contribute here.|
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