Please take note of two things. First, young people once again proved fairly useless. Every four years some candidate, usually a Democrat, claims that he’s bringing in new, energized young people who are ready to change this country, remake the party etc. ERRRRRRR. Wrong. It’s really never happened, at least not in a way the politicians could take credit for. Why? Because being young is not like being black or gay or Asian or Catholic or Jewish or any other identity group. Being young is like, well, being young. There are young conservatives and young liberals. Young Catholics and young gays. And within these groups young people and old people will differ with each other just as young people will differ with young people. Anyone who believes Rock the Vote is something other than MTV marketing nonsense deserves to be described as a Rock the Vote voter, i.e. a buffoon.
Second, the internet didn’t deliver squat for Howard Dean. The Deaniac webloggers, the meet-uppers, the flash mobbers should all shut up because your vaunted “internet revolution” is fizzling out like a Mexican TV in the rain. You know what makes for a great internet strategy? A great candidate. In 2000, everyone said John McCain had a brilliant internet strategy. He didn’t. He had a webpage and some email. But he was a popular candidate and so he had a popular website. Dean was a good candidate for angry anti-war young people, so those people flash-mobbed themselves senseless. Bully for you, but a phone would have worked just as well. Sure, it helps to have good email lists and a good website, but it also helps to have good snail mail lists and a good commercial. If Dean is Thomas Paine because he’s got a half million email addresses (picking a number from memory) what does that make George Bush since he’s got over 6 million? Is he a revolutionary? Or are “weblutionaries” (my word, I think) only liberals?
The internet is a wonderful thing, but it ain’t no Brave New World for electoral politics — yet. And it probably won’t be until we have online voting. And if we do get that, it will be a revolution all right. And like most revolutions the result will be