Page 192 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

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Campaigns for Office in 2000
in the United States was that new channels for communication between
candidates and voters undermined the dominance of parties as cam-
paign organizations. In terms of mass communication, this meant that
the functions of communicating with voters on a large scale could be
managed by organizations other than parties. In organizational terms,
it meant that party organizations, polling firms, communications con-
sultants, and other political advisers could form temporary networks
centered on the candidate organization and existing only for the du-
ration of an electoral campaign. This feature of the third information
revolution can be thought of as the specialization and diversification of
organizationsinvolvedincampaigns.ThequestionsraisedbytheInternet
in contemporary election campaigns should be cast in these terms.
The brief history of the Internet in national campaigns begins in 1992,
prior to the development of the web as a large-scale means of communi-
cation. Political organizations such as the Democratic Senatorial Cam-
paign Committee had used electronic mail for internal communication
as far back as the 1980s, but 1992 was significant not only for the greater
intensiveness of information technology but for its emergent potential
as a means for communicating outside the campaign organization.
In the 1992 races, a few candidates employed electronic mail networks
and distribution lists to coordinate participation in their campaigns and
inform supporters about their progress. One of the most prominent
experiments was an electronic mail–based campaign information sys-
tem created by the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT that was
provided by the university to the major candidates. The system permit-
ted citizens to volunteer for a presidential campaign, debate issues with
other citizens, and request news and issue papers from participating can-
didates. George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, John Hagelin, Andre Marrou,
and Ross Perot participated. 178 The Clinton campaign made the most
extensive use of the system, assigning a staff person reporting to George
Stephanopoulostodevelopcontentandcoordinatethedistributionofin-
formation from campaign headquarters using the MIT system. After the
election, the Clinton administration adapted the technology into a White
House electronic mail distribution system that provided subscribers with
press releases, copies of executive orders, press briefing transcripts, and
presidential proclamations. 179 That system proved long-lived, operating

178
Kenneth D. Campbell, “AI Lab Initiates Electronic Presidential Town Meeting,” MIT
Tech Talk, Oct. 28, 1992, http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/tt/1992/oct28/27118.html.
179
Lee Ridgway, “The Web, Politics, and the 1996 Presidential Campaign,” i/s 11, no. 8
(1996), http://web.mit.edu/is/isnews/v11/n08/42074.html.
175