Page 196 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

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Campaigns for Office in 2000
presence in February 1998, and never opened a traditional campaign
headquarters. It had no paid employees until the final two months, when
it took on a single paid staff person as campaign manager. 186 Instead, the
Venturacampaignreliedonitswebsiteande-maildistributionlistaswell
as fax technology and telephones to solicit and organize volunteers, run
campaignevents,directthevolunteercampaign,andraisefunds.Accord-
ing to his campaign manager, the on-line fund-raising efforts produced
about one-third of Ventura’s total of $600,000 in donations. 187 What
funds the campaign did raise could go almost exclusively to broadcast
advertising and travel for the candidate, since Ventura was not paying
salaries, rent, or other traditional campaign costs. 188 Internally, the Ven-
tura campaign consisted of an almost entirely “virtual” organization,
while externally it was represented by a modest broadcast advertising
presence connected to a network of volunteers.
Observers of the Ventura campaign, as well as its campaign manager,
have widely credited information technology for being instrumental to
Ventura’svictory – the first case where the presence of a new means of po-
litical communication materially altered an election outcome. Without
the Internet, some said, Ventura would not have won. 189 While it is clear
that the successful Ventura campaign relied more heavily on informa-
tion infrastructure in place of traditional political infrastructure than any
major campaign to date, this claim is problematic and its comparison
with Kennedy in 1960 is not useful. Ventura brought enormous name
recognition to his candidacy, won a three-way race with just 39 per-
cent of the vote total, and ran in a state with a history of support for
nontraditional candidates. These features of the 1998 Minnesota gov-
ernor’s race are more important than the Internet in explaining the

186
Phil Madsen, “Notes Regarding Jesse Ventura’s Internet Use in His 1998 Campaign
for Minnesota Governor,” Dec. 7, 1998, Jesse Ventura for Governor Volunteer Com-
mittee, http://www.jesseventura.org/internet/netnotes.htm.
187
PhilMadsen,“NotesRegardingJesseVentura’sInternetUse”;BillMcAuliffe,“Ventura
Riding the Web,” Star Tribune, March 1, 1999, http://www.startribune.com.
188
Dennis Cass, “‘The Body’ Rocks Minnesota,” ABC News, Nov. 4, 1998, http://
abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/pn jesse981104.html.
189 Phil Noble, “Jesse Watch: The PoliticsOnline Summary,” 1998, http://www.
politicsonline.com/jv/summary.html; Jon Katz, “The Morning After: Digital
Democracy II,” Slashdot, Dec. 12, 1998, http://www.slashdot.org/features/98/12/20/
1210224.shtml; Diane Lynch, “Being There,” Christian Science Monitor, on-line
edition, Jan. 5, 1999, http://www.csmonitor.com/atcsmonitor/cybercoverage/media/
p-media010599.html; Rebecca Fairley Raney, “Former Wrestler’s Campaign Got
a Boost from the Internet,” New York Times Cybertimes Edition, Nov. 6, 1998,
http://www.politicsonline.com/coverage/nytimes2/06campaign.html.

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