Page 197 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

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Political Organizations
outcome. It is more useful to say that the Ventura campaign, like Boxer’s,
established proof of principle, namely, that under the right circum-
stances, it is possible to operate a successful campaign organization with
little traditional campaign infrastructure. As a tool of internal commu-
nication and coordination, information infrastructure has the potential
to reduce campaign costs.

These four lessons of the 1998 races summarize much of the state of
information technology in political campaigns at the end of the century.
By the time of the 2000 primaries, virtually every candidate for national
and statewide office in the United States employed new channels for ex-
ternal political communication based on information technology, about
two dozen national political consulting firms were offering election cam-
paign services focused on information technology, and of course virtu-
ally every campaign relied heavily on information infrastructure for its
internal operations. 190 In various ways, most campaigns had absorbed
the lessons about new media from the elections of 1992 to 1998. The 2000
election would see these lessons put into more widespread practice and
would reveal where campaigns’ use of the new technology was similar to
that of interest groups and where it differed.
During the 2000 primary season, the most significant uses of new
media in campaigns involved fund raising and the organization of vol-
unteers for major underdog candidates, especially Bill Bradley and John
McCain. Bradley himself made on-line activities a fundamental part of
the campaign from his earliest stages of planning, hiring a leading In-
ternet consultant to head the effort. The Bradley campaign was one of
only two major presidential campaigns in 2000 to designate its Internet
manager a “senior adviser,” reporting directly to the campaign manager
and equivalent in access and rank to the television and polling con-
sultants. 191 The initial objective of the Bradley campaign’s adoption of

190 A partial list of political consulting firms offering Internet services as of October 2000
is CampaignAdvantage, CampaignOffice.com, Campaign Zone, Capitol City Con-
sulting, Capitol Online, Casey Dorin, Democrats.com, Digital Gear Internet Indus-
tries, GO-GOP Internet Consulting, Grassroots.com, Hathaway Group, Integrated
Web Strategy, iPolitics.com, Mindshare Internet Campaigns, New Media Communi-
cations, Net Politics Group.com, Patriot Campaign Consulting, Politics Online, U.S.
Elect 2000, USPolitics.net, and Votenet.com.
191
The other was the Buchanan campaign, which otherwise placed little emphasis or
resources into its effort. Sources are Lynn Reed, Internet manager for Bill Bradley,
telephone interview by Diane Johnson for the author, Nov. 17, 2000; Tim Haley,
campaign manager for Pat Buchanan, telephone interview by Diane Johnson for
the author, Nov. 20, 2000; Jan Braswell, webmaster for Pat Buchanan, telephone

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