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The Future Of Web-Based Politicking
by Ted Leventhal
"Internet adviser" is becoming a familiar title on campaign rosters now that former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean has awakened the field of Democratic presidential candidates to the power of the Internet. On Friday, John Hlinko was named director of Internet strategy for the campaign of former Gen. Wesley Clark.
Hlinko previously co-founded DraftWesleyClark.com, a campaign that generated some $2 million in pledges for a Clark candidacy. A self-described "guerilla marketer," Hlinko has launched several online issue campaigns through his Extreme Campaigns consulting firm. Clark has raised $3.5 million since declaring his candidacy in late September, with two-thirds of it coming over the Internet.
Some observers said the Internet's most dramatic impact on campaigning is yet to come. Mark Walsh, a former chief technology adviser to the Democratic National Committee and an informal Internet adviser to the presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said at a Washington Multimedia Society event on Wednesday that the Internet will transform politics as radically as it changed shopping, travel and news delivery in the 1990s.
Walsh has held executive positions with Home Box Office, America Online and VerticalNet and soon will return to a startup venture in the private sector. With the cost of media advertising continuing to rise, and more political information increasingly available to voters online, he said candidates will find it imperative to create sophisticated presences on the Internet.
"Politicians are reverse marketers," Walsh said, adding that in politics, "the worst customer is the informed voter, and the Internet will not let that continue." Before the Internet, he added, politics was like a car dealership, where voters could not test drive cars or look under the hoods and instead would be told great things about products subject to a one-day sale.
Internet campaigning could greatly cut the cost of running for office, he added. "In the future, someone will win a congressional seat for less than $50,000," Walsh predicted. To entice voters, more candidates will offer the "appearance of access and responsiveness," such as video outtakes from their managed messages and Web logs, or online diaries, featuring audio and video.
Negative campaigning will get worse before it gets better, Walsh said. "Matt Drudge will be the rule, not the exception," he said of the online gossip. Walsh added that too many people still believe rumors if they are on the Web.
Furthermore, he said online voting will explode in the next 10 years, possibly ending the "one-day sale" of candidates on the first Tuesday in November. If registered and authenticated voters have selected their candidates in July, Walsh said, why should they wait until the fall to vote?
"We are fighting people who are excellent branders," Walsh said of his Republican opponents. "The Democratic Party's brand is less distinct, fuzzy. The Republicans look better than they ordinarily would." But Walsh predicted that the Internet will establish the Democrats as the party of many small donors and reveal the Republicans as the party of a few large donors, starting a trend that Republicans will not be able to counter.
In other Internet news, Mark Rovner has joined the Carol/Trevelyan Group to head its online fundraising unit. Rovner previously was senior vice president with Craver, Matthews, Smith and Co., where he founded its Internet division.
Mark Forman Finds A New Job
Mark Forman, the former administrator for e-government and technology at the White House Office of Management and Budget, is the new vice president of worldwide services at Cassatt, a developer of software based on the Linux computer-operating system. The company is led by software industry veteran Bill Coleman and backed by the venture-capital firm Pincus Warburg.
Elsewhere on the corporate front, Kenneth Dahlberg, executive vice president of General Dynamics' information systems and technology group, will become the new CEO of the government contractor Science Applications International Corp. on Nov. 3. Dahlberg will be based at SAIC's San Diego, Calif., headquarters.
From Commerce To Capitol Hill
Republican Rep. Jennifer Dunn, from the technology-heavy 8th District in Washington, has hired Pierce Scranton to be her new chief of staff. Previously, Scranton was a senior policy adviser in the Commerce Department's International Trade Administration.
Also on Capitol Hill, John Sopko has been named general counsel and chief of investigations to the Democratic staff of the House Homeland Security Committee. Sopko was a principal adviser to former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., on terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, organized crime, money laundering and narcotics trafficking. Since 1997, he has been a career employee of the Commerce Department, including chief counsel for special matters to former Secretary William Daley.
Tidbits From The Telecom World And Beyond
Jessica Zufolo is leaving the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners to join New York-based Medley Global Advisors Oct. 17, but she will remain in Washington, D.C., as the firm's senior director for telecommunications and technology issues.
"Specifically, I will be conducting policy analysis, gathering insights and data, and advising institutional investors on the state of play on current and future telecommunications matters before Congress, the FCC, as well as state and federal governments, that impact the financial markets both here and internationally," Zufolo e-mailed friends and colleagues on Wednesday.
In other people news, Shanthi Kalathil has been named managing editor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Information Technologies and International Development journal. Kalathil closed the Carnegie Endowment's Project on the Information Revolution and World Politics Sept. 30 and will continue to be based in Washington.
And Business Week reports that former Vice President Al Gore may help acquire Newsworld International, a Canadian-based cable/satellite news network, in an effort to create a liberal competitor to Rupert Murdoch's Fox News operation. Gore reportedly offered $70 million for the channel, which reaches 25 percent of U.S. cable households.
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