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Votes Bits & Bytes, Panel IV: Affecting the Outcome II
By Matt Margolis | December 14, 2004
The last panel of the Votes Bits & Bytes conference, focused on the 2004 Presidential election. For myself, and perhaps most everyone else, this was the most anticipated panel on Friday. The big question of the panel was “Did the internet play a key role in the outcome of any aspect of this election year?”
Chuck DeFeo was the token conservative on the panel, and he was joined by Zack Exley, who moved on from MoveOn.org to the Kerry Campaign this year, and Dan Gillmor of the San Jose Mercury News and SiliconValley.com. Harvard University Professor Sunshine Hillygus was also on the panel.
All the panelists were given 5 minutes (which really ended up being about 10 minutes) and Zack Exley spoke first.
Exley talked about using the Internet to build up the grassroots foundation “piece of democracy,” and then went on a ramble in defense of the Internet strategy used by the Kerry campaign. According to Exley, criticism that came from the left about Kerry campaign’s Internet strategy was that it was “too top-down, too centralized, [and] didn’t foster online community and online discussion.” He explained that the strategy was aimed at moving the vote, or would enabled them to get more volunteers on the ground in an organized program that would actually enable them to persuade voters and turn out Kerry supporters. Of course, they also wanted to raise as much money as they could on the Internet – particularly to pay for ads. The theory was, according to Exley, that they had to “catch up to the Bush campaign in fundraising” because the Bush campaign “had already beaten” them… Excuses really…
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