Archive for: May, 2007

Who Is John Durham?

May 30 2007 Published by Turk under Craziness, News Media, Politics, The Internet

My e-mail inbox has been deluged in the last 24 hours with one simple question:

Who is John Durham?

Apparently this AdAge article has been making the rounds.

John Durham, who led internet strategy for the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign, was impressed with Mr. Thompson’s grasp of the YouTube medium. “He is smart enough to understand he needs to cede a certain amount of control for a certain amount of visibility,” he said.

That identifier seems to have thrown a few people off. Not the least among them are the former Bush-Cheney eCampaign staff – most of whom had never heard of Durham.

To clear the confusion, John Durham was a vendor – under the name Pericles Consulting – that we used for a single advertising initiative. We were unhappy with the results, and chose not to use him again. Ironically, one of the reasons was because of his staff making claims in newspaper articles that they were either a) intimately aware of our strategies or b) claiming they were driving our processes. Both claims were false.

It is unfortunate that the AdAge people would be so careless in the verification of facts and the characterization of Mr. Durham.

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‘Nobody Has Won Because Of The Internet’

May 25 2007 Published by Turk under Candidates, Democrats, Elections, Politics, Republicans, Technology, The Internet

In response to the WaPo article earlier this week, Patrick Ruffini posted some thoughts on where the article goes wrong but stopped short of tackling the central theme. In the comments to his post, Luke VL from Urban Elephants challenges my assertion from the article.

Well, Turk, can you tell me someone who has WON an election because of the Internet? All this navel-gazing by web folks puts the tool before its purpose. Sure, a lot of money can be raised online and the web lends a lot of legitimacy for the mainstream media who look to it for stories and to try to look hip, but it’s still predominantly in the realm of stuff that’s *neat* — you getting a lot out of Twitter, Patrick? How’s your wiki coming?

My reply back to Luke was pretty blunt. If you ask George Allen or Conrad Burns whether the Internet was responsible for their loss, they would likely reply in the affirmative. The macaca incident is certainly legendary for it’s role in costing Allen a 16-point lead. Burns napping certainly didn’t help convince voters the septuagenarian was up for 6 more years.

If those two races were lost because of the Internet, it stands to reason that two candidates won because of it. Unfortunately, they weren’t Republicans, so they don’t count, I guess.

That was Danny Glover’s point in the article and in his post on the Beltway Blogroll.

But look at the short history of online politics,” Glover said. “For Republicans, the Internet is where bad things happen. Take [former U.S. senator] George Allen and his ‘macaca’ moment. . . . You can kind of understand why Republicans have this almost instinctive fear of the Internet, where the mob rules.

It would be comical if it weren’t so tragic. At the same time we complain about the savagery our candidates are experiencing online (Allen, Burns) we’re trying to trivialize the Internet’s importance (‘nobody has won because of it’).

We can’t have it both ways. We can’t claim it doesn’t matter, and then act shocked when it makes the difference in one of our candidates getting trounced.

As I also pointed out to Luke, I’m guessing that, prior to Kennedy/Nixon, there were probably a lot of people saying, “TV has never made the difference”. Prior to the first successful adoption of direct mail techniques, I imagine people said the same.

Prior to 2004, a lot of people said that about cable ad buys. In private conversations with operatives on the D-side, they tell me their people were entirely baffled by the amount Bush spent on cable. They only figured it out later. Look for them to spend a lot less on national buys and more on spot cable this year.

The fact is the Internet is another technology that people will adapt for political needs. The difference is the Internet is not a one-way medium. Trying to adapt not only to a new medium, but to a fundamentally different one, is our challenge.

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Stomach Flu

May 23 2007 Published by Turk under Disease, Miscellany

For the three loyal readers (a quick shout-out to my mom, dad, and Mrs. Quip) eagerly awaiting the next installment of my ramblings, I’m sorry to disappoint. Saturday afternoon we had a lovely birthday party for Little Quip, Sunday afternoon the grandparents left town, and Sunday evening Little Quip started throwing up things we don’t remember feeding him. In the almost 72 hours since, a nasty stomach virus sent Mrs. Quip to the hospital to get rehydrated, and has, as of the morning, brought the mighty Turk to his knees (in more ways than one).

As soon as the family and I recover, I’ll get back to writing. Hopefully this will be in time for my thoughts on tonight’s season finale of Lost to still be relevant.

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Thoughts on the Season Finale of Lost

May 21 2007 Published by Turk under Craziness, Programming, Television

I didn’t really jump into discussion of Lost last week because it was really sort of a non-episode. I’m not sure why there is a rule in television that the next to last show of the season always has to suck, but that seems to be the case. The next to last episode rarely does anything but set up the storyline for the last week.

To recap, Charlie’s not dead yet, Juliet may or may not be lying, Locke is probably still alive, the smoke thing may or may not be the ghosts, and nobody apparently thought it would be easier to just cut the power cable to the underwater lab. Let’s dive in…

Continue Reading »

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Context

May 21 2007 Published by Turk under Barack Obama, Candidates, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Politics, Republicans, Technology, The Internet

The Washington Post today carries an article covering the state of online politics and the relative advantages/disadvantages of the two parties. I’m quoted in the article on a couple of topics. I think there are a couple of things Vargas gets wrong, but he gets the general theme right – the GOP is playing catch up online.

I’m sure I will continue to catch hell from former colleagues at the RNC. I’m not exactly the most popular guy over there given my comments about this issue. This article is unlikely to change that. I would like, however, to provide a little context for my comments.

Yes, I’m critical of our efforts. Yes, I am probably too critical. There are a lot of people who believe these conversations are a private issue – keep them in the family, and don’t air your dirty laundry in public. I respect that opinion, but I fundamentally disagree. I think that perspective is an example of the problem we have online.

Now, should anyone take my thoughts as the gospel? Absolutely not. I’m just some guy who has some thoughts about the party, and what I think it should do differently. And that’s the point.

The Internet fosters debate and discussion. It allows an open, and deliberative decision making process. By having this discussion publicly, we bring people to the process who have been shut out. Many of those people have very good ideas – not just about the Internet and ways to reach and move people, but about policies, and ideas, and ways to make the country better. The best ideas will float up. Are mine the best? Not hardly.

Despite my willingness to speak publicly, I am actually terribly self-conscious and am probably harder on myself than I would ever be on the party. I am only willing to speak because it is a discussion that I believe needs to take place, and I hope to encourage others to jump in.

As for my feelings on the RNC, Vargas quotes me accurately. However, my feelings about the RNC bureaucracy could probably apply to just about any large, storied institution. Entities like that become complacent by nature. They lose sight of their mission because they put too much emphasis on protecting their reputation. I don’t begrudge the RNC for that, at all.

The Internet, however, is less about tradition and more about innovation. Online, if your reflection on past success prevents you from evolving, you die. If you can’t adapt to the other guys better idea, he wins. In a business that is about nothing but winning, that becomes problematic. The slow-mover gets run over. For us, the question is whether we’ll see the car coming before its tires crush our rib cage.

With regard to Rudy’s site, it’s unfortunate that Vargas chose to single out my critique of Rudy’s. I don’t think Rudy’s site is necessarily better or worse than McCain’s or Romney’s (or Hillary’s for that matter). He could just as easily have quoted many comments I’ve made to the effect that most of the current crop of Presidential candidates (on both sides, and, I believe, excepting Obama) have failed to move the ball.

That said, I think we’re going to see some really interesting things in online politics this cycle, but I’m also hopeful that a lot of what will be remembered after 2008 will have been done by Republicans.

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