Why Disintermediation Matters

I'm glad to see my article stimulating debate, but I think some are missing the way disintermediation works. Critiques have largely centered around the self-evident: direct communication won't replace passive information consumption anytime soon or, probably, ever. Most folks simply don't want to write blogs, read 4,000 word speeches, or set aside 50 minutes to watch an address in full. And that's to be expected.

The point is, in elections, not all voters are equal. This gets into some Gladwell-esque Tipping Point theory, but political insiders, activists, and junkies exercise wildly outsized power on our electoral system. Previously, though, there was no way to reliably reach them. Hopeful insurgents had to camp out in a low-population state and stalk each and every resident till their efforts at personal outreach won them a low-turnout primary. It was all very linear, and a mastery of retail politics combined with the agility to turn an unexpected primary win into a slew of them were your only hopes.

No longer. Dean -- unlike Bill Bradley, or John McCain, or Gary Hart -- did not win any of the early primaries. He lost them. What was unique about his insurgency is that he went from darkest, quietest horse to frontrunner in a matter of months, without winning a single state. He did it through direct communication with the small core of party activists who can singlehandedly make a candidacy. And they made his, until poor ads, some major gaffes, and an overly-mational focus lost him Iowa. But in 2008, that core will enlarge, and the media will be watching them closely. Win them over, and you might well win the nomination.

In 2000, Gore lost that group. Many of them went to Nader and, before that, Bradley. They were the actives, the engaged, the dinner party politicos, and they worked far harder than the media to poison attitudes towards Al Gore. Gore was left with a press corps that didn't much like him, but more importantly, a base that reacted with similar tepidity. And so when the media went "Gored" him, he lacked defenders and advocates. He was assaulted on all sides, and he had no one to fall back on.

Could Gore escape the media in 2008, personally whispering sweet wonk-things into the ear of each American? Of course not. But nor would he have to. The press corps, contrary to popular opinion, doesn't really decide what to report. They have their own spins and biases, but they're largely herd animals who're happiest following societal or electoral trends. The trend in 2000 was a general dislike or apathy, both among activists and ordinary voters, towards Gore. The press may have ran with it, but they didn't invent it.

But if, in 2008, Gore could use disintermediated communication to speak directly with a large fraction of the base and activate them in support of his candidacy, the media would merrily report their excitement, happy to be onboard with the next big thing (and stoked by the Nixon 1968 narrative). And if the press decided to go for another round of character smears, they'd pit themselves against a ferocious league of sophisticated, potent defenders -- blogs, activists, netroots, Media Matters, 527's... -- that simply didn't exist in 2000. If you need an explanation of how it works, glance at the right. The most current example is Ben Domenech, who exists because rightwing bloggers scared the press into thinking they were too dismissive of...rightwing bloggers. The conservative movement's been doing that for a long time. In 2000, no one (save maybe Bob Somerby) was doing it in defense of Al Gore.

There are no guarantees in politics, only probabilities, trends, and currents. When you write an article like this, you do your best identify them clearly, convince readers of their importance, and accurately portray their strength. Imperatives two and three are inevitably in tension, leading to the overemphasis of certain concepts. But disintermediation, while unlikely to sweep the nation, need only sweep a fraction of it to entirely transform politics. With Bob Novak, Howard Fineman, Matt Bai, Ronald Brownstein, and a variety of other establishment icons talking him up lately and with a widely-shared, surprisingly vociferous enthusiasm emerging amongst liberal activists, the question isn't whether Gore can reach every American through disintermediated communication methods, but at what point he'll have reached enough of them. I don't know that that point will ever come, but I wrote the piece because I'm quite sure that it might.