Dean Internet Class of 2004 - Where Are They Now?

National Journal: Hotline On Call: On The Download

By Shira Toeplitz

Welcome back to On The Download, your dispatch on politechs: Politics, Multimedia and the Internet. If you have tips, comments, or suggestions, email us.

It’s probably no coincidence that Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, Obama for America, sounds a lot like that of a former 2004 candidate’s campaign: Dean for America. That’s also likely because some of the internet masterminds from the Howard Dean’s campaign now work for Obama’s bid.

The most recent hire was announced this weekend: former Dean Web strategist Joe Rospars will be Obama’s new media director on the campaign. He joins his former colleagues from the Dean Internet staff Gray Brooks and Jim Brayton, who has directed Obama’s internet operation since his 2004 Senate campaign.

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February 12, 2007 | Filed Under Blog Mentions, Dean, Media Matters | Comment 

U.S. News & World Report: There’s Something Funny Going On

By Bret Schulte

After months of hopeful talks, John Kerry’s staff last week finally booked their candidate on one of television’s most influential political programs: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.

It’s just the latest example of what political insiders and Internet junkies already know: In today’s climate, humor may be a candidate’s ultimate weapon. At the Democratic National Committee, “there is a conscious effort to inject humor” into strategy, says communications director Jano Cabrera. Before Kerry, Sen. John McCain and Bill Clinton had been on Stewart’s show. “It’s a great way of reaching younger audiences who don’t watch traditional news shows,” McCain told U.S. News last week by telephone. “When you’re meeting with voters, you’ve got to keep them amused as a way of keeping them interested.”

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September 6, 2004 | Filed Under Dean, News Mentions | Comment 

CNN Presents: True Believers; Life Inside the Dean Campaign

Little did we know that she would witness one of the most remarkable presidential runs of modern times — the campaign of former Vermont Governor Howard Dean.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, HEADLINE NEWS, CNN CENTER, ATLANTA: I’m Martin Savidge at the CNN Center in Atlanta. CNN PRESENTS is just ahead, but first we’ve got these headlines.

Divers return to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor tomorrow to look for a man, woman and child missing after a water taxi capsized Saturday. The NTSB is waiting for the results of voluntary toxicology tests on the boat’s captain.

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March 7, 2004 | Filed Under Dean, TV Appearances | Comment 

Knight Ridder News Service: The Net President

San Jose Mercury News; Saint Paul Pioneer Press

Presidential Aspirant Howard Dean Seeks to be a Candidate of the Web and by the Web. Support for Dean’s Campaign has Spread Like Wildfire in Chat Rooms and Through Blogs, in Part Because Organizers Understand the Self-Governing Nature of the Internet.

By Dan Gillmor

On July 10, Zephyr Teachout posted a short note on the Weblog for Howard Dean’s presidential campaign. She was looking for programmers to help on several projects, one of which would let volunteers around the country create a social network to share their best ideas more efficiently.

She quickly got scores of responses. Members of an unaffiliated group called Hack4Dean, since renamed DeanSpace, were among those who answered the call, and a site she’s calling “Visible Volunteers” is taking shape.

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August 18, 2003 | Filed Under Dean, News Mentions | Comment 

Boston Globe: Net Gains for Dean

Candidate Increasing Funds, Support Via the Web

By Joanna Weiss

Of all the technological tools they have used to draw people to Howard Dean’s presidential campaign, staffers never expected to get so much buzz from a baseball bat.

As cyber things go, it’s not especially high-tech: a picture of a bat, posted on Dean’s website, www.deanforamerica.com during the June fund-raising drive. Supporters who reloaded the campaign website every half-hour could watch the donations grow, like mercury rising in a thermometer. When it was first proposed, some staff members thought it was, frankly, a little cheesy.

But ever since the June drive ended, die-hard supporters have posted pleas on Dean’s campaign “weblog,” begging the staff to “bring back the bat.” Soon enough, it returned, as a cheerleading tool for one of the campaign’s more audacious ideas: last month’s “Cheney Challenge,” in which the campaign famously earned nearly $500,000, surpassing the $300,000 Vice President Dick Cheney took in at a South Carolina fund-raiser.

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August 11, 2003 | Filed Under Dean, News Mentions | Comment 

Salon: Blogland’s Man of the People

The Web has found its candidate for president, and his name is Howard Dean.

By Farhad Manjoo

Late on Sunday night, Joe Trippi, Howard Dean’s presidential campaign manager, posted a short note on the campaign’s blog to thank Dean’s supporters for a successful three-month period of fundraising. Since April, Dean had raised $6.3 million, more money than any other Democratic candidate — but with the end of the financial quarter approaching in less than 24 hours, Trippi had one more request for Howard Dean fans all over the Web: “We are going to make one last push to $6.5 million tomorrow and see what happens,” he wrote. “We need your help — spread the word that this campaign is rolling — that we are making history together. Get one more person to sign on to the campaign and contribute.”

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July 3, 2003 | Filed Under Dean, News Mentions | Comment