Obama to Dean: Nice plan, k thx bye.

I copped this excerpt from RBO’s post on Howard Dean,  appropriately entitled,  Howard Dean:  Who’s He?

RBO had published Dean’s plan in June 2008. It was in place well before that.  Since Dean is now conspicuously absent from Obama’s air space, I thought you might like to see the Dean Plan for the 2008 presidential election. Apparently Barack Obama saw it. And lived by it.

Many of you will recognize some of these planned  ”steps”.  For example: the web “echo chamber”.  Sound familiar? Not to mention his planning up ahead for a candidate with low name recognition. Now how did Howard know he would have such a candidate? Well…..like it says here, he planned it.  Or he was psychic. You pick which it is after you read RBO’s information.

Here’s a bit of an introduction from RBO’s post entitled,  The Dean Plan: “In Obama We Trust”….. Or else, published June 2008:

The strategy for Obama’s current campaign appears to have come straight from Howard Dean’s playbook, which was explained in some detail in a study published in April 2004 by a journalism and media studies professor at a prominent U.S. university who conducted extensive research using press releases, emails to supporters and issued by MoveOn.org, political ads, interviews, ground study, media reports, and other data during the 2003-2004 U.S. presidential primary between November 2003 and March 3, 2004, the date of the ten-state Super primary.

It is as clear as day. Howard Dean drops out of the presidential race on February 18, 2004. Super Tuesday is on March 3, 2004. By this time, the plan is in hand and already in motion. Within weeks, Illinois bloggers are aware that Dean bloggers are at the helm of Obama’s campaign blog and “Dean Heads” are showing up at Obama campaign events.

Is there more to this story? Absolutely. But for now, the following highlights from an obscure study clearly indicate how the plan for Obama’s candidacy evolved from Dean’s 2003-2004 primary campaign. It should also be obvious that Dean’s stamp is clearly imprinted on Obama’s campaign, a fulfillment of Dean’s dream towards what Donna Brazile referred to on May 6, 2008, as a “new coalition”—it is grounded in the plan.

Please note that the study says nothing about how to actually win an election, just how to manipulate voters and the mass media.

And now for The Plan. Let’s call this  “In Memory of  Clever Howard Dean. He  Cleverly Planned.  It  cleverly worked.  He’s cleverly been removed”.

The Plan

#1: Influentials

The “ten percent of the U.S. population who engage in two-step-flow, or tell their neighbors ‘what to buy, what politicians to support, where to vacation’.”

Engaged in “making a political contribution to a candidate or political party, reading political email; forwarding it on, visiting a political web log, participating in a political chat room or visiting a news site for political information.”

“A far larger percentage of them than the public at large is concerned that interest groups wield too much influence in the political process.”

#2: Web influentials

“Democratic outsiders, not sponsored by major political parties, or traditional Democratic interest groups.”

Develop “new forms of participatory political advertising, which can influence [and] shape press coverage and voter perceptions of political candidates.” Note: Asked in question format, the rest of the “plan” makes it clear this is the goal.

Individuals committed to the whole, with “social capital, or enhanced connections between people and groups.”

“[O]nline innovators sought to inform and activate their members, and bring them together in the real world.”

#3: Small donor campaign contributions

Build campaign around “contributions given by small donors, whose help you also rely on for grassroots organization.”

“All fundraising involves dialogue.”

#4: Candidate

“[E]ssentially no national name recognition.”
Personality for public office.

Able to “handle the stress of a frontrunner presidential campaign.”

Prepared for the “problems” that would be encountered in the “world of traditional presidential level campaigning” and able to “balance” “obligations on the ground, in the air, the real world of campaigning.”

#5: Funding

“Financial support from a broad network of small donors would draw press attention that would develop campaign momentum that would mean ever increasing funding.”

Replace the “large Democratic contributors” with “small ones.”
527 political action committees: “Such groups can raise unlimited amounts of money from domestic donors, as long as they do not specifically advocate the election of a particular candidate.” Can recruit activists.
#6: Change the media landscape, create a movement

“[S]et the public policy agenda.”

Create a new culture “which will be better because it will contain more variety in unity—it will be a tapestry in which more strands have been woven together. .. not just plain talk, but action … with greater numbers of young people” participating in politics.

Web “personalization and interactivity” as opposed to DNC “party unity” and “inclusiveness”.

“[A]ccelerated primary schedule” to “produce a single strong party candidate for the presidency an unprecedented eight months before the election.”

Use “Web networks to create cyberflora fostering information exchange and public debate.”

Draw on and disseminate “arguments and positions relating to political change, using serious and frivolous symbolic languages—making the case to their audiences that change can be both creative and patriotic.”

Create a “mainstream press echo chamber.”

Get “liberal commentators” on board.

Create “talk radio echo chamber” that will lead to opportunities for press coverage.

Create a “web echo chamber.”

Combine the “possibilities for experimentation and grassroots participation which arise due to Internet availability with experienced ground organization” with training and “centralized management.”

Nice job, Howard. Worked out really well. For him. Not you.