Blogswarm - Online Political News Magazine

I've had a bunch of interesting conversations on the Republican strategy for this election, what they were planning two years ago. It jibes with Tom DeLay's general outlook on politics drawn from the new book The Hammer. The whole K Street project and Bush network was designed to give a certain set of right-wing politicians an insurmountable money advantage, under the assumption that money wins elections and the lack thereof starves politicians of political oxygen. The next strategic pivot after this election would be to crush unions, trial lawyers, and Hollywood, thereby depriving Democrats of money. While the Republicans knew that Democrats would be angry and that this election would cost $700-800 million, they also assumed that the Democratic nominee would have to go dark in September because he would opt into public financing.

The internet has turned this assumption upside down. The Democrats have rough financial parity, and this fundamental shift in politics is seismic. 'The people' is now a somewhat coherent constituency that funds politicians it likes.

How this impacts politics on a macro scale is yet to be seen, but it's clear that in 2004, the internet has been at least as important as TV was in 1960.