Tools for Radicals

I’ve been running a slow burn at the Shirky thesis that social software killed Dean. Today, I read this Washington Post article on the implosion of the Dean Campaign while working on a piece about tools for online activism.
Disgruntled campaign exes spilled the beans about the divisions between Dean’s protective chief aide Kate O’Connor and Joe Trippi, the charismatic leader of the online troups; Trippi’s weaknesses as an operational manager; and the campaign’s inexperience with the national media.
The article re-inforces my impression that the Dean Campaign lost on basic execution. The internet took the campaign farther than it would have otherwise gone. But winning requires traditional campaign chops too.
Clay Shirky contends that Dean lost because of the internet. Deluded supporters poured out their feelings in blog comments, and had nothing left to give on election day.
Clay is thinking like an analyst, not an activist. Here’s the relevant question. If Clay wanted to:
* get a candidate elected
* get legislation passed, or stopped
* have a local administrator change a policy
Would he use internet tools as part of the organizing effort, to get the word out, find like-minded people, and co-ordinate action.
If the answer is yes, then it’s reasonable to conclude that internet activism was a partial success. It’s part of the solution, though it’s dangerous to conclude that it is the whole thing.
If Clay isn’t thinking about what it takes to win an election or an issue advocacy campaign, I don’t think the opinion is relevant. I love Clay’s writing, and think he is devilish smart, but I think he is missing the point.