« RedState Bans Ron Paul's 'Annoying' Fans | Main | Chris Dodd Really Wants The Blog Vote »
October 25, 2007BELTWAY BLOGROLL
Chris Dodd: The Next Howard Dean?
Christopher Dodd has hovered in the bottom tier of Democratic presidential candidates most of this year, but he is starting to look like the next Howard Dean, at least to the netroots that briefly helped Dean rise to the top of the Democratic presidential heap in the 2004 race.
"There's something brewing on the left side of the Web," Micah Sifry wrote at TechPresident, "and it just might mean good news for Chris Dodd's presidential candidacy."
A sampling of the evidence:
-- Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos: "Dodd is now the go-to guy." Ari Melber of The Nation basically seconded my point about the potential impact of top bloggers, noting, "When a politico like Moulitsas validates an underdog candidate, his readers are more likely to take a second look."
-- The Daily Kos straw poll yesterday: Dodd finished second, trailing John Edwards by 10 percent.
-- Dodd's live Web chat at Firedoglake today.
-- And Duncan Black of Eschaton did his part to trigger a fundraising Dodd mania: "[I]t's useful to use the power of my mighty blogs to nudge the candidates one way or another, if possible, and so I appreciate the 217 of you who demonstrated your support for Dodd's actions by contributing $11,861 to his campaign."
Dodd's campaign, aided by Internet expert Tim Tagaris, has been the focus of similar spurts of netroots activity during the year, but this one seems to run deeper. It is more reminiscent of what the Dean campaign experienced in June 2003.
By that October, according to then-Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi in "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," Dean had risen to the top of the polls and some media outlets were all but saying the Democratic nomination was his. Talk of a vice-presidential pick had even surfaced. (Trippi, by the way, is now winning kudos for his work on the Edwards campaign.)
It's too early to say whether the netroots enthusiasm for Dodd has that much staying power -- or whether it will move offline -- but he clearly struck a chord last week with his move to block Senate action on a foreign intelligence bill. And if Dodd mania does generate a Dean-like rise at the same rate, Dodd could be in a better position than Dean because he would be piquing just as the voting starts a few months from now.
Dodd is still quite a longshot for the Democratic nomination, but he is clearly winning bloggers and thus increasing his odds at influencing "the people."
UPDATE: OK, maybe Dodd is more like Dean than I thought -- only in the flame-out sense. The "hockey stick" rise that Trippi described Dean's campaign as experiencing in 2004 remains elusive for Dodd.
Posted by Danny | 10:16 AM
