Note: This post has been updated. Well, transformed. Actually, I've reversed my position completely.
The appeal of Barack Obama lies in his age. He's outside the Baby Boom, away from the Vietnam arguments. He also talks of consensus, an important Internet Value, because that's how new technologies develop.
But in one way he is old, perhaps too old to win.
The problem is his use of the Internet. His site has got a lot of eye candy, and potential for interaction, but it's interaction between supporters, not with the campaign. It's driven by old-line consultants. His announcement in Springfield was a TV event. He is of what is now the Old Media.
The genius of the Dean campaign was not its Web effort, but the way the people within his campaign drew people into their world via the blog, the day-to-day grind of following the candidate, of communicating with him, of trying to build something. The posts on his blog became an interactive online novel. There is no indication Obama is willing to go that way. It's all talk among yourselves, while I ride above the fray.
This should not surprise when you look again at his age, 46. He finished his education, at Harvard, in 1992. This was two years before the Web was spun. At that time my own online work was still with Genie. I was the telecomm editor for Newsbytes, and had just finished my book Bulletin Board Systems for Business.
Obama went straight into community organizing, from from the Internet, then into politics. While he was in the Illinois Legislature the Internet was not a factor on the state political level. His U.S. Senate win in 2004 was by default.
In other words he is not of the Internet. He has not engaged the Netroots. He has taken a few themes and is running with them – successfully so far.
But that won't continue.
It won't continue because Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan won't let it. Here's how they earn their money. Take him down gently, but take him down. Get on the candidate's traveling party, with your laptop, and make his campaign truly interactive.
Firm up Netroots support behind Edwards over the next weeks and months so that Obama has to respond.
We'll see if they're capable of it.
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