Viral Gore
For weeks, months maybe, there's been a continuous, low-level buzz talking about Al Gore as the Democratic candidate for president in 2008. There are many little reasons for the buzz: his speeches, the release of his film about global warming, talk about the election he won in 2000, "security flaws" in Diebold voting machines, polls about who would win today, what the alternate universe would have been like if he'd been installed in the office that he evidently won. There are endless reasons, but they all end in one place: asserting that Gore won't / should / may / must / can't / will run in 2008.
I think it was something Avedon Carol said* that made me realize that we seem to be in the midst of a viral-marketing presidential campaign with Gore as the candidate: using the power of the internet so the people can choose — or something like that.
It makes perfect sense to me, too. Gore is sensibly connected with the internet, despite that silly kerfuffle about his having "claimed" that he "invented it" (which he never claimed — he's hardly the dolt that W is). Gore has what I'm coming to think of as a twenty-first-century sensibility, so one might expect that the internet would be part of his campaign.
So far it would appear that the viral-campaign is going well. The interesting question then would be to what extent is this an explicit part of a campaign strategy?
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*Avedon Carol, "President Gore", The Sideshow, 15 May 2006. Of course I'm linking to it, to "spread more of this stuff around".
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on Tuesday, 16 May 2006 at 01.45
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Gore is a good man. We'd be ever so much better off right now if he was president.
Since you're interested, you might want to stop by a Web site set up by a group of active Gore supporters, algore.org and sign up for the e-mail newsletter from the Gore News Network put out by the same group.
For the record, they claim, "GNN is not affiliated with the offices of the Honorable Al Gore. This project is a grass roots effort by a volunteer organization that is in no way affiliated with, funded or endorsed by Al Gore or the Democratic party.
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