I love this bit from the article, "The Internet, and the exploding technologies it has produced, has transformed everything about American politics in two ways: It’s accelerated the process, and it’s brought in vast and innovative new levels of citizen involvement."

Citizen involvement in our political process and our government? I love it! It could increase voting and participation a lot. It may also take a while to iron the kinks out. And, as Pierce points out, people could still "hijack" political communications as the pamphleteers did back in the early days of the printing press.

As Pierce correctly reports, there were doubts about participation of the common man then too--which is why we wound up with a representative democracy like Rome, rather than a direct democracy like Greece. But the founders dealt with their fears then, and we can now too.

Pierce may be right that politicians are all on OK Go Treadmills without choreographers to keep them upright. But I still have yet to see an elected official felled because of what someone else did to them online.

George Allen? No. Contrary to Pierce's assertion that the "Macaca" video "went viral," it was Allen and his campaign manager's post-video dissembling which created an opening for the James Webb campaign and the netroots to pull the Democrat into contention.

Yes, the internet makes information circulate faster and farther than ever before. And yes, established authorities have lost some measure of control over their messages, reputations, and operations because of the new age. Not such a bad thing, by the way.

But we have much more to fear from the hacking of elections than of campaigns. There is almost always plenty of time for a campaign to respond and get a fair hearing. Indeed, I would bet campaigns have a better chance of countering slurs, rumors, and mischief than before the races "accelerated." They get to use the same digital grid. The MSM still goes to scandalized candidates for a response. And that's the key: honest responses will now get aired fully, somewhere. Allen was...less than honest.

Meanwhile, who is to say, really, that campaigns have accelerated because of technology alone. The presidential campaigns are moving faster largely because of the anarchy loosed in the fundraising and primary/caucus scheduling processes --a different treadmill than the technology treadmill, if you will. I see no evidence that other campaigns are moving at ever increasing speeds.

Just saw this today. Dean appears to agree with Al Gore (and me) that the Internet will democratize politics and our government. See the Mother Jones interview published yesterday at http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2007/07/howard_dean.html

From the interview:

The Internet is forcing people to be more real and be less manipulative, which will result in an electorate that's less cynical. So it's a terrific innovation. The Internet is not just a tool, it is a community of human beings who are tired of what I call the "one-way campaign," which began essentially during the Kennedy-Nixon debates, where everything is on television.
... it's not about communicating our message to you anymore; it's
about listening to you first before we formulate the message. And that's how it should be used.