Lieberman obliterated by Lamont’s tech campaign
Cory Bergman August 8th, 2006
Bouyed by bloggers and even his own YouTube group, upstart millionaire Ned Lamont beat Senator Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut Democratic primary. Not only was Lieberman outmaneuvered online, his site went down in flames on Tuesday — inaccessible for most of the day. At first Lieberman’s campaign said they were hacked in a denial-of-service attack — and aides blamed Lamont supporters, even calling for a criminal investigation. But later in the day, Lamont’s chief blogger said that Lieberman’s folks hadn’t anticipated all the election day traffic, and the site crashed naturally under all the load. “They use a shared server with 72 other sites. They pay their server $15 a month for 10 gigabytes. We’ve gone through more than 10 gigabytes in the last 24 hours,” blogger Tim Tagaris said. Whatever the case, it’s clear bloggers had a major impact in the campaign. Slate goes as far as proclaiming that web videos dismantled the Lieberman campaign. As we move closer to November’s critical midterm elections, you can bet this campaign will have every candidate reinforcing their internet strategy — an area of focus that’s officially become even more important than television.
Remember the “War Room” back in the first Clinton campaign? James Carville and George Stephanopoulos realized that their competitive advantage was the ability to respond quickly in the media — within a single news cycle — to any news in the campaign. The set up the War Room to monitor every allegation, ever opportunity in the media. Meanwhile, the Bush Sr. campaign relied on traditional channels and took its time crafting a response. Fast forward to today, and we’ve witnessed another political machine fall flat on its face. Lieberman’s inability to respond online to an explosion of allegations cost him his seat. Same general idea, but this time, candidates must directly and indirectly empower their strongest supporters to take to the internet. Blogs naturally will respond to everything in near real-time. The key is empowering enough of them to make a difference.
14 Comments Add your own
1. Jason P. | August 8th, 2006 at 11:21 pm
What a great day for the Internet, for the blogosphere, for progressives and for people who believe, yes, they have a voice — albeit small — in the process.
2. Safran | August 9th, 2006 at 4:28 am
It’s impossible to overstate how surprised New England politics watchers were by this. Only in the last couple of months did the old school “experts” understand (sort of) what was going on with the online component.
3. jg | August 9th, 2006 at 6:16 am
You know i am true believer when it comes to the power of the net and blogging but when it comes to the Lamont victory, what defeated Joe Lieberman was a current running deep in Connecticut against the war and against a Democrat senator who seems to no longer to be in his party.
Without the position he held on the issues cutting deep in the state, Lamont could have had the best tech campaign since Howard Dean (remember him?) and he would have lost.
Joe misread his state because he’s spent too much time massaging the other party’s president and that is why he lost.
4. saundra | August 9th, 2006 at 6:16 am
Understanding and figuring out how to exploit online in the future are two different animals. I think the old school political bosses are no different than the old school TV execs who can’t quite wrap their brains around this Internet thing. Do you Lost Remote guys do political consulting? $$$$ to be had.
ps-inaccessible… not unaccessible
5. Safran | August 9th, 2006 at 6:38 am
Saundra - always happy to consult on all matters web!
6. Everett W. | August 9th, 2006 at 7:29 am
There were already shades of the trend earlier this year in Virginia when Dem bloggers pushed anti-Iraq war candidate Jim Webb to a close Senate primary win over Harris Miller. Times have changed.
7. Vinny | August 9th, 2006 at 11:44 am
Times haven’t changed…
Yet…
Howard Dean was the darling of the internet and got his ass handed to him in every single primary by John Kerry who barely touched the internet (relatively speaking).
I’ll believe a new day has arrived when someone running mostly on an internet campaign can win the Oval Office or a Senate seat. Right now, no one has done either.
Oh, and I tend to agree with JG also. Leiberman did a better job of losing than Lamont did at winning.
8. Lost Remote TV Blog&hellip | October 22nd, 2006 at 10:05 pm
[...] So why do the most clueless lawmakers when it comes to the internet want to restrict or regulate it? There’s Sen. “Tubes” Stevens, of course. And now Sen. Joe Lieberman, whose website crashed and burned from the primary election day traffic — and then his staff mistakenly blamed the opposition for hacking it — says it’s high time the internet is regulated to protect children. The big bad internet. [...]
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