One less-remarked result of Monday night’s CNN/YouTube debate: Republicans should be very, very afraid of their own YouTube moment, when they debate in St. Petersburg, FL in September. The contrast between the two cultures: the youthful, freewheeling, authentic YouTubers and the stiff, soundbite-practiced world of national politics will be on even greater display there, than it was at the Citadel in South Carolina.
John Edwards adviser Joe Trippi makes this point in his candid interview with GOP web consultant (and techPresident blogger) David All. “Do the Republican candidates know what YouTube is?” He also admits that the Edwards campaign, with its 100,000+ donors, is “desperately” trying to figure out how to catch up to the Obama campaign, with its 258,000+ donors, and then pivots to make a very cogent point about how all of this will impact the general election.
Democrats are competing amongst themselves now to get an advantage in online support, Trippi says, creating “a gigantic community that the Democratic nominee is going to inherit.” He adds, “Kerry sucked at the internet, but he was still the beneficiary of what Howard Dean, Wesley Clark and others built…It’s not just the list size, but the experience…in learning what catches and what doesn’t.”
This is one more reason why our charts showing the Democratic field with far more supporters than the Republicans on MySpace, Facebook and elsewhere in the blogosphere are so telling about what’s ahead in 2008. [GOP consultant and techPresident blogger Patrick Ruffini agrees “100%” with Trippi’s assessment on his blog.]