This past Wednesday afternoon, during a panel discussion on social media and the 2012 elections at The Century Foundation in New York City, Nicco Mele, a lecturer at Harvard University who was Howard Dean’s webmaster and whose company, EchoDitto, worked on Barack Obama’s web campaign for U.S. Senate, made a startling statement: it’s not too late for a national Democrat to put together a 2012 primary challenge.
Said Mele: “You could have a candidate announce in September and raise $30 million on the Internet to challenge Barack Obama in the Democratic primary.” He argued that a “compelling platform” could be put together around the issues of the unfinished Afghan and Iraq wars, dissatisfaction with health care reform, and the bailouts of big banks while middle and lower class Americans suffer.
Social media, he said, “makes even the President of the United States vulnerable to a challenge in his own primary.”
Here’s the relevant transcript, which starts at about 15:30 on the video. I was sitting next to Mele (who is a good friend, I should note) and asked him a few questions in between.
Mele: “I think social media makes even the President of the United States vulnerable to a challenge in his own primary. I think it changes the timing of it and allows candidates to enter the race very late and still raise enough money to be competitive, which could affect either the Democratic or Republican primary. … We’re looking at a very volatile political landscape, where your history and track record may not be as important as your ability to be fluid, fast-moving and take advantage your natural constituencies online.”
Sifry: “Are you saying there could be a primary challenge to Obama this cycle?”
Mele: I think it certainly is conceivable. You could have a candidate announce in September and raise $30 million on the Internet to challenge Barack Obama in the Democratic primary.”
I then went on to argue that while this is an “interesting hypothetical,” there are all kinds of reasons that make presidential politics less vulnerable to the Internet’s disruptive potential, and note that any Democrat who chose to go up against Obama in 2011 “would have to be willing to commit political suicide” for at least four years. Mele responded:
I could see a national Democrat like Al Gore or Howard Dean decide to do it and raise the money. I don’t know that they could beat the incumbent President of the United States, but you could craft a compelling platform that 1) we have as many if not more troops in Afghanistan and iraq, 2) we got reform for health insurance companies but not of actual health care, and that 3) we got bailouts of the big banks while middle and lower class Americans suffer. A Democrat who would have a national profile would not have to struggle to gain name ID and could use the Internet to in sixty days raise a competitive challenge for the Democratic primary. I’m not saying it’s going to happen, but I can see a path to doing it pretty clearly.
To be clear, what Mele is talking about would require 600,000 people to give $50 each, on average, for a $30 million war chest. Such a fundraising haul isn’t impossible, but as a practical matter a would-be Democratic challenger would have an easier time if any of the big e-groups (MoveOn, Democracy for America, PCCC, etc) chose to call on their lists to join in. For a surprise candidate to rise using social media alone–without the help of big email lists–and garner that kind of money would be unprecedented. It would take, at a minimum, some kind of shock to the liberal Democratic base beyond the many insults and snubs its adherents feel they’ve had to swallow under Obama. The only such shock I can foresee is what may happen around the current “debt ceiling” negotiations. So, while I think Mele’s prediction is extremely unlikely to happen, one should never say never in politics.
Here’s the whole video, with Mele’s comments starting around 15:30:
#2012 Election: Discussion Part 1 from Century Foundation on Vimeo.