Open Source As Practice and Ideology: the Origin of Howard Dean's

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To cite this article: Daniel Kreiss (2011): Open Source as Practice and Ideology: The Origin of Howard Dean's Innovations in Electoral Politics, Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 8:3, 367-382 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2011.574595

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Open Source as Practice and Ideology: The Origin of Howard Dean’s Innovations in Electoral Politics

Daniel Kreiss

ABSTRACT. Extending an emerging body of work documenting the migration of technical production models into other domains of social activity, this article analyzes how “open source” works at the levels of both practice and ideology. Through interviews and analysis of public documents relating to Howard Dean’s run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2003–2004, this article reveals how many Internet Division staffers drew on open source projects such as the collaborative building of the Linux operating system as a model for their campaign work. In the process, they helped create a series of technical and organizational innovations in online campaigning that have subsequently become core features of electoral politics. At the same time, staffers strategically and publicly deployed the frame of the “open source campaign” as a cultural resource. Situated within narratives of the new economy and participatory democracy, staffers’ framing of the campaign as a radical techno-democratic effort provided journalists with an interpretive framework for understanding Dean’s run and helped mobilize specialized volunteer constituencies. Given that the campaign was not as participatory in substantive domains as this frame suggested, the article also reveals how the label of open source worked ideologically to elide dynamics of organizational power.

KEYWORDS. Democracy, electoral politics, framing, Howard Dean, Internet, open source politics

During the spring of 2003, a startling new phrase two-way campaign in which the supporters appeared in conjunction with a political cam- openly collaborate with the campaign to paign. Joe Trippi, the kinetic campaign manager improve it, and in which the contributions of for Howard Dean’s presidential primary run, the ‘group mind’ prove smarter than that of told every journalist who would listen—and any lone individual” (Suellentrop, 2003). Trippi Downloaded by [Yale University] at 17:54 16 September 2011 there were many—that the campaign was a and other campaign staffers argued that just revolutionary new “open source” effort. A cou- as Linux involved thousands of individuals ple of months later, in the thick of the primary across the globe working together to develop battle, a journalist from Slate noted that: “The an operating system, the decentralized efforts metaphor of choice for Howard Dean’s Internet- of Dean supporters powered the campaign and fueled campaign is ‘open-source politics’: a were revolutionizing political life.

Daniel Kreiss is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Daniel’s research work explores the intersection of new media and political practice. The author thanks Dave Karpf, the anonymous reviewers for and attendees at The Politics of Open Source conference, and the anonymous reviewers at JITP for their comments on earlier versions of this article. Address correspondence to: Daniel Kreiss, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Carroll Hall, CB 3365, Chapel Hill, NC 27599 (E-mail: dkreiss@ stanfordalumni.org).

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By the fall, even hardened political journal- source movement as the inspiration for their ists breathlessly referred to Dean’s run as a attempt at creating a new kind of highly partic- novel, Internet-fueled effort that was upending ipatory and supporter-driven campaign.2 These traditional campaign methods and overthrowing staffers conceptualized their work in terms of party elites. What else could explain how Dean supporting a vast, autonomous, and distributed raised three times more money than his near- volunteer community engaged in such activities est rival during the summer, with over 150,000 as developing campaign tools, writing letters to people giving money to or supporting the cam- voters in early primary states, and raising money paign online (Fineman, 2003)? Or the fact that for Dean’s run. Reflecting this, some of Dean’s 33,000 individuals across the country came out staffers and volunteers even used and developed on a Dean “Meetup Day” one Wednesday night open source technologies in their work because in August? There was such little precedent for they would “jibe with the movement part of this shocking demonstration of electoral support the campaign” (Jerome Armstrong, personal so early in the campaign cycle that many jour- communication, November 21, 2008)—despite nalists took Steve McMahon, Trippi’s business the fact that other campaigns could potentially partner and senior strategist for the campaign, use them. at his word when he declared: “We have tapped As these staffers modulated the practices of into a force no one can fully control. I hope open source technical development in their orga- you guys remember that when something goes nizational and technical work, the Dean cam- wrong” (Fineman, 2003). paign became a site of significant innovations Scholars such as anthropologist Chris Kelty in electoral politics. During the 2000 elections, (2008) have powerfully documented “modula- it became increasingly clear to campaigns and, tions” of the free software/open source move- subsequently, to scholars (Bimber & Davis, ment in domains far afield from technical pro- 2003) that many visitors to candidate Web sites duction, from the flowering of social expression were already sympathetic to, if not support- secured by Creative Commons to the collabo- ing, candidates. However, without robust online rative online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Beyond campaign tools and with few staffers dedicated any single project, however, practices of open- to Internet, campaigning efforts to systemati- ness and collaboration are for many a highly cally engage supporters in 2000 were halting compelling and meaningful new model for orga- and at the periphery of core campaign efforts nizing technical, economic, and cultural produc- (Kreiss, 2010). Four years later, the insurgent tion. As Kelty argues, open source is best con- Dean campaign with its extensive and inde- ceptualized as a movement that has far reaching pendent online supporter community used the implications for much of political and social life, Internet much more effectively as a tool for in both its very form as a set of value-laden mobilization and integrated it into all aspects Downloaded by [Yale University] at 17:54 16 September 2011 practices and the products that result from such of the campaign (Kreiss, 2009). As a num- large-scale, decentralized, and public collabora- ber of scholars note (Chadwick, 2007; Jett tion over digital communication networks. & Välikangas, 2004; Stromer-Galley & Baker, This article extends Kelty’s analysis in 2006; Gronbeck & Wiese, 2005), Dean’s staffers showing how open source technical produc- created a campaign blog—the first in presi- tion offered a set of resources for organizing dential politics, developed an early social net- political activity. It does so through close working platform and personalized fundraising consideration of the online campaigning that tools, and made distributed supporter participa- fueled Howard Dean’s run for the presidency.1 tion a central tenet of the campaign’s finance Like other modulations of the open source and field strategies. For example, the cam- software movement, many of Dean’s staffers paign provided citizens with digital tools that were inspired by the ideals and practices of enabled them to host events, build their own this form of software production and sought to Web sites, set fundraising goals, and reach apply them to the domain of electoral politics. out to their friends and family for contribu- In numerous interviews, staffers within the tions. These innovations, in turn, spread across campaign’s Internet Division cited the open Democratic electoral politics in the years after Kreiss 369

the election and provided the foundation for new economy and participatory democracy. the Obama campaign’s efforts in 2007–2008.3 Finally, I turn to the concrete work that this On one level, then, modulating open source frame performed, showing how it attracted technical production provided Dean’s staffers the attention of professional journalists and with a model and set of practices that drove mobilized supporter labor. innovations in tools and ways of working with supporters. On another, open source served as a “cultural resource” (Snow & Benford, 2005) METHODS AND DATA that the campaign’s staffers wielded strategically to garner resources. Alongside performances I draw my evidence from a larger book of online politics, such as large-scale Internet project (Kreiss, in press), which provides a fundraising events that served as compelling history of new media and democratic poli- news hooks, Trippi and other Dean staffers and tics over the last decade. For this project, my advisors rhetorically deployed the frame of the data-gathering and analysis over the past four open source campaign to attract press attention years has centered on three primary sources: and provide an interpretive framework for jour- (a) open-ended interviews with political staffers nalists writing about Dean’s run. Connected to specializing in digital media, especially indi- narratives of the new economy, this frame of viduals active on the Dean and Obama cam- the open source campaign legitimated the elec- paigns; (b) a comprehensive look at datasets toral effort as the political analogue of a Silicon and archival materials related to the 1999–2000, Valley start-up, even as it attracted highly skilled 2003–2004, and 2007–2008 campaigns includ- technical volunteers. This cultural work also ing Federal Elections Commission reports, pro- allowed supporters and staffers to view the fessional press articles, blog posts, and con- campaign as a radically democratic techno- ference proceedings; and (c) participant obser- democratic movement, despite a campaign hier- vation with the new media tools deployed by archy that limited the Internet Division’s work the Obama campaign during the 2007–2008 pri- and much supporter participation to “back- maries and general election. end” fundraising and voter outreach (Hindman, This article makes extensive use of the inter- 2007). This formal organization held central- view data with former members of the Dean ized control over the more substantive aspects campaign as well as primary documents relat- of the campaign, ranging from the policy plat- ing to the 2003–2004 primary election cycle. form of the candidate to electoral strategy—a Over the last three years, I have conducted open- fact that became painfully clear to supporters ended interviews with 26 alumni of the Howard after the candidate’s disastrous third-place ﬁnish Dean campaign, including staffers of the cam- in the Iowa caucuses. Given this, open source, paign organization, advisors to the candidate Downloaded by [Yale University] at 17:54 16 September 2011 and constructions of Internet politics more gen- and campaign manager, project-based consul- erally, served the ideological function of eliding tants, and volunteers (for a list of the interviews power dynamics on the campaign. conducted see the Appendix). These recorded As it reveals how open source worked at the interviews lasted between one and four hours level of both practice and ideology, this article and took place primarily via telephone. All suggests the complexity of “modulations” of interviews were “on-the-record,” although par- the core components of open source (Kelty, ticipants could declare any statement “off-the- 2008). To do so, this article proceeds in four record” or “on background” at their discretion parts. I begin by reviewing the sources of (this happened very rarely in practice). I pur- data for this study before showing how the posively selected interviewees on the basis of technical and organizational practices of many their positions in the Dean campaign organiza- of Dean’s Internet Division staffers were guided tion as revealed by FEC organizational ﬁlings. by the open source movement. I then turn to Meanwhile, I asked these staffers for recommen- the public framing of the Dean campaign as a dations as to whom else to contact, which led me radical techno-democratic effort, showing how to a host of important consultants who worked it was discursively linked to narratives of the on the campaign—including Jerome Armstrong 370 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & POLITICS

and Zack Exley—and advisors, including David social life, and in the early stages of a presi- Weinberger. No one I contacted declined to dential election, Rosen began “looking for an participate in this study, although scheduling avenue to get involved in politics.” What he conflicts prevented me from speaking with the found surprised him: entirety of the Internet Division. To supplement the data gathered from I started doing political research and I interviews, during the last three years I used heard about this candidate Dean who was search indexes including Lexis/Nexis and the doing all this creative stuff on the Internet. Internet Archive to collect over 500 documents . . . It was kind of a perfect match. I relating to the 2003–2004 election cycle, realized that all the things I was read- which I then categorized and analyzed. These ing about in these books were coming to include, but are not limited to, professional life in a campaign. And it coalesced a lot press articles, blog posts, campaign Web sites, of things I was passionate about. (Zack and e-mail campaign communications. An array Rosen, personal communication, April 7, of publicly accessible Internet material of broad 2008) relevance to the analysis is presented here. For example, not only are Web sites and campaign communications in public forums generally Soon after this discovery, Rosen reached out to archived and available, the Dean campaign’s volunteers creating online tools for Dean’s effort e-mails to supporters and agendas for volunteer and launched a mailing list called “Hack4Dean” “Meetups” are all accessible. Meanwhile, a to coordinate the programming efforts happen- surprising number of bloggers, campaign staff, ing entirely independently of the campaign. By and volunteers reflected on the campaign in July, Rosen had dropped out of college and, blog posts and books such as Trippi’s (2004) with the help of fellow Hack4Dean volunteers, auto-biographical The Revolution Will Not Be created a prototype of “Deanspace,” a toolkit- Televised and Streeter and Teachout’s (2007) built on the open source platform Drupal that edited collection of firsthand accounts of staffers enabled supporters to set up their own Web sites and volunteers, Mousepads, Shoe Leather, and and plan events for Dean. In the months after Hope. I also used FEC data—including that the launch of Deanspace hundreds of activist which is compiled on Web sites such as sites bloomed including “Music for America,” the George Washington University elections “Seniors for Dean,” and “Catholics for Dean.” project—to map the key new media staffers, Rosen’s story is extraordinary, but it captures consultants, and firms that worked on the Dean the unprecedented technology-fueled volunteer- and subsequent Democratic campaigns. ing that lay behind many aspects of the Dean campaign. From mid-2002 on through to the Downloaded by [Yale University] at 17:54 16 September 2011 first nominating contests in January 2004, thou- OPEN SOURCE AND ELECTORAL sands of enterprising programmers, technology INNOVATION entrepreneurs, and political activists developed and used a host of new Internet tools as volun- Zack Rosen was a sophomore at the teers for Dean. As they built Web sites, com- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in mented on blogs, gathered offline using Internet- 2003. The 20-year-old computer science major based tools such as Meetup, and, most impor- spent much of his days reading about the impli- tantly, donated small amounts of money that cations of the Internet in books that ranged rapidly scaled, their work helped to propel a from David Weinberger’s Small Pieces Loosely virtually unknown governor from a small New Joined and Albert-Laszlo Barabási’s Linked: England state into the lead for the Democratic The New Science of Networks to Lawrence presidential nomination, a position Dean held Lessig’s Code and The Future of Ideas. right up until the Iowa caucuses. And, for Intrigued by these authors’ arguments regard- many of these staffers and supporters, open ing the transformative effects of the Internet on source technical production provided both an Kreiss 371

animating ethos and value-laden organizational definition. As Jerome Armstrong (personal com- model for their electoral work. As Rosen (per- munication, November 21, 2008), a prominent sonal communication, April 7, 2008), who was progressive blogger and consultant for the cam- hired by the campaign in the fall of 2003, paign, suggests in relation to staffers’ under- suggests: “People really understood bottom-up standing of open source: “Nobody in the cam- open source processes. . . . It really is revolu- paign knew what the hell it meant.” Given tionary, fundamentally a different way of being that it was never formally defined, and some effective and getting work done. We all shared staffers had only a vague understanding of tech- the theory that it could carry over to politics, and nologies such as Linux, open source could it was proven out.” generally signify a collaborative organizational Although the internal workings of the Dean model that was both easily transposed to the organization have received relatively scant atten- political realm and particularly resonant for tion in the literature, supporting and coordinat- Dean’s progressive staffers who valued demo- ing many of these volunteer efforts were staffers cratic participation. This was important because within the dynamic Internet Division of the cam- it meant that open source was a concept that paign. Under Trippi’s direct management, the had wide appeal, carrying meaning across the Internet Division encompassed a diverse group heterogeneous professional backgrounds of the of staffers, but most had technical and pro- Internet Division staffers, with 20-year-old ama- fessional knowledge and skills from domains teur programmers sitting alongside veterans of outside of electoral politics. For example, some progressive online activism. In the words of Division staffers were unemployed or underem- Nicco Mele (personal communication, July 29, ployed by a slowdown in the technology indus- 2008), Dean’s Webmaster, the Internet Division try or just seeking new challenges and therefore of the campaign uniquely tied together the left the “new economy” to try their hands at pol- political culture of grassroots progressive orga- itics. Others were programmers, including par- nizing and “the open source, collaborative ticipants in open source development projects. world.” A number were part of a new generation of The aspirational organizational model of the Internet activists who were blogging and taking open source campaign was, in turn, loosely online action on behalf of progressive causes. As grounded in a set of practices derived from tech- such, they did not know mediated electoral cam- nical production. Many of Dean’s staffers con- paigning in any stable, professionalized way and vened around this idea of an “open source cam- thus were not able, and did not wish, to simply paign,” and in a process of relational engage- apply established techniques to their first elec- ment, continually constituted what it meant in toral campaign. Instead, they pieced together an practice (Knorr-Cetina, 2001). Borrowing from amalgam of strategies from these commercial, a variety of professional knowledge bases, they Downloaded by [Yale University] at 17:54 16 September 2011 technical, and activist domains. modulated what Kelty (2008) details as open It was in this context that open source source practices such as distributed collabora- helped Internet Division staffers and the cam- tion and mass coordination. As they did so, paign’s volunteer supporters coordinate their staffers reconceived the Internet as an organi- work. As an interpretively flexible concept that zational tool for electoral politics—a signifi- carried meaning across disparate social worlds, cant innovation in campaigning. For example, the abstract idea of the “open source cam- instead of static, HTML versions of campaign paign” served as a “boundary object” (Brown literature, staffers drew on the model of open & Duguid, 2001; Starr & Griesemer, 1989) source to provide supporters with digital tools to that provided staffers and supporters alike with organize their communities for Dean and even a shared language to coordinate their efforts invited them to develop some of the core tech- while enabling them to interpret the concept nical infrastructure of the campaign.4 In the differently in practice according to their needs. process, these staffers helped to create a national An important part of what made open source volunteer effort that broke fundraising records, powerful was its ambiguity and lack of formal turned thousands of individuals out at events 372 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & POLITICS

for Dean, and created novel campaign tools that direct their efforts. This was important given rivaled even commercial applications such as the that Dean’s outsider, insurgent status meant that early social networking site Friendster. the campaign needed non-elite bases of fiscal Many supporters, particularly those working and political support to have any chance at suc- on technical projects, in turn saw the campaign cess under the governing rules of the electoral and their roles in it in terms of open source. For process. As Jascha Franklin Hodge (personal instance, the Internet application Deanspace, the communication, December 22, 2008), a pro- online toolkit built by Rosen and other members grammer who worked for a number of start- of Hack4Dean, was one example of a technol- ups before becoming Dean’s National Systems ogy produced by volunteers and utilized by the Administrator, described a key challenge for the campaign. These volunteers, and the staffers that campaign: embraced and encouraged their work, saw the development of Deanspace and the online appli- We had no institutional advantages, not cation itself as symbolic of the open source ethos like Kerry or Gephardt. . . . It was an envi- of the campaign and, by extension, the can- ronment where people could overcome a didate. The Hack4Dean group built Deanspace power base; we just need to figure out how on the open source Drupal platform in large do we get them engaged enough in the part because it fit with the perceived “open- political process, in local party organiza- ness” of the campaign. Indeed, even though tions. How do we insert these people into other campaigns could adopt this technology, where we can to have them stand up for given the underlying public source code, vol- Dean? unteers believed that rivals did not have the same open culture of the Dean campaign. As volunteer developer Aldon Hynes explains: To the extent that the work of the Internet Division furthered these ends, there was a secure organizational space provided for tech- It was important that it [Deanspace] reflect nical experimentation. As Teachout (personal the openness of the campaign. We argued communication, July 10, 2008) relates: “We that the Bush campaign could not use it were constantly being told that we shouldn’t because their culture could not produce the and couldn’t be doing the things that we were openness. Unlike Dean, Bush was not will- doing by other members of the campaign. And ing to be open to other people. We believed then Trippi would say ‘oh you can ignore them.’ that there was an underlying deep structure That was really important that he had our back, to the technology. (personal communica- even on stuff that he didn’t believe in, to just be tion, April 2, 2008) experimenting.” These experiments were, how- Downloaded by [Yale University] at 17:54 16 September 2011 ever, tied to the electoral needs of the campaign, Technical projects such as these demonstrate such as providing opportunities for volunteers how models of open source production spurred to fundraise and engage in local organizing. innovations in tools and organization on the Outside of these more transactional activities, Dean campaign. These innovations were not, there were few channels for other forms of more however, simply open-ended; they were guided substantive participation such as contributing to by the goals of the larger campaign. Dean’s the candidate’s policy platform (Stromer-Galley Internet Division lay at the “interface” (Weber, & Baker, 2006). 2004, p. 264) between a hierarchical campaign That policy positions were the purview of organization and networks of the candidate’s expert advisors in turn marks an important dis- independent supporters. Trippi and consultants tinction between the Dean campaign and many devised the explicit strategy of creating a stan- open source technical projects. Similar to the dalone Internet Division and using networked way Dean’s Internet Division was embedded tools to convene the independent supporters in a larger organizational structure, as Weber gathering on external blogs so as to better (2004) notes, large-scale open source projects Kreiss 373

tend to have hierarchical decision-making struc- “participatory democracy” has long served as tures that manage complexity and coordination. a powerfully legitimating “master frame” for Yet, a crucial difference is that on projects such social movements (Benford & Snow, 2000, p. as Linux, all aspects of the code are open to 618), and provided open source technical pro- contributions. Even though contributions may be duction with an expressly political grounding. rejected by leaders such as Linus Torvalds and A remarkable array of new terms entered the his lieutenants, who often hail from the com- political lexicon during Dean’s run for the presi- munity of programmers around an open source dency, revealing this symbolic work. While few project, these ﬁgures must justify decisions and seasoned political journalists had even heard be responsive to participants. In contrast, Dean’s of Linux or blogs at the start of the primary supporters had little in the way of channels season, by September 2003 even trade publi- for expressing their policy views, what can be cations such as Campaigns & Elections mar- conceived as the “source code” of political rep- veled at the campaign’s use of Meetup.com resentation. For example, as I detail below, even and quoted Trippi’s proclamations that the Dean the campaign’s Internet policy was the work of campaign “isn’t top-down organizing; it’s really experts, entirely closed to public participation. bottom-up” (Mark, 2003, p. 8). Many jour- Given the delimited ends of participation, for nalists interpreted all aspects of the campaign many Internet Division staffers and supporters, through the lens of the Internet, seeing it as the the idea of the open source campaign worked political analogue of the dot.com ﬁrms of the culturally to transform transactional political 1990s. And, just as the new economy suppos- campaigning into a radically democratic act. As edly empowered consumers, these journalists the next sections detail, Joe Trippi was instru- suggested, so the Dean campaign used digital mental in crafting this association, serving as a tools to realize the 1960s dream of participatory cultural “entrepreneur” (Iacono & Kling, 2001) democracy. who rhetorically situated the campaign’s uptake For Dean’s staffers, the campaign’s uptake of of digital media for supporters, staffers, and the Internet resembled a host of shifts that pun- other electoral actors, not only in terms of open dits and academics argued had come about with source, but more broadly within discourses of the new economy. This was due to the funda- new economy business practices and concep- mental technological changes that were seem- tions of participatory democracy espoused by ingly revolutionizing much of economic and social movements. social life. Trippi (2004) and other staffers, for instance, argued that the campaign was equiv- alent to the pioneering sites of “Amazon.com, THE DEAN CAMPAIGN, THE NEW eBay, and all the online travel agencies” (pp. ECONOMY, AND PARTICIPATORY 209–210) where empowered consumers bought, Downloaded by [Yale University] at 17:54 16 September 2011 DEMOCRACY sold, and traded their wares. In other words, the same digital tools that enabled consumers Even as it served as an aspirational ideal for to access and trade goods without any inter- many staffers, Trippi, along with other staffers, mediaries also allowed them as citizens to take wielded the idea of the open source campaign democracy into their own hands. Trippi (2004) publicly and rhetorically to gather press, money, even went so far as to blend the commercial and volunteers for the campaign. Importantly, and political registers, arguing that there “are Trippi situated the idea of the open source cam- not just markets anymore. They’re communities. paign within larger narratives of the new econ- And we’re not just consumers. We’re citizens omy and participatory democracy, and more again. We’re looking for the companies, politi- enduring, stable patterns of cultural meaning cians, and institutions that will build the best (Ferree, 2003, p. 309). In articulating the cam- communities” (p. 82). paign within the discourse surrounding the new This cultural link to Silicon Valley in turn economy, staffers invited journalists to imag- enabled journalists to write about the campaign ine Dean’s run in light of Silicon Valley claims through the well-established story genre of regarding consumer empowerment. Meanwhile, the dot.com start-up. Despite the organizational 374 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & POLITICS

complexity of the campaign and the political players from the Dean campaign to discuss professionals who populated much of it out- how “Internet technologies are putting power side the Internet Division, technology and polit- back into the hands of people” (O’Reilly Digital ical journalists interpreted nearly all aspects Democracy Teach-In, 2004). of Dean’s run through the lens of a fledgling Meanwhile, in the political register, staffers Silicon Valley firm. For example, in Fast argued that the Dean campaign realized ideal Company,, Tischler (2003) argued that: “Dean’s participatory democratic practices. On one level, campaign has all the hallmarks of a startup the collaborative ethos behind open source tech- circa 1997. It’s getting big fast. It’s mone- nical efforts and the empowered consumption of tizing eyeballs” (p. 109). These characteriza- the Internet age fit culturally with ideal conceptions of the campaign did not simply appear tions of democracy among Dean’s progressive in the business and lifestyle magazines of the staffers. In this sense, the expanded opportu- Valley—publications that paid scant attention nities for electoral engagement facilitated by to politics during previous electoral cycles. In networked media reinvigorated democratic life, an expansive profile of the Dean campaign in so much so that Trippi (2004) dedicated his The New York Times Magazine, Shapiro (2003) autobiography of the campaign “to the six hun- cited how Internet theorists such as Weinberger, dred thousand people of Dean for America who Doc Searls, and Howard Rheingold consulted relit the flame of participatory democracy.” for the campaign and described the Internet On another, however, the conceptions of tech- Division as looking “a lot like a dot-com start-up nology and benefits of mediated citizen engage- from the mid-90s: preternaturally pale-skinned ment espoused by members of the Dean cam- young men, crazy hours and slightly messianic paign echoed theories of participatory democ- rhetoric.” racy advanced by leftist social movements dur- As they interpreted the Dean campaign as ing the 1960s. The origins of contemporary the electoral application of the technical and formulations of participatory democracy lie with business practices of the Valley, journalists legit- the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) imated its innovations for a wider audience and its influential Port Huron Statement. The of citizens and political actors. This worked Statement was the founding document of the two ways in a powerful process of “legitimacy era and intellectual cornerstone of the “meta- exchange” (Bowker, 1993, p. 116) that occurred physics of participation” among the New Left between the campaign and Valley business inter- (Gitlin, 1987, pp. 102–103). Espousing the psy- ests. The campaign, for instance, legitimated its chological benefits of participation in political, novel—and thus risky and uncertain—technical social, and economic life, the SDS argued that practices by pointing to open source projects participation would help create “communica- such as Linux and the way Valley firms empow- tive beings” and help men realize their “poten- Downloaded by [Yale University] at 17:54 16 September 2011 ered consumers, especially when faced with tial for self-cultivation, self-direction, self- questions from journalists and political elites understanding, and creativity” (Miller, 1987, regarding whether the online campaign would p. 332). The prospects for participation, in turn, be effective. At the same time, given sag- were deeply entwined with technology, commu- ging industry fortunes with the dot.com bust, nications media, and social organization. SDS the campaign’s success during the summer activists believed that “supertechnology” in the months offered the possibility of affirming the hands of bureaucratic elites dehumanized men Valley’s social and business vision. Luminaries and fragmented communities (p. 330). The way of the industry were quick to promote this. forward was through citizen engagement in pub- For example, in February 2004, the “O’Reilly lic affairs using “the media for their common Emerging Technology Conference,” one of the participation” and “by experiments in decentral- consummate industry gatherings founded by ization, based on the vision of man as master of open source guru Tim O’Reilly, sponsored a his machines and his society” (p. 364). co-located “O’Reilly Digital Democracy Teach- Forty years later, staffers on the Dean cam- In” that brought together many of the key paign channeled many of these sentiments as Kreiss 375

they crafted their own brand of open source, this creative energy of the people is to create not Internet-empowered politics. For many Dean a political storm, but tsunami of power, purpose, figures, the Internet was a symbol of ideal demo- and patriotism” (Trippi & Cadell, 2003). cratic forms conceived in much the same terms While this section revealed the broader cul- as the SDS even as it was a tool for realizing this tural tributaries to the symbolic work of Dean’s social vision. Dean technology advisor Howard staffers, in the pages that follow, I detail how Rheingold, for instance, argued that the Internet framing the campaign as a radical techno- inherently had a “decentralized, self-organizing democratic movement was both deliberate and power” that was uniquely democratic, even as garnered significant resources for the candidate. it facilitated supporters’ use of Meetup to create political “smart mobs” that were “returning power to the people” (Skinner, 2004). Indeed, GOING PUBLIC AND CREATING these figures believed that the Internet, by its A MOVEMENT very design, supported the ability of individuals to take action in political life and challenge Situating the campaign as the political ana- elites, political parties, and interest groups. As logue of open source software and the dot.com Trippi (2004) argued, “The Internet is tailor- economy only worked to the extent that the made for a populist, insurgent movement. Its SDS’s ideological descendants on the Dean roots in the open-source ARPANET, its hacker campaign were able to harness the power of culture, and its decentralized, scattered archi- the professional press. This section focuses on tecture make it difficult for big, establishment how Dean’s staffers and advisors used rhetor- candidates, companies, and media to gain con- ical claims of the technologically empowered trol of it” (p. 102). In essence, these figures campaign as a cultural resource alongside the argued that the Internet was the humanized tech- symbolic deployment of digital tools to drive nology that the SDS was calling for, since it widespread press interest in and shape public supported a decentralized social order and the understandings of the campaign. As Zack Exley communicative links that realize new forms of (personal communication, January 6, 2009), political power. a staffer at MoveOn who consulted for the At the same time, Trippi and others con- Dean campaign, argues, for Trippi the Internet ceived of many of the benefits of this com- “was this huge newshook. You could combine municative, mediated political participation in the Internet with any old-fashioned campaign psychological terms. Dean figures argued that story and the papers would eat it up.” This through the renewed democratic participation cultural work, meanwhile, translated into sig- made possible by the Internet, individuals devel- nificant resources, increasing public awareness oped the self and overcame the psychological of Dean’s candidacy, changing the perception Downloaded by [Yale University] at 17:54 16 September 2011 alienation caused by the much-maligned “broad- of his chances, and assisting with fundrais- cast model” of political communication. For ing and recruiting and mobilizing volunteers. example, Trippi argued that in this new style of It also worked ideologically to define Dean’s Internet politics, campaign managers needed to run almost entirely in terms of the Internet, “unleash the power of the people to be creative” while enabling the campaign to secure the (Tischler, 2003, p. 109). Citizens, in turn, would buy-in of supporters and keep them contri- have the means to act as creative agents of their buting. own participation, joining not only in electoral The campaign’s uptake of the Internet served activities that they themselves plan but expres- as the focal point for journalistic accounts of the sive forms of communicative engagement, given campaign. While it is not surprising that many that online everyone can be a media producer. technology-oriented magazines embraced narra- All of which, Trippi and others argued, restored tives of the digital campaign, as Table 1 makes the very foundations of American democracy clear, even many political journalists covered itself: “America is built from the bottom up— Dean’s run through the trope of the campaign’s not from the top down. Historically to release uptake of the Internet. 376 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & POLITICS

TABLE 1. Newspaper Articles about the Howard Dean Campaign’s Use of the Internet and Total Coverage of the Campaign January 2003–February 2004

Internet Total articles Percent of stories

January 2 173 1% February 4 143 3% March 13 113 12% April 8 145 6% May 16 186 9% June 38 205 19% July 88 374 24% August 71 376 19% September 92 692 13% October 85 539 16% November 109 745 15% December 173 1222 14% January 268 2244 12% February 255 1391 18% Total 1222 8548 14%

Note: Lexis/Nexus database search of 29 major market daily Newspapers.

Generating these journalistic accounts was organizing tool throughout the primaries, given part of the press strategy honed by Trippi. From that it provided a verifiable metric of online sup- very early on, Internet Division staffers and port for journalists, despite the fact that the cam- consultants deliberately and constantly pushed paign had developed better event management “stories around about what we were doing with tools in-house. the Internet” (Jerome Armstrong, personal com- Nothing attracted the attention of journal- munication, November 21, 2008). One reason ists more than the campaign’s staging of high- staffers were so successful at getting these sto- profile public events that dramatically demon- ries in the press was their attention to providing strated its online organizing and fundraising journalists with verifiable metrics of the cam- capacity. For example, an early and impor- paign’s online support. For example, as early tant symbolic victory for the Dean campaign as mid-March 2003, the campaign hosted a came during the “MoveOn primary.” On June “Million Dollar Meetup Challenge” for Howard 24 and 25, MoveOn.org, the largest and most Dean that involved supporters adding a penny powerful progressive online organization, held Downloaded by [Yale University] at 17:54 16 September 2011 to their contributions made over the Internet an online primary to see if its members could so the campaign—and journalists—could deter- make an endorsement. For Trippi, this was mine the source of these funds. Meetups them- an important opportunity to demonstrate the selves served as an important metric that jour- campaign’s online support—particularly given nalists used in assessing the early support of that it came in advance of the public release primary campaigns, regardless of the fact that of the campaign’s second quarter fundraising many of these gatherings occurred in states with- numbers (which had Dean leading both Kerry out important nominating contests. For example, and Edwards). As Nicco Mele (personal com- the press widely reported on the crowds that the munication, July 29, 2008), the campaign’s tool helped draw to Dean’s campaign events. Webmaster, explains: “Trippi was very focused, A March 2003 Meetup in New York that drew MoveOn became a critical focal point for Trippi over 300 supporters to hear the candidate, for and consequently for the whole campaign . . . instance, launched Dean as the Internet candi- the focus was to impress MoveOn, and attract date for many journalists. Trippi even made sure MoveOn’s attention, and to win the MoveOn pri- the campaign continued to use Meetup as an mary. It really just gave focus to the campaign.” Kreiss 377

Trippi not only saw the organizational strength ends. Political activists, meanwhile, could invest of MoveOn, given the 317,647 members who the often trudging and unheroic work of politics voted, but construed, and subsequently framed, with the veneer of countercultural computing, this as a key early metric for political journalists becoming the hackers of progressive politics as to judge the strength and support of the primary they used Meetups to organize their communi- campaigns. Dean won with 43.87% of the vote ties. All of these visions helped the campaign in a field of nine. While this was short of the 50 recruit specialized volunteers from among these percent threshold necessary to win the official constituencies and build a broad-based electoral endorsement of the organization, the primary movement. received wide coverage including a New York The cultural construction of Dean’s electoral Times editorial (The New York Times, 2003). effort as an open source movement helped create The campaign followed up its MoveOn pri- and mobilize a technically skilled community of mary victory with online fundraising events supporters. For example, the campaign devel- that both raised significant monies for the cam- oped a formal policy position in support of paign and garnered an extraordinary amount open source technologies in order to get covered of media attention. Journalists followed these on Slashdot, the large, collaborative group blog events closely because of their novelty: even populated by technology industry professionals, during the summer of the 2003–2004 cycle, hackers, and computer enthusiasts—an impor- fundraising online, especially in small incre- tant group of potential campaign supporters. ments, was not a well-developed campaign prac- Zephyr Teachout (personal communication, July tice. While the campaign held many fundrais- 10, 2008), the campaign’s Director of Internet ing drives, a singular event in July received Organizing, explained that: widespread press coverage and became canonic for many who believed the Internet revolution- we were using it [the open source policy] ized the political process. During a $2,000-a- to get Slashdotted. So, it is actually a story plate fundraiser hosted by Vice President Dick about political strategy, not about policy Cheney, the Dean campaign posted a picture creation. It was not an open source–created of the candidate eating a turkey sandwich on policy platform, it was a policy platform the Dean For America Web site. Small dona- about open source. ...Halfthepeople tions poured in, and Dean out-raised Cheney by who helped write it were wonderful lefty nearly $200,000. While the amount raised was San Francisco technologists on the finance spectacular for online fundraising at the time, team....Ilikedthepolicy,butthisis just as importantly, Dean’s feat grabbed head- not a radical democratic moment. Now, the lines on political pages throughout the country reason it is radical and important, the seri- as awestruck journalists watched the campaign’s Downloaded by [Yale University] at 17:54 16 September 2011 ous point, is that issues that were otherwise stunning success in online fundraising. completely off the charts are now suddenly Even as this press attention heightened the important for lots of people. Because sud- visibility of the candidate, it performed cultural denly you are responsive to a new category work by situating the meaning of the campaign of donors including the Slashdotters.5 in simultaneously technical, commercial, and political registers. As such, the campaign both had wide appeal, and supporters from differ- While this was largely a transactional relation- ent social and professional communities could ship for the campaign, for the Slashdot com- imagine their electoral work in diverse ways. munity it was a validation that a major party The developer volunteering for the Dean cam- presidential candidate heard their concerns. As paign, for instance, could see the processes and a Slashdotter announced the news: “Regardless products of coding as a form of political action. if you’re for Dean, against Dean, or you’re not Entrepreneurs could see a powerful demonstra- an American, it’s great to see an American tion of their profit-generating tools being put politician on the national level using and pro- towards progressive and, ultimately, democratic moting free software. I wonder if RMS [Richard 378 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & POLITICS

Matthew Stallman] thought he’d see a U.S. pres- empowerment to larger narratives of politi- idential candidate releasing stuff under the GPL cal community. Publicly citing books such as when he founded GNU 20 years ago!” (Michael, Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone as the inspi- 2003). ration for the Dean campaign, Trippi argued This strategy of appealing to specialized com- that the Internet enabled citizens to overcome munities to help garner fiscal and other sup- their alienation from the democratic process and port for Dean’s candidacy extended beyond band together to create new forms of political Slashdot. Dean’s advisors and staffers also sym- association. bolically fashioned their efforts as a new econ- In framing the campaign in this way, Trippi omy experiment. Trippi, for instance, recruited strove to mobilize and motivate those supporters David Weinberger, co-author of the business text for whom the Internet and blogs were thought The ClueTrain Manifesto, to serve as the Senior of more as tools for deeper engagement in the Internet Advisor for the campaign. Trippi looked political process than revolutionary and trans- to him to bring the cache of the new economy to formative forces reshaping society. To this end, Dean’s run and provide “publicity and credibil- staffers integrated the rhetoric of empowerment ity” for the campaign with an eye towards get- into nearly all the campaign’s communications ting political elites to pay attention to and under- with supporters. As Kelly Nuxoll (2007), the e- stand its new media innovations (Weinberger, mail manager for the campaign, describes, in personal communication, November 21, 2008). communication with supporters the campaign’s Trippi also tasked Weinberger with “drumming style was to “never say ‘our’ campaign; say up enthusiasm among some Internet people,” ‘your’ campaign” (p. 194). Staffers used these particularly those who were among the fore- rhetorical techniques to describe how supporters most interpreters of digital technologies and had ownership over the campaign while calling social change. To this end, Weinberger cre- on them to take specific forms of action. This ated Dean’s “Net Advisory Net” (NAN)—an was especially so for Trippi, who was like a Internet policy group that included new media “muezzin” in his inspirational messages to sup- superstars such as Howard Rheingold, Lawrence porters, particularly during fundraising appeals Lessig, and Joi Ito, a prominent venture capital- (Nuxoll, 2007, p. 198). As importantly, staffers ist. The NAN received considerable attention— adopted a personal style of address, signing their particularly among bloggers—for the policy own names to e-mails, to mask the mass-ness of positions it developed as Dean’s “Statement of this communication. In doing so, these staffers Internet Principles.” Yet, reflecting the fact that attempted to create and foster feelings of inti- open source was only construed in limited, elec- macy toward the campaign among supporters toral domains, there was no opportunity for and increase the likelihood they would become public input in the NAN’s work. and remain involved. Thus, while e-mail com- Downloaded by [Yale University] at 17:54 16 September 2011 Staffers and advisers also blended the techni- munication was only one-way and thousands of cal and commercial registers with the more gen- people received the same message on a regu- eral terms of democratic empowerment, fram- lar basis, even a former staffer to Vice President ing the campaign’s uptake of digital tools in Gore confessed that “I feel like I have a personal terms of traditional social movement activities. relationship with Joe Trippi” (Mack, 2004). As Trippi (2004) put it: “When you looked at him [Dean], you were going to think Internet and personal empowerment in the same way CONCLUSION you thought Vietnam hero when you looked at John Kerry, or Southern optimism when you Dean’s star rose throughout the summer of looked at John Edwards” (p. 100). On one 2003, culminating in a $200,000 10-city, four- level, this quote reveals how Trippi wanted to day “Sleepless Summer Tour.” This was the fashion Dean into a symbol of the ways the high point of the campaign, when Dean’s nom- Internet allowed citizens to engage in political ination looked likely to even the most jaded action. On another, Trippi connected personal political professionals. It would end soon. As Kreiss 379

the improbable frontrunner throughout the fall And yet, even as open source guided the inter- and winter, Dean was a target for his rivals nal organizational practices of many of Dean’s and the press. As the candidate made their technically skilled staffers, it was also a cultural job of discrediting him easier with a series of resource that staffers deployed instrumentally gaffes, the campaign ended up losing control for electoral gain. Articulated within narratives of the press narrative Trippi had so assiduously of the new economy and participatory democ- cultivated. racy, the framing of Dean’s campaign as an open These missteps were, however, minor com- source and radically techno-democratic move- pared to a disastrous on-the-ground field effort ment provided an interpretative framework for in the crucial state of Iowa. For all the vaunted journalists to understand Dean’s run. It legit- Internet-based applications, field staffers lacked imated many of the campaign’s innovations, very basic tools for getting out the vote, had no while attracting an extraordinary amount of “precinct captains” in half of the Iowa districts, press coverage. Framing the campaign’s uptake and worked from an outdated list of volunteers of the Internet in technical, commercial, and who had signed up online. With few local vol- political registers also appealed to multiple con- unteers, the campaign drew on its significant stituencies, helping the campaign attract and national support on college campuses, in urban motivate supporters to perform high-end tech- areas, and on the coasts in a last ditch “perfect nical labor, donate money, and talk to voters. storm” effort, sending 3,500 mostly out of state And yet, even as symbolic work around the volunteers into Iowa wearing orange hats. The Internet helped the campaign garner resources strategy backfired on a number of levels. Iowans and become the center of the political world, it expect locals to contact them, and the cam- may have also led Dean away from the nom- paign lacked the basic infrastructure to manage ination. As Jascha Franklin Hodge (personal and deploy these volunteers. In the days before communication, December 22, 2008), Dean’s the caucuses, the campaign had few options National Systems Administrator and co-founder except to devote much of its remaining resources of the firm that provided much of the online to massive television advertising outlays. Dean infrastructure for Obama’s campaign, argues: emerged from the caucuses with a third-place “People became so enamored with the idea of finish, an endlessly replayed “scream” haunting what it was that they were doing that they some- the cable news networks, and a nearly broke times lost the macro-political perspective that is campaign. Weeks later he withdrew from the necessary to actually get out there and win.” nomination race. To the extent that staffers and supporters While Dean’s downfall suggests that the cam- understood and experienced their online work paign’s technical and organizational innovations for Dean as a transformative new way of prac- did not translate into electoral success, they ticing politics, it may have distracted from their Downloaded by [Yale University] at 17:54 16 September 2011 were hardly insignificant. Drawing on models ability to hold the campaign to account for its of open source technical production, Dean’s larger strategy. As they imagined their partici- staffers used the Internet as an organizational pation in backend electoral tasks as the summa- tool, decentralizing much fundraising, voter out- tion of the campaign, Dean’s Internet Division reach, and even technical development for the staffers and online supporters paid little atten- first time in a political campaign. Inspired by tion to the formal campaign organization. Yet, it the collaborative ideals of the open source move- became painfully clear after Iowa that the cam- ment, and provided with an organizational space paign’s hierarchy maintained authority over the for innovation given the need to find resources key strategy, allocative, and management deci- for the outsider candidate, these staffers built sions that ultimately shaped Dean’s electoral and deployed a new set of digital campaign tools prospects. that enabled supporters to participate in these And yet, while many journalists proclaimed tasks. As such, the Dean campaign reveals how Dean’s campaign a failure of dot.com propor- open source provides a set of value-laden prac- tions and wrote their obituaries accordingly, tices that can be incorporated into domains far something was taking shape outside of the afield of technical projects such as Linux. public eye during the waning days of the 380 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & POLITICS

primaries in 2004. Few recognized the extent to Internet Division, so much so that divisional affiliations which Dean’s staffers and advisors had reshaped and reporting were not always clear. When I reference the the cultural grounds of Internet politics. In “Internet Division” in this article, I am referring to this the harsh winter of 2004, as comments on larger group of staffers whose job responsibilities primarily BlogForAmerica.com tapered off, fundraising entailed working online with supporters or developing the campaign’s technical infrastructure. For a fuller discussion fell to a trickle, and Trippi headed for sunnier of the campaign organization, including an organizational climes, the phones of the staffers that developed chart, see Kreiss (2009). Dean’s online campaign were ringing. Michael 3. Many of Dean’s Internet Division staffers founded Silberman, Dean’s National Meetup Director, consulting firms shortly after the primaries, carrying recalls that in the midst of a wreck of a cam- Dean’s tools and organizational practices with them to paign, the future was unexpectedly bright as other sites, including Barack Obama’s historic bid for the everyone in the political world wanted the Dean presidency (Kreiss, 2010). This history detailing how the Dean campaign was the origin point for the dissemination “magic”: “We all received calls from people try- of contemporary networked campaign practices is the sub- ing to poach us. . . . We were all pretty well ject of my forthcoming book from Oxford University Press marketable at that time, probably more so than (Kreiss, forthcoming). we knew” (personal communication, July 20, 4. The campaign was willing to test the boundaries 2008). of election law. For example, a former staffer of John Dean’s Internet Division staffers had become Edward’s Internet teams describes how lawyers for the the arbiters of a new form of politics, and they 2003–2004 Edwards campaign internally debated questions such as the legality of supporters building their own capitalized on these professional opportunities sites for the candidate. Dean’s staffers, by contrast, felt they to launch a new generation of political consul- had little to lose with a long-shot candidate and simply tancies specializing in new media. These firms forged ahead with supporter collaboration, the idea being became the vehicles through which the cam- that they would worry about the legal issues later (Aaron paign’s technologies, online organizing prac- Myers, personal communication, May 9, 2009). tices, and staffers spread throughout the politi- 5. The specific policy in question was to release the cal field, from the corridors of the Democratic software the campaign was developing under the GNU Party once Dean was elected chair in 2005 and general public license. This was the Deanspace technology developed by Rosen based on Drupal. hired his former staffers to rebuild the organization’s technical infrastructure to the New Media Division of the first African American president REFERENCES (Kreiss, forthcoming). Benford, R. D., & Snow, D. A. (2000). Framing processes and social movements: An overview and assessment. NOTES Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 611–639. Bimber, B., & Davis, R. (2003). Campaigning online: Downloaded by [Yale University] at 17:54 16 September 2011 1. This article focuses on Democratic online political the Internet in U.S. elections. New York, NY: Oxford campaigning because Democratic candidates were the pri- University Press. mary drivers of innovation in online electoral innovation Bowker, G. (1993). How to be universal: Some cybernetic during the 2004 and 2008 election cycles. Dean not only strategies. Social Studies of Science, 23(1), 107–127. drove technical innovation in 2003–2004, but the candi- Brown, J. S., & Duguid, P. (2001). Knowledge and orga- date’s former staffers in the Internet Division built much nization: A social-practice perspective. Organization of the organizational and technical infrastructure for the Science, 12(2), 198–213. Democratic Party and Obama’s run in 2007–2008 (Kreiss, Chadwick, A. (2007). Digital network repertoires and orga- in press). For a discussion of how the political environ- nizational hybridity. Political Communication, 24(3), ment and Democratic out-party status, in part, drove this 283–301. innovation, see Karpf (2009). Ferree, M. A. (2003). Resonance and radicalism: Feminist 2. The formal Internet Division consisted of approxi- framing in the abortion debates of the United States mately 12 staffers within the larger campaign organization. and Germany. American Journal of Sociology, 109(2), There were also a number of staffers whose work revolved 304–344. around the Internet and the campaign’s technical systems Fineman, H., (2003, September 15). There’s a chill in the in other divisions such as Field, Communications, and air. Newsweek. Retrieved from http://www.newsweek. Finance. These individuals often worked closely with the com/2003/09/14/there-s-a-chill-in-the-air.html Kreiss 381

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APPENDIX. Interviews Conducted with Former Staffers of the Howard Dean Campaign

Name Dean Position

Jerome Armstrong Consultant Larry Biddle Deputy Finance Director Jim Brayton Web Designer/System Administrator Bobby Clark Web Strategist Zack Exley Advisor Jascha Franklin-Hodge National Systems Administrator Aldon Hynes Volunteer Hack4Dean Neil Jensen Volunteer, Internet Division Clay Johnson Programmer Nicco Mele Webmaster Amanda Michel National Director, Generation Dean Adam Mordecai Iowa Field Staff Kelly Nuxoll E-mail Manager Tamara Pogue Field Director Zack Rosen Volunteer Hack4Dean Programmer Joe Rospars E-mail writer Ben Self Chief Data Architect Michael Silberman Director of MeetUps Zephyr Teachout Director of Internet Organizing Chris Warshaw Iowa, Wisconsin Field Staff David Weinberger Senior Technology Advisor Downloaded by [Yale University] at 17:54 16 September 2011