For anyone seriously examining the ways in which political agenda‐setting in America takes place at the present time, Crashing the Gate is an unmissable book. The title suggests the argument – that traditional approaches to political communication, using television and the liberal press, and the establishment Democratic (as in Party, opposed to the Republican Party) apparatus with its assortment of consultants and media advisers – needs radical change if the Democratic Party are to get elected federally next time round and if they are to appeal to the voters in the states. Chelsea Green Publishing (www.chelseagreen.com) has got a winner here, not only in the USA but for readers around the world keen to tap into what is being and can be done by bloggers and by online grassroot (that is “netroots”) politics today.
Jerome Armstrong is founder of the well‐known political blog MyDD.com, a must for commentary on direct democracy (what the “DD” stands for) and strategist for Howard Dean in his campaign for office in the Democratic Party. Markos Moulitsas Zúniga is founder of another well‐known political blog, the Daily Kos (so‐called after syllables of his name), and between them MyDD.com and the Daily Kos get larger audiences than mainstream news magazines like The American Prospect, The Nation, and The New Republic. Crashing the Gate is about politics but it is also about the ways in which the blogosphere is transforming (and will transform) politics at federal and state level in the future. For that reason, it is a book for political wonks and for anyone interested in political marketing and the information age.
The book is mainly a call‐to‐arms for “democrats”. It is forthright sharply‐argued wake‐up call, mapping out the years of Democratic ineffectiveness, analyzing the complacency that accounts for it, suggesting options to turn things round, discussing the historical build‐up of the Republican political infrastructure and its corporatist funding, and highlighting that the shift to the right in America is not just a matter of politics but also an issue for democracy itself. So why have the Democrats done badly? Iraq, terrorism, Katrina, Schiavo, DeLay, the marginalizing of environmental and women's and labour interests, and much else remind us of the ironic implausibility of the neoconservative government, yet for all that they have organized interest groups and think‐tanks, funding and propaganda. Much of the malaise among Democrats, then, is of their own making – civil war between the Washington‐centric party machine (which often campaigns against state candidates and whose advertising strategies are out‐of‐touch with voters at grassroots level), a shortage of funds from sponsors, and poorly‐organized communications.
The last is of particular resonance for Armstrong and Moulitsas with their involvement with the blogosphere. Information and opinion today has shifted to blogs (or web logs) and away from traditional media (though direct mail holds its own, largely through email). A visit to Technorati, the blog of blogs (www.technorati.com) will confirm the variety of political blogs to date. Among my favourites are 84RULES (http://84rules.blog‐city.com) and etalkinghead (http://directory.etalkinghead.com). MyDD.com is topical, sardonic, informed, hospitable, influential, as is the Daily Kos (this allows users to maintain blogs within the site and acts as a wki). With such a background, and such an angle, the authors argue a strong case for wider use of blogs – as part of direct democracy – if the party is to win back the White House and take forward much of the Bill Clinton portfolio that got trampled by later presidents. Crashing the Gate, then, is not “just an argument for rebranding the Democrats” but a discussion of “the nascent people‐powered mass movement of the netroots and the grassroots, because the progressive message is likely to emerge from there”.
Its analysis of centre versus state power play is damning, its evaluation of consultancy and media “gravy trains” is incisive, driving the argument to the conclusion that more creative ways of reaching the audience must be found. The changing media landscape needs a reshaped information and communication strategy – attacking Republican ideas and activism across a multi‐issue front, using blogs and internet‐deliverables wherever possible, countering Republican propaganda at federal and state levels, using data mining and micro‐segmentation market research methods to target specific groups of voters and get them involved. For the reader – in politics in real life or studying them for academic reasons – the review of campaigning, and of managing the real debate in the blogosphere, is invaluable, and in this respect Crashing the Gate anticipates the mainstream textbooks in the field.
21st century politics needs 21st century technology and communication. Matt Drudge (in the Drudge Report, www.drudgereport.com) and opensecrets.org (www.opensecrets.org, the website of the Center for Responsive Politics, and an exposé of money used in US elections) are just a start. If direct democracy is to work – and the book examines many examples of where it has (in the Howard Dean campaign and in campaigns held in Montana, Virginia and Ohio) – then it needs to be an online community. The blogger effect is one of success, and the evidence is not merely anecdotal. Readers will probably know of MoveOn.org (www.moveon.org) that claims “to bring real Americans back into the political process” and which has produced analysis of what it calls “inconvenient truths”) and of The Alliance for Democracy (www.thealliancefordemocracy.org).
Crashing the Gate is not ideological in its own right: that it leaves to other writers. It says that “the enemy are ideologically steeped” but admits that it is not “a book about policies or new ideas or message”. This is a pity because, if they had connected up the arguments about direct democracy and the blogosphere with relevant political ideology (say to contest the Republican claims about small government or terrorism), the book would have more to say to a wider readership and would probably live longer as a front‐list contender. Clearly, get the means right and the message – hopefully already shaped by Democratic aspirants – can hit home. This book is a timely reminder of the importance of new media in politics, and of how dangerous disengagement can be. Blogs, like pods and wikis, cannot be ignored, and that cannot fail to be of interest to information professionals.
