Jim Moore’s blog: Innovation, Strategy, Public Policy

For me, the really important question raised by the Dean campaign is
“to what extent can a political campaign afford to create what
economists call ‘public goods?’”  Public goods are goods from
which
everyone benefits–including rival campaigns, in the case of
politics. 

The Dean campaign invested heavily in several public goods.  These
form what I call the “infrastructure for change.”

First, the Dean campaign invested in promoting the idea of real change
in America.  It made the unthinkable thinkable:  Bush could
be defeated by a true Democrat.  The Dean campaign invested in
building the case for an alternative to the Bush administration and the
Republicans and for an alternative to the Democrats who saw their only
chance of success in being just like the Republicans.

Second, the Dean campaign invested in helping people see the degree to
which special interests like the Enron boys buy influence by
contributing to political campaigns.  Prior to the Dean
investment, campaign finance reform was seen as an arcane topic of
little interest to voters. Now voters increasingly understand the
connection between money and influence.  The Dean campaign let
people act on their understanding by setting up a mechanism that
enabled thousands of individuals to give small contributions to the
campaign.

Third, the Dean campaign invested in grassroots organizing. The Dean
campaign invested to encourage individuals to come together to create
political power.  For example, in New Hampshire the campaign
supported 15 community organizing conventions and 1690 house meetings,
and maintained a staff of 40 community organizers. Across America the
campaign has encouraged hundreds of grassroots organizations.  For
example, there are more than 2000 MeetUp coordinators who host local
MeetUp gatherings.  No matter what happens in the next few weeks,
the political relationships formed among individuals will endure. 
Political power once tasted encourages continuing activism.

Fourth, the Dean campaign invested in Internet and information
technology innovation.  Many innovations were tried, much has been
learned.  This knowlege is now available to the polical world at
large–and it now finds a receptive audience among political
leaders.  This is a watershed change.  Consider this:  I
personally spent more than five years trying to get the Democratic
establishment to adopt advanced information and communication
technologies, as did numbers of other folks.  We were not
successful.  Now that the Dean campaign has shown the way,
politicians are interested, and politics will never be the same. 
Information technology will forever more be understood to be a critical
element of campaign strategy.

The Governor’s campaign is not the only one to benefit from its
investments in public goods.  These public goods help other candidates.  Other candidates have picked up the
message of change.  Other candidates are talking about special
interests.  Our grassroots organization in New Hampshire helped
us, but obviously not enough for us to prevail.  And the lessons
of technology are being rapidly adopted by other campaigns.

I’m proud that the campaign created these public goods. I believe that
the campaign significantly increased “social capital” and the political
empowerment of Americans.  I believe it helped to wake us
up. 

But creating these public goods was expensive.  Creating them came
at the expense of helping voters learn about Howard Dean, the person
and the experienced leader.  And this probably was to our
campaign’s detriment. 
Meanwhile, other candidates focused less on creating public goods, and
more on promoting their own success.

Perhaps in an ideal world the Democratic party would invest in the
public goods, and candidates could focus on being candidates.  The
Dean campaign had to make the investments because the Democratic party
was unwilling to invest in a messaging of change, in grassroots
development, and in information technology innovation.

Bill Drayton of Ashoka points out the change comes to society by way of
entrepreneurs.  Entrepreneurs are those who bring new patterns
into play.  Entrepreneurs take ideas and make them real.

Howard Dean and his team are the true entrepreneurs of the 2004
election.  In business there is a joke about how the pioneers in a
market  often get arrows in their backs.  Howard certainly
took some arrows.  But we should be thankful for pioneers–even
when they take a few arrows. And I am thankful for Howard’s
entrepreneurship!

The white guys in the gray wool suits are coming into the process now–as other campaigns adopt the innovations pioneered by the
Dean campaign.  Perhaps the guys in suits will
prevail.  On the other hand, perhaps voters will learn to value
innovation in democracy.  Perhaps voters will learn to reward
entrepreneurship and creative risk taking. 

We need to help voters recognize and value innovation in democracy.  When voters
reward
innovation we will enjoy a more interesting and successful democracy.