Web-Saavy Obama Needs No Party

By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 10, 2008 11:31 AM CST
Web-Saavy Obama Needs No Party
Obama supporters check the voting counts on their computer, Wednesday Nov. 5, 2008 in Shanghai, China.   (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

Barack Obama has so revolutionized politics that he may not even need the Democratic party, writes David Carr in the New York Times. Parties are supposed to provide a base of support, a brand, ground troops, money, and relationships—all things Obama already has in abundance. The president-elect ran his campaign like a Silicon Valley startup, turning a pile of social networking technologies into the nation’s best political machine.

Now Obama takes office with an arsenal of communication tools far cheaper and more powerful than Karl Rove’s voter lists and phone banks. “It’s clear there has been a dramatic shift,” said one expert on politics and technology. “Any politician who fails to recognize that we are in a post-party era with a new political ecology in which connecting like minds and forming a movement is so much easier will not be around long.” (More Barack Obama stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X