Obama's failure is a web failure
By
Dave Winer on Thursday, June 28, 2012 at 9:16 AM.
 The President ran a great campaign, even if it wasn't the ideal campaign.  He used the Internet in a one-way mode. It wasn't used to organize new politicial ideas that came from the people, but it was used, powerfully, to organize an army of supporters to give money and time to his election. And it worked. He cruised to victory. It wasn't even close.
But then after the election win, the campaign shuts down.
Maybe, we thought, they'll relaunch at the inauguration. Nope. Nothing. A fairly typical White House website. A linear improvement over the Bush web.
 And that was the moment of failure. Failure to understand that an effective president never stops campaigning, using whatever communication tools are at his disposal. It's the president's pulpit that his power emanates from. His unique ability to speak to and for the electorate. This is the power that's most valued. Nothing else matters than his or her ability to move votes and voters. And to hear what they're saying and respond accordingly. The web offers by far the most powerful tools that a politician has ever had and the President blew it off.
It's as if Google won search on the net, and once winning, shut down google.com. It really isn't even analogous. It's exactly the same thing. Because in 2009, when the President took office, the Presidency was an Internet thing. As much on the web as Facebook is. Or Twitter. Instead of using those things, ineffectively, they could have and should have been those things.
And that's why, forty-five minutes from now, a huge political accomplishment, the Affordable Care Act, is in jeopardy.
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