Web Spinner
The master of Howard Dean's website is doing more than just raising hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds.
You're the 26-year-old webmaster for Howard Dean's presidential campaign. How did you get there?
I've been involved on the Internet end of a lot of political things. I was the webmaster at Common Cause and most recently worked at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. I went to a Dean "meetup" in New York City in March. I was blown away by how they used the website to get people there and involved. I joined the campaign in May.
What's a Dean meetup?
At 7 p.m. on the first Wednesday of every month, more than 110,000 people across the country who've signed up through the "meetup" part of our website, Deanfor
America.com, get together in restaurants and public places in their neighborhoods. It's a real community-building device.
A good dating scene as well?
You'd be surprised at how not like that it is.
Your website has become the envy of politics, especially in fund-raising.
The most amazing thing is the huge number of people making small gifts -- literally, tens of thousands of people giving 20 bucks or 50 bucks, and it adds up to millions of dollars.
How did you guys raise $800,000 through the website in one day?
We made a last-minute appeal to our supporters to smash all records on the last day of the fund-raising quarter. The big thing is making sure we have the technical infrastructure so that at the peak load of traffic we can accept the maximum number of connections to the Web service. Those kinds of things really make you sweat.
We've been told before how the Internet was going to transform politics. Why should we believe it now?
This time around, the Internet is much more ingrained in our culture. With people shopping and paying bills and doing everything else online, it's natural that they get more involved in politics through the Web. Everything we do is aimed at connecting people to other people near them, so they can take actions offline. The Internet is just a new tool in grass-roots organizing.
Have you adapted to life in Vermont?
I'm a little bit worried about the winter. I'm terrified, quite frankly.
Is there a risk of becoming too reliant on the Net, which skews to the young, affluent, and white?
Sure. Our supporters are well aware of the limitations of our online demographic. They're trying to find out who doesn't have Internet and go out and engage them.
Can you understand people who still don't use the Internet?
I'm one of these people who, if I can't do it online, I really get annoyed. That's not necessarily a good way to live.
If Dean wins and asks you to be...
The webmaster general? If asked, I will serve my country.
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