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In a move to distinguish himself from the other 300 or so seaoned Democrats running for President, Vermont Governor Howard Dean, seen here in a file photo, has launched a website providing nothing but video feeds featuring himself. With all the entertainment options available on broadband Internet, watching Vermont Gov. Howard Dean discuss health care and the economy for an hour might not seem like the most exciting use of bandwidth.
But for those who think otherwise, strategists overseeing Dean's long-shot bid for the Democratic presidential nomination are hoping their all-video site -- Howard Dean TV -- will provide just the fix political news junkies crave.
"For us, it's a great way to not have what the governor said interpreted through the news media or by opponents," said Joe Trippi, Dean's campaign manager. Trippi conceived the site as a low-budget version of a dedicated television channel.
Quietly launched this week in a trial run, the video site contains only a handful of clips of Dean's campaign appearances, although Trippi plans to add new feeds on a regular basis.
Having so far drawn only about a thousand viewers, the site is hardly the stuff that keeps broadcast executives up at night. But given the scant coverage Democratic contenders in a crowded primary can expect from mainstream media, political strategists say it's understandable that candidates are taking steps to generate their own buzz online.
"The Internet can play a bigger role for underdogs," said Lynn Reed, president of Net Politics Group, a political Web design firm that developed a website for Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley for the 2000 primary.
Because long-shot candidates don't have money to burn on advertising, they have to find more creative ways to get their messages across.
Of course, with nine official candidates currently running for the Democratic nomination, according to the Democratic National Committee, the case can be made that all are underdogs at this stage.
The only person almost guaranteed a slot on next year's ballot is President Bush, who announced this month, to no one's surprise, that he will seek re-election.
Having none of the fund-raising finesse of a sitting president, underdogs are finding new ways of employing the Web to generate votes and replenish their campaign coffers.
A fixture at websites of all serious candidates is a button that allows supporters to make instant campaign contributions by credit card. Video clips and audio files are common features, as are e-mail lists that provide updates on candidate appearances or position statements. Some are also experimenting with blogs.
Reed ranked the Dean campaign ahead of the pack in its sophisticated adoption of Internet communications tools, including an internal blog. She rated Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry as a runner-up.
Although Kerry's campaign website lacks some of the grassroots elements of Dean's, it has video and audio clips, a forum for "virtual organizers" and regularly updated content along with the ubiquitous contribution button.
Video also features prominently on the sites of other Democratic contenders, including Dick Gephardt and Al Sharpton. The Sharpton site actually provides two types of video feeds, customized for dial-up or broadband connections.
At the Dean site, one of the more popular features is a listing of upcoming meetings provided through a Web service called Meetup.com, created for organizing local gatherings.
Trippi said it was individual supporters, rather than campaign organizers, who first began planning gatherings through Meetup in January. At the time, only about 400 supporters were involved in the gatherings. Now, Trippi said, more than 25,000 are participating.
Whether a strong Web presence translates into success at the polls won't be known until January at the earliest, when the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary take place
For now, Reed says, campaign strategists need to concentrate on building sites that produce practical results, generating campaign contributions and encouraging supporters to turn out and vote.
"You can have the best website in the world, but if it doesn't help you get people to the caucus in Iowa, you still won't be around for the remainder of the primary season," she said.
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