This week the TPM Bookclub is talking about The Legacy of the Dean Campaign, and two books, The First Campaign: Globalization, the Web, and the Race for the White House, by Garrett Graff and Mousepads, Shoe Leather, and Hope: Lessons from the Howard Dean Campaign for the Future of Internet Politics, edited by Zephyr Teachout and Thomas Streeter. I wrote one of the chapters for Mousepads and am participating in the discussion at TPM. Below is my first contribution to the discussion there.

Zephyr has written about the nature of power and language. Garrett has written about message and medium. I’d like to focus on another aspect of what happened. It’s all about change.

When you get right down to it, that is a fundamental aspect of any campaign. Do we stay with the status quo, or do we embrace change? Incumbents argue for the status quo, challengers argue for change. In a primary of different challengers, the question becomes who will be the most effective agent of change, and what will that change look like.

In some cases, we look at the rhetoric that the candidates offer. This one with change this, that one will change that. Yet, we should look deeper. What sort of change is the candidate bringing about in his or her campaign?

My experience of the Dean campaign was that everyone believed what Gov. Dean said when he told us volunteers, “The biggest lie people like me tell people like you, is that if you vote for me, I’ll solve all your problems. The truth is You Have The Power.”