Fast Talk
Fast Talk: John Edwards's Web General
By Danielle Sacks
|June 1, 2007
Fast Talk: The Selling of a President
-
The RNC's Loaded Gun
-
The Democrats' ATM
-
Barack Obama's Secret Weapon
-
John McCain's Pacemaker
-
The Blogosphere’s Kingmaker
Mathew Gross
Senior Adviser for Online Communications, John Edwards Campaign
Greensboro, North Carolina
Mathew Gross, 35, created Blog for America for Howard Dean in 2003 and is now in charge of integrating John Edwards's online and offline communications. So far, Edwards's campaign has been arguably the most technologically innovative, experimental, and aggressive.
"In the television era of politics, the instinct was very much to control the message, to get the perfect sound bite. With the Internet, I think you have to release control as you do in a conversation. Traditionally, when one politician attacks another, you respond either by attacking back or voicing your outrage that a candidate would stoop to such a level. Now, suddenly, the audience is able to hurl their attacks as well. Asymmetrical warfare is the perfect analogy, because now the ability for things to go viral is in anybody's hands, and if an attack is coming from a voter, it's no longer a given to simply strike back. There was one video on