Avoiding the ignorance of arrogance

ILLUSTRATED: Modern campaigns must keep up with modern techniques and technology. Beware of giving all of the power in the campaigns to people, simply because they won in the past.

Two years ago I wrote of the coming age of the political entrepreneur. These are well connected activists who are good at organizing, writing, and fundraising. They are essential to modern campaigns. In the NYT's edition on Christmas '07, there is an article on how Democratic presidential candidates are reining in the payouts to old-school media consultants. In the last two paragraphs, Joe Trippi (Dean '04, Edwards '08) writes that soon, people experienced in modern netroots organizing will be running major campaigns.

2008 campaigns still have a lot of fundraisers, consultants, and managers who came of age before 2004, when blogs and the Internet became critical. Campaigns these days ought to beware of stacking the top jobs with people simply because they have a "track record". I have found that they often have a pack mentality that is stuck in the past.

Let me be clear that there are fundamentals that are timeless. But there is a tightrope to be walked between "learning the lessons of history so as to not repeat the mistakes" and "not being the general who fights the last war".