My factfinding trip to America

There is an article in today’s Times which offers a very partial account of the last five weeks I’ve spent in the USA.  The headline over the article – “Tories copy Republican dirty tricks on the web” – doesn’t begin to capture what I’ve learnt.  Tom Baldwin, the reporter, takes my observations about the campaign techniques of some of the more edgy conservative campaigners and assumes I think the Conservative Party should embrace them.  I don’t think that.

During my stay in Washington I learnt a great deal about the impact that the internet has already had on US politics.  I’m convinced blogging and other web platforms are going to be increasingly important in Britain, too.  A report on everything I learn will go to Francis Maude and at some point in the future I hope to be able to share many of my findings with readers of this blog.

I actually met Tom Baldwin at a private dinner party.  I didn’t know he was going to be there and the article flowed from that.  I met a huge variety of politicians, technologists and journalists during my stay.  From each group of people I learnt different things.  I met journalists to learn how they used blogs and how they are forcing changes to the way the newspaper industry works.

I'm now back in the UK by the way... This post has been submitted from the Heathrow to Paddington Express!  I'm now off in search of the first good cup of tea in a long time...

Comments

[Tory T]

A painful lesson, Tim. Baldwin is a fanatical (and I use the term advisedly) Labour partisan who has one characteristic in common with his fellow Times journalist (and non-socialist), Andrew Pierce - an indefatigable determination to squeeze information out of Tories.

Anyone seeing Baldwin or Pierce approaching should move in the other direction. If cornered they should confine the conversaion to banalities because any snipet of information, however innocuous, will be distorted into an embarrassing article.

[malcolm]

Welcome home Tim.Glad you made it before all the snow hit the eastern US.

[Chad]

Yes, as I noted on another thread, the real story (well for me anyway) of conservatives leveraging the power of the internet was shadowed beneath a huge photo of Ann Coulter and a misleading title.

[Rob]

Tim, Tim

Have you not read Michael Ashcrofts book 'Dirty Politics, Dirty Times'?

[Ted]

The Times remains a NewLab in house publication - until of course the Conservative revival (hopefully) makes the Murdoch clan worry about consequences.

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

Welcome back to civilisation Editor. Now where's the review of last week? :-)

[malcolm]

Ted,do you read the Times anymore?It is far from being an uncritical organ of the Labour party.The majority of the serious political commentators who write for it are extremely critical of the Labour government.The most notable exception was Tom Baldwin who used to regularly write hideously biased newspieces which I believe were dictated by Labours press officers.That the Times chose to publish them vebatim should be a source of shame to that newspaper.
However since Campbell left Downing street Baldwins sources have dried up a bit and now he's based in the US he rarely appears in the Times.Consequently it's quite a good newspaper now.

[Chad]

I agree Malcolm. It's certainly my daily read. That article this morning stuck out like a sore thumb.

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

Malcolm, Alastair Campbell is very much back on the scene it would seem.

He was wheeled out alongside a spluttering Michael Gove to review PMQs on Newsnight last Wednesday (looking very much like a Cheshire cat that got the cream, if you'll pardon the mixed metaphors) and appears to have buried the hatchet with the 'psychologically flawed' Gordon Brown.

As Nat King Cole once said, there may be trouble ahead.

[Editor]

DVA: "Now where's the review of last week? "

Sorry DVA. It got lost over a busy weekend. Next week we'll have a review of the fortnight. Sorry!

[Frank Young]

I look forward to discussing the findings. Technology will totally revolutionise campaigning and the political process.

At the last election I had the pleasure of campaigning for a candidate who realised this.

I hope in future this website will lead the way. It's a brave new world!

[Chad]

"Technology will totally revolutionise campaigning and the political process."

I totally agree. For the next general election, I am sure they will not be saying "it was The Sun wot won it" but "it was the internet wot won it."

[EU Serf]

Just let us know what we have to do, and we will go for it.

[bongo]

Talking of elections. Have any of you noticed the current new labour (fairly obvious) drive to take solid conservative ground?
Brown's drive at being patriotic is the most evident, but also the fact that by putting forward ludicrous legislation such as the anti-terrorism stuff, labour can, whether it wins or not in parliament, gradually take over in the british conciouness the role of "defenders of britain". Worrying. Perhaps we should have a "national security" drive, to compensate.
What would the republicans do in our situation (after all they fought off "Captain Kerry" fairly successfully)?

[Julian H]

I am sure they will not be saying "it was The Sun wot won it" but "it was the internet wot won it."

Indeed, and perhaps increased internet activity will result in the discovery of the word "that". Or maybe we'll see "omg!!1! is da internet dat 1 it!!! lmao!!1", or somesuch.

Regarding the Times article - it really is an appalling piece of student rag-esque journalism. I've recently stopped 'taking' the Torygraph and Baldwin's piece encapsulates why I'm balking over a switch to the Times.

[Julian H]

Bongo - I thought Cameron responded to the security question perfectly with his 'ineffective authoritarianism' piece.

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

"Sorry DVA. It got lost over a busy weekend. Next week we'll have a review of the fortnight. Sorry!"

Glad to hear it! Thought you may have let your standards slip on your Washington jaunt ;-)

[Tory T]

DVA - "a spluttering Michael Gove" - is so hideously biased against Cameronism and all its works that he can watch a Tory get the better of Campbell and somehow see the opposite.

Did anyone else see the Gover's brilliant final rejoinder about what TB, GB, etc should be doing? Classic Gove - and AC was the one left spluttering.

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

"DVA - "a spluttering Michael Gove" - is so hideously biased against Cameronism and all its works that he can watch a Tory get the better of Campbell and somehow see the opposite."

Yawn. I am not hideously biased against Cameronism at all. I detest Alastair Campbell and his ilk with a passion but I honestly thought that, compared with Campbell's unruffled, slightly amused demeanour on that edition of Newsnight, Gove seemed spluttering and petulant, like an attention-seeking child, in comparison.

[Tory T]

"Campbell's unruffled, slightly amused demeanour"

Truly, beauty is in the eye of the beholder,

[Dave J]

Hope you enjoyed my old stomping grounds down there, Tim. Say what one might, I do still miss DC, warts and all.

Yes, I really must be insane. ;-)

[Alan Douglas]

Sad to hear about the lack of a good cup of tea in the USA - you should know that Lipton's BREAKFAST BLEND is easily available, and delicious !
Alan Douglas

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

The Financial Times had an article about this today.

A lot of it was a rehash of the Baldwin hatchet job, sorry article, from the Times, but I thought it was worth mentioning anyway, especially as it described our esteemed Editor as "editor of an influential Tory-supporting website"...

Sombrero tip: Right Links