Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean is largely thought of as being the first politician to really utilize social media in a political campaign. Its capabilities have largely increased in how it’s used, but platforms also now raise concerns regarding misinformation and their users’ intent
When Howard Dean boarded the New York subway in summer 2003, he assumed he would be attending a low-key, low profile event.
Dean, former Vermont governor, candidate in the 2004 presidential election and a self-described frugal man, took the subway to get to a bar on Essex Street. Supporters of his were meeting there and organized the event using Meetup.com, a site launched in 2002, to schedule and plan events among people with common interests.
Dean’s campaign manager, Joe Trippi, urged him to attend, but he said he hadn’t expected much — Meetup events typically generated turnouts in the 10s of attendees, occasionally a few 100 attendees at most.
After getting off the subway, Dean and Trippi got to the bar and saw lines of people stretching around different corners of the block. He didn’t realize what was happening — he thought it was unfortunate that so many people were trying to gather at the same time as his event.
“And that was a holy shit moment,” he said laughing, recalling about 500 people having shown up to see him.
Though in its infancy, social media became a primary tool Dean utilized to breakout from fellow Democratic candidates. The internet-made candidate, often described as the...
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