I love this quote from Professor Ganz: “On the progressive side, everybody had become marketeers. Everybody’d been marketing their cause or marketing their candidates as if it was another bar of soap, transforming people from citizens into customers.What we did was bring the citizenship back in and put the people back in charge, and then put the tools in their hands.“

Netsquared also rounded up Lessons from the Campaigns with its Think Tank.

I like this quote from Shari Ilsen, of Great Nonprofits: “[Obama] took technology that had been around for a while and used it in a new way. He applied web 2.0 to a realm that had never met it before, and in so doing he changed the face of modern politics.”

Putting aside the public’s prurient concerns, I’m most interested in how Hunter managed to convince the campaign to hire her and what they hoped to achieve with the technology. Apparently Hunter met Edwards in a bar and some cynics might argue that the video contract was a way to formalize their relationship. But I think they were genuinely interested in using video to reveal something about Edwards.

Webscout says that “The four short episodes are usually referred to as “campaign videos,” which might explain why they have not drawn much of a crowd.” But why weren’t they successful? It seems that even though Hunter and the Edwards campaign were interested in new technology, they still had a very “top down” way of using it. Instead of something dynamic, they went for some sort of stale “Reality-TV” style.

Ultimately Webscout thinks that Hunter used video as an excuse to get close to Edwards:

Hunter is revealed as not simply a videographer hired by the Edwards campaign but a member of a much older profession: a groupie. And “Inspiring Politics” represents one of the most inventive ways a groupie has ever gained unlimited access to the power guy of her dreams.

Watch the videos and decide for yourself:

• Episode 1, “Plane Truths”
• Episode 2, “The Golden Rule”
• Episode 3, “Plight of Uganda”
• Episode 4, “Plugs”