Friday, November 09, 2007

Fastest web in the west

The Clinton campaign machinery is renown for being tough, thorough, effective and fast.

Consider this: with all of Bill Clinton's dark secrets, personal weaknesses and questionable history, only a brilliant campaign issue response system could have elected him dogcatcher. Remember bimbo eruptions?

These are the people, after all, who brought the term and concept of war room into the campaign lexicon. These days, war rooms are everywhere from the Conservative Party to Wal-Mart. You can even hire a war-room-in-a-box if you have the cash and the need.

So you would expect the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign organisation, trained and tested in her husband's two presidential campaigns, updated in her own senatorial campaign and fueled by more money than any candidate in the western world, would sharpen those concepts to new, sharp and sparkly points. They would take things to the next step.

And they have.

The New York Times today reports that Hillary has a new web site, The Fact Hub, devoted to instantly countering any kind of misinformation, disinformation or political attack.

This site is separate and distinct from both her regular campaign site and her breaking news hub site, both pretty impressive on their own.

After the John Kerry debacle of 4 years ago, Hillary will take no chances in being swiftboated and become a helpless victim of a nasty and relentless ad hominum attack. This site gives her a tool to instantly defend from attack.

The Times reports that:

Phil Singer, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, said her campaign felt the need to have such a Web site because much of the news about her tends to “spread like wildfire” online.

“There’s just been a proliferation of news reporting on the Internet,” Mr. Singer said. “As such, you’ve got a much faster echo effect when something hits the political zeitgeist, and it’s becoming increasingly urgent to have a mechanism in place that allows you to respond.”

Something to look out for on the local and national levels in the next campaigns.

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