John Edwards, The Demo

Edwards insight into high-tech marketing is much deeper than just reaching out to Scoble and popping up on YouTube and Rocketboom. Every candidate this cycle is will be wooing bloggers and throwing campaign videos up onto the net.

Here's the brilliant innovation of the Edwards campaign: he's conducting an open, public, empirical test of his own leadership abilities. He's giving us a demo. That's a high wire act. No net. If it works, it evolves into a public beta of the John Edwards presidency.

The operational definition of a leader is someone with followers. So here's Edwards saying, hey let's get busy and start getting things done now instead of waiting until the election. If people get busy, Edwards is a leader. Kennedy famously challenged the country to, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." But that was in the inaugural address, not the campaign.

Edwards isn't asking for the order on election day. He's asking for it today. And the ask isn't just, "send me money." It's start making things better. If people respond, Edwards will have delivered an irrefutable demonstration of his leadership.

Unless, of course, the only actions he proposes are like the first one: "holding your own local 'Citizens' Launch' event."

(Tags: John Edwards, Edwards, Campaign 2008, PoliticsNews and Politics)

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