John Robb has been busy (and successful) developing his concept of the superempowered individual and how this superempowerment applies to insurgency.With such a social/military paradigm just now reaching the mass market information worker though book reviews, it may be unreasonable to fault election analysts for failing to see that the Larry Sinclair phenomenon is the dawn of superempowered private individuals who intervene in national elections.
That is essentially what we have here and the only question is whether the Sinclair phenomenon can replicate. I think it can but that is for another post.
Larry Sinclair, by his own account, emerged in the political arena in November when he attempted to meet with the Obama campaign but was brushed off. In response to this brush-off and perhaps to some other slights, he made a videotape of his claims against Obama and posted this on the Internet. He also set up a MySpace page. There was a flurry of limited interest in January from Libertarians - some critics even view the Sinclair affair as a Ron Paul dirty trick, not understanding how instant Libertarian attention is based on how Libertarians are networked, not who issued them orders.
The Sinclair claims dead-ended in the Libertarian echo chamber in January but generated some back-and-forth in the non-Paul blogosphere and last month they threatened to go mainstream. I heard New York media darling John Batchelor allude to the matter on his influential talk show; O'Reilly alluded to the charges; and Sinclair's pending lawsuits threaten the Obama campaign with ever more publicity.
Lately, Rob Capriccioso, the editor of BigHeadDC, has taken ownership of the unfolding story, becoming a daily must-read. I took him for an anti-Obama Democrat even before this story appeared. Although it is possible he is being used, that doesn't matter. In fact, it would be a bit of quaintly old-fashioned Clintonism to try to align clues with a source, then pounce in a mad flurry of discrediting and guilt-by-association. So nineties!
Sinclair has taken us beyond that. Before Sinclair, this would have been a textbook bimbo eruption. Now, it is a case of unquenchable, low-level, nonstop media events that march in parallel with the Obama campaign. This is a kind of media shadowing. I'm not going to catch you up on the story so far, but do let me show the incidents deployed during this superempowered political intervention:
(1) Press meetings.
(2) Lawsuits against the candidate and his organization.
(3) The posting of lawsuit details on popular websites (e.g. The Smoking Gun).
(4) Polygraph exams sponsored by a popular website.
(5) Lawsuits related to the polygraph project.
(6) More posting of lawsuit details.
(7) Interviews on Internet talk radio stations about 1-6 above after each part.
Note also that Larry Sinclair has been available to media throughout and that he interacts with his public constantly - through message boards, email, and snail mail. If I can rally myself to write a book about this episode, the volume of material will be overwhelming.
Furthermore, Sinclair has shown no signs of breaking down or freaking out. The tone in some of the radio interviews conveys comfort and self-confidence. He is eminently sane.
This is mighty stuff and it keeps on going. It has a dynamic like those self-propelled Britney news cycles. We are in a phase today where Larry has withdrawn from the limelight on the advice of his attorneys, he says, but this is more media drama. Will it last? No. He is not going away until he obtains a public admission of drug use and an apology from Obama. Meanwhile the public access media that empowers us all will remain open to him for whatever purpose.
Larry is an attractive media property who comports himself well, speaks well, and thinks well on his feet live under questioning. The mass market outlets are going to enjoy having him as a guest once they "discover" him. Their interviews will feature little of the mysterious encounter in a Chicago limousine and much more process - "How is your lawsuit going?"
Cindy Sheehan demonstrated the opposite of this Sinclair effect. She was a mere creature, empowered by the broadcasting networks and at their mercy.
Robert Novak discovered Larry through comments made by Clinton staffers back in November. That's where the buzz started. This story is now almost ready to to return to the mainstream. When it does, whatever happens at the mass media level, a second undeflectable current of events will continue to stream on the Internet unless and until Larry Sinclair gets what he wants.
Understand that you are watching a prototyping of what will be replicated in every future national election, like it or not.
