Curmudgent Democracy

Esteemed venture capitalist Tim Oren points out that the Internet doesn’t dictate political values:

“People’s media” like blogs are bring more voices onto the net, and more readers to them, untrammeled by big media. That’s good. But those who think the removal of big media means the newly empowered will start singing ‘Kumbaya’ and turn into anti-Bush, anti-war ’emergent democracy’ citizens are indulging in wishful thinking, and we now have evidence to that effect. (Yes, I’m looking at you, Joi.) These newly empowered participants actually have to be persuaded. And that’s a very good thing, too.

This observation was motivated that frequent net-use is a non-predictor of preference in the Bush/Dean matchup. In the last presidential election, regular users of the ‘Net were actually more likely to vote for Bush than for the loser: