From an old assessment Rick Perlstein wrote about Jesse Helms and his reliance on direct mail:
Mr. Helms, never a typical politician, a surprisingly prototypical one. His techniques, as dozens of crusading liberal issue-advocacy groups would soon discover, were politically ecumenical. But they were not politically neutral. For organizing by national, ideological mailing-list building favors a politics of sharp statements about issues, ideology and principle over the expected give and take of interests on which traditional political support is woven -- whether the issue is saving the whales or protecting the unborn.
The parallels to internet land are, of course, fairly obvious. I don't tend to worry about this sort of thing too much, thinking a world of sharp ideological contradictions a useful one, and certainly better than the sort of world campaign politics generally furnishes, in which everyone pretends to agree on popular issues, spends a few million confusing voters, and then goes off and votes with business interests. Others, however, like Cass Sunstein, are more concerned.
