E-Campaign Experts Doubt Netroots Swing Elections
The Web may be changing politics but there’s no proof it’s changing election results, e-campaign experts said Thurs. at the Institute for Democracy & the Internet Politics Online Conference at George Washington U. The panel focused on the extent to which Web presence has replaced direct mail as the chief campaign mobilizing tool. Panelists generally said it hasn’t, predicting that big spoils will go to the first major candidate to favor the Web over the mail carrier. Internet politics are a highly self-policing institution, agreed the bipartisan panel. That makes smear campaigns more difficult -- at least those based on disinformation, said moderator Alex Treadway, dir.-digital media, National Journal Group.
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Major changes have taken place on the Web the past 2 election cycles, said Neil Hare, pres., Global Vision Communications. Increased broadband penetration and the “video revolution” have raised put-through rates on all sorts of campaigns, from federal seats to single issues in single states. Websites once were online brochures, but now they're more interactive, marginalizing direct mail by giving users more access to clips of the candidates and more opportunities to get involved, he said.
Supporters once worked around a campaign’s schedule and perceived needs, but the “netroots” movement lets individuals involve themselves in their own ways, on their own timelines, said Michael Turk, NCTA vp-industry grassroots and former eCampaign dir. for the Republican National Committee and the 2004 Bush campaign team. But he challenged the value of MySpace and YouTube. The infamous “macaca” moment that sank former Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) last year “wasn’t video from some guy out in middle America,” Turk said, it was about and made by a Webb campaign staffer hired to follow Allen around and tape him. And he questioned the significance of Sen. Obama’s (D-Ill.) MySpace popularity: “I don’t think the number of garage bands and Girls Gone Wild wannabes you can get is an indicator of how many votes you can get.” Obama’s presence on that site and competitor Facebook vastly outstrips those of his 2 nearest rivals for the 2008 Democratic nomination, who in turn vastly outstrip all Republicans’ social networking site presence.
Panelists noted Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign, which soared due largely to Internet fundraising and online organizing, then tanked when more people in Iowa and N.H. simply voted for Dean’s opponents. All agreed a strong Internet presence isn’t the same as an electoral victory, but also agreed it would be silly to call Dean’s campaign a failure. It would be absolute folly to write off the Dean method simply because he was a high-profile loser, said Mike Liddell, dir.-online communications, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. In fact, Liddell said, Dean went from a bottom tier also-ran to a candidate who championed some of the biggest causes of the next election cycle and got himself the Democratic Party chairmanship to boot -- thanks mostly to netroots.
The big question is “who are these voters?” Hare said. Are they 19 or 20 and unlikely to vote in swing states, or are they mirroring a rising number of only elderly and blue- collar people, a pair of demographics known to vote far more reliably and powerfully. A tipping point has been reached, Turk said: “The Internet has become the focal point of word of mouth,” replacing kaffee klatsches and backyard barbeques. Whichever major candidate acts on that recognition, rather than simply a site to raise money or speak to the faithful, will win big, he said.
“My fear is, that’s going to happen with the Democrats this cycle,” Republican Turk added. He described having to wait 3 weeks to be accepted to McCainSpace.com, while “some communications director decided… ‘He’s innocuous.'”
Rather than facilitating smear campaigns, the Internet is the ultimate fact checker, Liddell said. Recent Wikipedia-based disinformation campaigns against several congressmen were traced to other Hill offices via IP address tracking, he said. Citing the 1988 “Willie Horton” campaign against Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis, he said “it’s a lot harder to track down who put a flyer on my car than who sent an e-mail to my inbox.” Turk agreed. Had the Internet been as popular then as it is now, he said, bloggers would have caught the factual errors and gotten in the national media’s face before the story even spread.