 | |
| |
TechnologyDaily Mobile
Controlling Campaigns In Cyberspace
by Heather Greenfield
Anyone who has worked on a presidential campaign can describe the agonizing strategy meetings to shape the message going out to the public. But online communications has made communications more of a conversation than a top down message, though some presidential candidates are still using the old model pasted within the new medium. Blogs, YouTube and grassroots organizing tools are enabling supporters and opponents to get involved in ways that just weren't possible during the 2004 presidential race.
A former presidential communications strategist, who did not wish to be identified, remembers a couple election cycles ago when he had to convince his campaign to have a Web site. His voice won over concern opponents would use posted position papers to attack the candidates' stance on issues.
But now strategists laugh at that simple problem compared to all the other communications and control issues now. Just ask former Democratic North Carolina Sen. John Edwards' team which took flack in the blogosphere over hiring and then letting go two bloggers over controversial statements on their personal blogs. Or Republican contender John McCain's team who had to fix its MySpace page, which was hacked last week to read that he had changed his position on gay marriage and had now "come out in full support of gay marriage ... particularly marriage between passionate females."
How Campaigns Are Handling The Control Dilemma
Campaigns are facing this hard-to-control new media environment in different ways. "Some of the campaigns are beginning to realize voters will connect to each other no matter what. They might as well enable it," said Micah Sifry, who writes for Politics Democracy Forum and TechPresident.com.
Sifry said the campaigns for Edwards, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani have all embraced new technology to allow supporters to directly connect with each other.
Both liberal and online campaign strategists said Obama's campaign is taking the most open approach online. Since offering new tools to supporters on its Web site in February, Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki told Technology Daily the campaign site has generated 3,300 grassroots groups, 7,300 blogs and 350,000 MySpace friends.
The process to create online groups is more controlled at other sites. Michael Turk, who was the e-campaign director for President Bush in 2004 and more recently an online strategist for the Republican National Committee, said it took three weeks for him to get his own McCain space approved by the campaign.
"That's horrid!" Turk said, noting he could have been using the space to generate online support during that time. He sees the example as illustrative of the two schools of thought -- just throw open the doors versus controlling the message.
Turk said in looking at examples so far, especially Obama's embrace of social networking tools, that openness is "going to happen more on the Democratic side. Republicans are more concerned about what appears on (their) Web sites."
Edwards uses online supporters themselves to help police and filter his blog by voting which messages get posted to the front page, according to Sifry.
"But Hillary has as controlled an approach to the Web as any of the Republicans so far. They continue to use the Internet as a one way medium," Sifry said. "Using the Internet as a one way medium is like using a synthesizer (for one musical track). It will work, but it can be so much more than that."
David All, a Republican online strategist, said a too careful, slow approach to using new media can backfire, as it did when Clinton opponents created a MySpace page, as Clinton had not claimed the name herself, and then used it to sell T-shirts with slogans like "Anyone but Hillary."
"The only way you can help keep message control is having a proactive voice in the wilderness," All said. "Our guys (Republicans) are doing it to an extent."
The Dilemma: Control versus Opening Doors
Campaigns may risk looking bad with little message control on their own official campaign communications' sites, but too much control that they don't get into the online game, or pool, an analogy all like to use.
All said McCain "is setting the bar for Republican candidates'" embrace of new media tools, but says the Democrats are way ahead, in general.
"They (Democrats) are at the big public pool. They are doing summersaults. Our guys are putting their feet in the water in the pool in the backyard," All said.
He said McCain has yet to have "a real blog" and he did not see much real value in the social networking My McCain space the campaign offered. "It's a social network created by someone who has never used a social network," All said.
Chuck DeFeo, who ran the Internet campaign for President Bush and now manages Townhall.com said at a panel discussion on online politics last month, "In this message fragmented world: one, message discipline is more important and two, you have to empower your supporters."
Implementing that advice, which seems to require conflicting solutions, has been the tricky part. Campaigns trying to use the power of grassroots support have been burned. During the last election Independent Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman's campaign, ended up not accepting comments on its official campaign blog after its appeal to opponents to quit posting really nasty comments, failed.
Will Control Policies Ultimately Affect Popularity, Outcome Of Race?
The truth, all strategist admit, is they don't know yet whether finding the right balance of top down control versus engaging openly online will make a difference. No one knows yet if electronic friends at social networking sites turn into electronic votes on Election Day.
Zack Exley, an online strategist for Democrats, is always careful to look at the results of any new media tools and what they mean to the bottom line -- campaign funds, volunteers, and ultimately votes.
Money and vote totals won't be known for nearly a year. When it comes to volunteers, just learning the numbers of volunteers and supporters generated online, doesn't give the full picture of the impact.
Even though most voters are not on social networking sites, Turk said it is powerful when someone sends a personal message to a family member or friend about why they support a certain candidate. He said if McCain's campaign took off controls to allow people to make a personal statement of support to send to friends and family it would have an impact.
"Yes someone would create Geriatrics for McCain or some other oddball group," Turk said. But amid that, real people would make real appeals and would be more likely to get involved if they feel empowered with the right tools "to carry water for the campaign and get involved."
He also said the ability to print lists of neighbors to visit with a personal message of support for a candidate, without even having to speak to the campaign, again could translate to votes.
Sifry agrees. "When those people connect to each other, they will begin to do things the campaign never dreamed of and they couldn't pay for," Sifry said.
For more on the perils of online campaigning, read On The Download in Tech Daily's PM Edition.
NEW FEATURE
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
