Campaigns coming at you
Like never before, presidential politics are reaching out to the grassroots — you — directly through expansive technology. The Economist calls it “You Tube politics.” It was inevitable.
IT HAS been called the YouTube election. America’s 2008 presidential campaign may be remembered as much for the candidates’ frantic activity on the internet as for their stump speeches and television spots. Pundits, inevitably, are talking of the dawn of a new era—or, more precisely, of the maturing of campaign politics on the internet.
Would you call this maturing…? Maybe…evolving, or morphing.
The latest splash was a video made by the campaign for Hillary Clinton. Released on her website and widely watched on a video-sharing site YouTube, it was a creative hit. Mrs Clinton and her would-be First Gentleman sit in a diner, discussing which song she will choose for her campaign theme. They ponder the selections in their table-top jukebox. Finally, just before they make their choice, the screen goes black. It was a clever parody of the recent final episode of cable television’s biggest hit, “The Sopranos 
The previous excited buzz was for an ad for Mrs Clinton’s rival, Barack Obama. It was produced, as never before possible, by someone not affiliated with Mr Obama’s campaign, and yet it reached millions of viewers over the internet. Again this was a parody—it directly ripped off a 1984 Apple advert that portrayed IBM as Big Brother, with Mrs Clinton standing in for Big Brother on this occasion—and yet it has been hailed as a creative masterstroke.
Hailed by whom? Not sure how great the idea is for someone not affiliated with a leading presidential candidate to produce campaign ads reaching millions of potential voters in a creative burst of politicking…..while all these media are frantically shouting about the Supreme Court ruling this week on McCain-Feingold. It shows who wants restrictions, and upon which types of groups, eh?
It is unclear how much impact such videos will have on voters, but YouTube and the like are changing campaigns in significant ways.
Here’s one…
In 2008, voters will be able, through YouTube, to send in video-recorded questions to the debate’s moderators. Last time around campaigns introduced stodgy blogs, written by lowly campaign workers, touting their man’s latest speech here or there. This time, well-known bloggers are being brought into campaigns.
It’s a real battle of the bloggers out there, where there are virtually no rules.
Assessing the impact of all this is tricky. One way of judging whether the videos on YouTube have an influence is to see whether, and when, television stations start broadcasting them too.
They kind of have already. Some of network television’s late night comedians have been running these videos on their shows and lampooning them…and then the next day prime cable news shows like Fox News’ Special Report with Brit Hume wrap up the serious analysis with one of these clips from the comedy shows…further extending its on-air exposure. The lines between news, entertainment and politics have blurred, but now they’re virtually gone.
You can text message your reaction to that instantly. All the networks and all the candidates are pretty well wired for your opinion.