The UK Government Takes New Steps to Allow Citizens to Have a Voice in Policy
The United Kingdom government has sought out Facebook to learn how to allow citizens to interact with the government and let their voices and opinions be heard (from Mashable). With Prime Minister David Cameron’s latest plan to take on spending cuts, he began looking for ways to let those he serves have input on the policy changes. He is exploring how Facebook can serve as the primary channel for the UK government to not only connect with users but also serve as an information resource. The program, dubbed “The Spending Challenge” has already seen success. Could this be the start of a new trend? Democracy faces many challenges today and among the top ones is the feeling that there is a lack of democracy. Many voters in America feel like their vote doesn’t matter or their voice is ignored. By opening up direct communication, this could be changed. Assuming the spending challenge achieves its goals in the UK, many other governments could look into copying the project as a way of improving communication between the government and its people.
License plate advertising could be the new thing
Recently, California has reported (via mashable) that it is considered selling advertisements on digital license plates as a creative way to raise money to fight the state’s high budget deficit. These ads would only show when the car was stationary. Some people are concerned about safety, saying that flashy advertisements on license plates could be distracting. Others are in favor of this plan because it will
bring money in for the state. Still, other people are more concerned about the over-saturation of advertisements already out there. Billboards are everywhere. Giant posters on the sides of buildings are everywhere. Print ads are everywhere. Pop-up and banner ads on the internet are everywhere. Even our cell phones are not safe from ads. What I’m interested to see is how this will play into political campaigns. California tends to be a “hot” state with intense elections, both state and national. Let’s pretend this plan happens. Let’s also pretend it can be cost-effective. What would happen if someone is stuck in grid-lock traffic on the highway and every car in front of them had the same political candidate’s name on it? Isn’t that what you’d want? Your campaign would be seen be a large mass of people at the same time. Political candidates could even have more than one ad that could share their goals if they get elected or facts about why they are a good choice for office. Personally, by the time election day comes around, I’m tired of all of the political messages on television. If I had to suffer that plus staring at them while sitting in traffic because it is literally on the car in front of me, I’m not sure if I’d be more knowledgeable about the election or if I’d just be irritated by the bombardment of advertisements everywhere I go.
Health Care Summit Tweets
The Twittersphere was a buzz during yesterday’s healthcare summit. Amelia Hassani put together some of the more memorable tweets.
Yesterday morning, my Tweetdeck was aflutter with those anticipating the Health Care Summit. On their way to the Blair House to meet with Congressmen from both chambers and the President himself for the eventual seven and a half hour-long debate, some asked their followers what they wanted to be brought up, and others, like John McCain, put their game faces on: : “on my way to the health care summit at the White House–let’s start over Mr. President.”
Many encouraged their constituents to follow the debate via C-SPAN in their uniquely Twitterific ways: Representative Joe Barton’s “At White House about to participate in Health Care Summit with President. It will be on C-SPAN & other networks possibly” definitely resonates differently than Senator Chuck Grassley’s imperative “On way to White House/Blair House health care summit. Watch on TV.”
Senators Harry Reid and Chris Dodd were among those who tweeted to inform their followers that their staff would be posting on their behalf during the Summit, respectable in their desires to keep communication going while not seeming rude or distracted during the summit. However, for those of us following on Twitter, the real moment we felt included in the discussion was when Judge Carter tweet-announced “Let the Health Care Summit begin…”
There was definitely a whole lot of tweeting going on during the Summit, and I’m guessing a fair portion of it was not done by staff. A Republican trend emerged that either @gopconference or @GOPleader (John Boehner) would post a “FACT CHECK:____” refuting something the President had just said, and a handful of Republican Congressmen (including Mike Pence, Phil Gingrey, Bob Latta, would retweet (RT) the blurb. Representatives Bill Shuster, John Shimkus, Vern Buchanan, Bob Latta posted polls for their followers who were watching the Summit to voice their opinion/give the Congressmen realtime stats on what his constituents wanted him to do.
Eventually it was time for a break, and Chuck Grassley was sure to keep us updated (& slightly confused): “Broke for lunch fr Summit not bc hungry House had vote”. Representatives Tom Price and John Shimkus used the break to tally up minutes of talk-time; as Representative Shimkus put it, “Time clock on first half of healthcare summit: Dems spoke for 108 min, GOP spoke for 56 minutes. Who’s doing the listening?”
Things really started to get juicy in both the latter half and aftermath of the Summit. More than anything, the tweets reflect continued Republican sentiment of being “left out”, in spite of the bipartisan circumstances of the Summit. Nonetheless, emotions were stirred, and the following are some highlights to that effect:
• The most retweeted post of the day was Jim DeMint’s “After a year pretending Republicans don’t have health care ideas, the President just admitted we do. #tcot #gop #hcr”
• Senator DeMint was also really diligent to add links to the end of his tweets yesterday. The post “President says he’s open to GOP ideas but he voted against them when he was in the Senate” was followed by a link to a laundry list on his website of past Republican health care reform initiatives that Senator Obama voted against. However, his most interesting linked post was ”Obama & Reid still open to reconciliation. If it they try to ram this through, I’ll use every tool to stop it” where he linked to a post on his blog entitled “Irreconcilable Differences”, implying that the Republicans and the Democrats/President/healthcare bills are getting divorced. What happened to staying together for the kids?
• Randy Neugebauer took the posted link one step further: he linked to a youtube video. “It’s time to stop politicizing health care and start an honest conversation with the American people” a link to a short film where he is sitting alone with a camera, really breaking that fourth wall and speaking directly to his constituent, telling them what they want through aptly linked talking points.
• David Vitter drove home a common theme: that the healthcare plan ignores what “the people” want (although the only answer to “what they want” that I’ve heard is lower cost which seems a bit reductive). “Healthcare Summit proves Obama & fellow liberals not listening to the people #LAsen #latcot #tcot #gop#teaparty” which (look at all those trending topics!) he followed with a link to his facebook page that had a longer version of the same rant.
• Chris Dodd posted a few resonating statistics, a breath of fresh air among the blood pressure-raising FACT CHECKS and calls to start over. “In the next ten years, without reform, every state will have a 10% increase in the number of uninsured. #hcr” and “Coverage is essential–14,000 people lose their health insurance every day.”
• Lamar Smith believes that healthcare is done: “#TCOT Obama is holding wrong summit. Health care summit today is too little, too late http://lamarsmith.house.gov/read.aspx?ID=1309“.
• Patrick McHenry, among his various invitations for people to watch the Summit and tweet-chat with him about it, also tried to make a few jokes. Some included “Nancy Pelosi just claimed a government takeover of health care will create jobs “immediately”… I’m having pre-stimulus vote flashbacks…”, and “Cutting Medicare to fund new entitlements won’t save Medicare or reduce the deficit. Double-entry accounting didn’t work for Madoff either.”
• Don Young thought he could be funny as well: “The president’s health care proposal is like giving a kid a bowl of brussel sprouts, stirring it around, and calling it ice cream. #hcsummit”
• Mike Honda’s supportive tweet seemed comical amid so many negative ones, but his positivity is definitely charming: “Health summit: glad focus is on the ppl and lowering costs, not politics. Effective bi-partisanship? I love our President! #HCR #summit”
It’s interesting that amongst claims that the Summit was a media circus or, as Patrick McHenry put it, “political theatre [that] continues to blur the line between DC and Broadway,” those who were denouncing the Summit as such were the ones tweeting in ways that mimicked peanut galleries at, well, circuses and plays. Nonetheless, the standout tweet of the day was a diamond in the rough, because one needed to follow Thad McCotter’s posted link to get the punchline: ”In a time of war and recession, this is how the duly elected leaders of the greatest nation on Earth spent their day,” followed by a link to a blog post entitled: Shamwow Summit.
Michigan’s Jocelyn Benson on social media & her campaign
Michigan’s Jocelyn Benson shared her social media experiences with Wayne State University’s student newspaper.
So what’s been successful for her? Here are some highlights.
Fundraising: combining social media efforts with action
Targeting: finding email addresses, likes, dislikes, political affiliation, etc
Feedback: knowing voters’ concerns and where they want appearances
Cost effectiveness: all that access for no fee
Awareness: spreading the word without relying on traditional media coverage or the stress of an email blast list
Jocelyn Benson began her campaign for Michigan Secretary of State a year ago with an exploratory committee and a single Facebook page.
The Wayne State assistant law professor is using the social networking site to its fullest potential by recruiting members and updating them with her latest campaign information.
Facebook, along with Twitter, is one of the newer and more popular media that political candidates use to reach out to potential voters.“It’s a great way to excite people and get people informed about our efforts,” said Benson, a Democrat. “I certainly don’t think we’d be as strong as we are without Facebook.”
The social networking site helped Benson raise some of her $227,000 in 2009 from more than 1,200 donors in 50 Michigan counties. She said it speaks volumes to the type of support the campaign has been generating.
Facebook gives easy access for political parties to users’ e-mail addresses, their likes and dislikes, and often with which political party they align. And it’s all free. But Facebook allows potential voters and constituents an outlet to be heard.
“Concerning comments, politicians are beginning to understand that someone who comments on their Facebook page with a concern should be looked at the same way as someone sending a letter to their district office,” wrote Vincent Harris, founder of Harris Media, an online communication firm specializing in political campaigns.
He ran Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s successful 2009 campaign. Harris wrote in his blog on techrepublican.com that McDonnell’s camp made the decision early on to make Facebook the primary social network of the campaign.
“Campaigns are slowly waking up to the fact that a Facebook supporter is an avid fan: someone to cultivate, communicate with and ask help from,” Harris wrote in his blog.
Benson sees that instant feedback with Facebook. She said it’s an incredible tool, not just to communicate outward, but for other people to communicate where they would like her to show up around the state.“That’s the type of availability and accessibility that we want to continue once we’re in that (secretary of state) office,” Benson said.
But accruing avid supporters is the first major step. Seventy-seven percent of Facebook fan pages have less than 1,000 fans, according to a 2009 study released by social media monitoring and analytics firm Sysomos.
As of Feb. 22, Benson is well above the norm with 1,831 members on her “Jocelyn Benson for Michigan Secretary of State” groups page. She also has 1,408 friends on her personal page, and more than 2,700 fans on another.
Benson said the number of members she has “is almost an informal poll on the type of support we’ve got.”
She said Facebook has been critical for her campaign to be able to get the word out beyond the press and directly to supporters. But those aren’t the only people watching.
“Our opponents, I imagine, are also keeping a close eye on our page,” Benson said.
Rep. Paul Scott (R-Mich.) and Calhoun County Clerk Anne Norlander, also a Republican, have Facebook pages for their campaigns. As of Feb. 22, Scott has 741 members.Norlander has 574 on her groups page and more than 1,700 on her personal one.
Norlander, who’s been in office for 26 years, said this campaign has been like none other. She also uses YouTube and Twitter.“This is a very techno-intense election,” she said. “It wasn’t this way eight years ago.”
Norlander said it’s interesting to see what people write on her “wall,” which is a way for friends, fans or members to post comments on Facebook. But there is one downside, she said.
“Facebook is addictive,” Norlander said. “I wasn’t the type of person to sit on the computer a lot, but I am now.”
It will be announced at a convention this summer whether Benson will be awarded the Democratic nomination. Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey, a Democrat, announced Feb. 2 her candidacy for Michigan Secretary of State. Within two weeks, Winfrey had a Facebook page for her campaign and 231 fans.
Ashton Kutcher… in Russia
Actor and web savvy actist Ashton Kutcher is stirring things up in Russia. He says he will “crowd source” questions about The Kremlin’s push to develop a Russian Silicon Valley to his 4.5 Twitter fans. Kutcher has become a very active part of the US delegation of technology and social media team in recent months and is one of the leaders that arrived in Moscow as part of the White House efforts to improve Russia.
The actor has goals to “translate the Russian voice to an American audience” to help Russia build its own high tech center. The Kremlin is in agreement and would like to develop a Russia’s own Silicon Valley to help modernize their struggling economy that depends mainly on energy exports.
The US delegation strongly urged the Russian government, businessmen and students to use social media to tackle problems like human trafficking and corruption.
I remember when Ashton Kutcher’s show Punk’d came out and no one took him seriously, and now he is travelling to Russia with the Whitehouse to help a struggling government. We all have to grow up sometimes I guess. But in all seriousness, I love what Ashton Kutcher is doing, he is a man who understands the power of social media and technology and is using his knowledge, experience and popularity to really make a difference.
Wanna Skype Tonight?
The ongoing war in Iraq does not appear to be coming to an end anytime soon. Our troops have been out there risking their lives and fighting for our country and their loved ones. Many of the men and women stationed out there are away from their families, boyfriends girlfriends and friends for at least a year a time with maybe one or two weeks of leave to visit, definitely making it hard on the soldier and his or her loved ones. But our soldiers now are in a different league then the men from World War II, Vietnam and even the Gulf War, they have the internet at their disposal. Social media allows them to keep in constant contact with their family and friends.
It may seem insignificant to you and I- we see our friends and family all the time, and may take Facebook and Skype for granted, however, for our troops overseas, it keeps them in the loop. they can see their children grow, they can make Skype dates with their girlfriends and wives and have an instant chat on Facebook or AIM with their friends. The thought that social media was keeping our troops sane and happy never crossed my mind until last week when a friend of mine sent me an instant chat on Facebook. He is stationed in Iraq and will be there for another 10 months, yet we were able to chat and catch up as if he was just around the corner. He was telling me that he Skypes with his wife once a week and loves to see new pictures that she uploads; often times that is the best part of his day. To talk to my friend, and to hear him tell me how much he values social media really hit me hard. It reminded me to not take the information that is passed and the conversations had for granted. It also reminded me of the power that the internet has and how social media is breaking so many barriers that once existed.
Twitter Intrigues the White House
Politics 2.0 & the tea party movement
Grassroots politics and politics 2.0 align in many arenas as evidenced by the recent popularity of moneybombs (more on those tomorrow) and the tea party phenomenon. Politics 2.0 is and will continue happening. Politicians have to decide which grassroots movements to align themselves with and which might be harmful in the long run.
The following article details open source politics and the tea party movement. Political views expressed in the article do not represent the views of Social Media Solutions LLC.
Next week marks the first anniversary of the Rant Heard Round the World: CNBC reporter Rick Santelli’s televised tirade about federal bailouts, including the statement, “We’re thinking about having a Chicago tea party in July.”
The tea parties started well before July and spread far beyond Chicago. The Tea Party Patriots alone boast 1,000 affiliated groups, with more than 70 in Georgia. Another group held what it called the first National Tea Party Convention last weekend in Nashville.
It was the political phenomenon of 2009, and perhaps 2010. Yet questions still abound.
Who will lead the tea partiers? (Sarah Palin?) Isn’t this just a front for Republican organizers? Has the movement split, given that some tea party groups stayed away from the pricey Nashville confab?
All of which miss the point.
Tea partiers share some core themes: limited government, free markets, individual liberty and responsibility. But there’s more to them than that.
Listen to tea partiers and you’ll hear about “taking back our country” or maybe “taking back the Republican Party.”
But you’ll also find those who are following politics closely for the first time. These are people who weren’t politically engaged before; they aren’t taking back, they’re taking over.
And good for them. Engagement is what sets the tea parties apart from mere populism or a resurgence in conservative-to-libertarian politics.
But besides the ideas they represent, the tea parties — which have too many flavors to be one movement — are the evolution of what people for several years now have called Politics 2.0 or, in the manner of a similar development in software, “open-source politics.”
Wikipedia, which knows a thing or two about the open model, describes open source as a method of programming that “permits users to use, change and improve the software, and to redistribute it in modified or unmodified forms. It is very often developed in a public, collaborative manner.”
Change “the software” to “the GOP” or “political power,” and that is the tea parties to a T.
A brief history of open-source politics might begin in 2004, when bloggers came to political prominence. That splash coincided with the rise of the Netroots, who turned Howard Dean into an unlikely, if fleeting, leader for the Democratic presidential nomination.
The social media of Web 2.0 gave activists a new way to force themselves upon party and candidate apparatuses. Barack Obama in 2008 rode Politics 2.0 to the White House.
But here is where the tea partiers depart from the Netroots — aside from agitating to shrink, not expand, government.
Democrats never had to worry that they wouldn’t be the beneficiaries of the Netroots, who were only concerned with promoting certain Democratic candidates and liberal issues. Republicans who think they are destined to reap where the tea parties sow are mistaken.
If new Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown is the tea partiers’ first electoral victory, Republicans ought to be struck by how little Brown wrapped himself in their mantle. The party should be further struck that the same activists were willing to lose a special congressional election in New York to defeat a bad GOP candidate. Even Texas’ uber-libertarian Rep. Ron Paul faces (three!) tea party opponents in this year’s primary.
They are changing the framework, not working within it.
Getting back to software, Microsoft has long insisted on sticking to its closed model. And it should have every right to do so, even if that ends up being a mistake.
The GOP faces the same choice. It can agree to work with the new political programmers, or it can try to force them to accept what it’s offered all along. I doubt the tea partiers will go for the latter.
Well, that’s… different. – What Sheep and Youtube have to do with California politics
For this year’s Senate elections, the question isn’t if politicians will use social media, but how.
U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorna decided a video depicting her opponent as a wolf in sheep’s clothing who needed to be knocked off his pedestal (in the most literal way possible) would be part of her social media strategy. Some are calling it the “worst political ad ever,” but Fiorna’s happy with the bizarre ad’s results and promises “more to come.”
If your motto is “all publicity is good publicity,” then maybe demonic sheep campaigns are for you. This ad has certainly created a buzz, but not about the issues.
Here’s an article from the Wall Street Journal about the ad:
When U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina released a video depicting a California Republican primary opponent as a demonic sheep, the near-universal response was: This is baaad.
“Is this the worst campaign ad ever made?” asked a writer from left-leaning Atlantic Monthly magazine. A blogger for the conservative National Review found the metaphors confusing, writing “I think Carly Fiorna just put out an ad in which she tells voters: ‘I am the real sheep in this race.’” Others just felt bad for the guy who had to play the sheep.
But a couple of political pundits say those who are lambasting the ad are missing the point. “The fact that you and I are talking about it means it’s not the worst ad of all time,” says Democratic consultant Kam Kuwata.
Kuwata knows a thing or two about Golden State politics, having help run Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Senate campaigns. “The Fiorina campaign has to be ecstatic at the fact that Politico and the other blogs are saying it’s so bad, let me run it again for you,” he says.
Fiorina is one of three Republicans vying to unseat Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer in the November election.The three-and-a-half minute ad released this week portrays former Rep. Tom Campbell, the early frontrunner in the Republican Senate primary, as a pure, fiscally conservative sheep on a pedestal that keeps growing taller. The Fiorina campaign’s video knocks that sheep off that pedestal – literally – and calls him a “FCINO,” or a fiscal conservative in name only. The last part of the ad shows a person in a sheep costume and crawling away on all fours, the glowing red eyes in the mask suggesting Campbell would lead the flock astray.
The commercial has generated tons of free press for the Fiorina campaign. Besides going viral online – check this out on Twitter – many national and local TV stations have done segments on the ad. As if to prove Kuwata’s point, MSNBC showed a clip of the ad as Washington Wire was interviewing Kuwata.
“I’m a campaign operative, and I’m not an artist,” Kuwata said. “What I have to do is have people talk about things. I want people to remember it. If you walk away at the end of the week and think, ‘Hey, Tom Campbell is for tax increases,’ it doesn’t matter if I ran the greatest ad of all time or the worst ad of all time. It means that people are talking about it.”
Barbara O’Connor, director of the Institute for the Study of Politics and Media at California State University, Sacramento, said she personally found the ad “dumb” and far too long. But she said it was the first ad to get “cross-over” attention on both online social media sites and with the mainstream media. “That’s a new strategy in campaigning,” O’Connor says. “Whether the message itself is effective, the strategy is smart.”
The professor predicts that other campaigns will use the strategy. “You’re going to see more weird, bizarre and funny [campaign ads], because in persuasion theory, it’s an attention getter,” she says. You may not love it, but it does get your attention.”
For the record, Fiorina’s campaign says it’s thrilled about the response. “The whole intent behind it was to create something that’s different and controversial and would break through the clutter,” said spokeswoman Julie Soderlund.. Soderlund said the video was made by Fred Davis, who also made Sen. John McCain’s “Celebrity” ad during the 2008 presidential campaign as well as commercials for California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006.
When asked if we can expect more ads in this vein, Soderlund promised with a laugh: “More to come! More to come!”
The Campbell campaign also had fun with the ad in an email blast to reporters Thursday. “Carly Fiorina’s campaign is in full Mutton Meltdown mode, with an increasingly bizarre fixation on farm animals,” said spokesman Jamie Fisfis. “She’s admitted missing a decade’s worth of opportunities to vote for budget reform, but instead of offering solutions, all she has for voters are dogs, cats and demon-sheep.”
The underdog in the Republican primary, state Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, went a step further by registering www.demonsheep.org. Poking fun at the clunky FCINO acronym, the site calls itself S.F.T.E.O.D.S.F.O.P.D., or the Society for the Eradication of Demon Sheep from our Political Discourse.
“Please pledge your efforts to stop these Jawa-like, Terminator-esque, Demon Sheep from taking over California,” it reads, before asking for donations to the DeVore campaign.
5 ways new media is changing politics
A great article from US News and World Report:
The outrage was immediate: The Supreme Court decision that struck down restrictions on the use of corporate funds in political advertising, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, is “devastating to the public interest” (President Obama) and a “disastrous rollback” of campaign finance laws (MoveOn.Org) and promises a “windfall” (New York Times) of big-money television ad buys by groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO.
//But really, does anyone think that in 2020—or maybe even 2015—we’ll still have big-money television ad buys, regardless of who’s paying for them? The magnitude of technological change over the past 10 years has been astonishing; the next 10 will surely be more so. I’m not saying that there won’t be televised political ads at all anymore or that corporations won’t find new and creative ways to spend their money. But the collective outrage focused on a top-down, big-money view of politics, well, that’s so . . . last century. If the goal of television ads is to motivate viewers to vote, volunteer, or give money, there are far better ways to reach people, thanks to the new media.
New social media are already changing the way organizations attract supporters. The American Red Cross raised a record $8 million plus for Haitian relief efforts via Twitter, which, according to the Nielsen Co., has become the top source of discussion about the quake, followed by online video and blogs. The potential mobile universe of grass-roots text messagers is now over 136 million—an emerging market and communications network for nonprofits, small businesses, and political campaigns.
Most Americans have a cellphone and access to a computer these days, and many of us have moved to a much more digital existence. We’ve gained hundreds of cable TV channels and satellite radio stations, millions of bloggers, and literally billions of Web pages. The media today are more diffuse and chaotic than ever.
The result is a new paradigm in political communications, and both parties are using it. Very little of it has to do with expensive political advertising on mass media. Look at your desktop, and you’ll see the ways the new media are changing the political scene from the bottom up:
1. News you can choose: Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, recently told the New Yorker magazine, “With the Internet, with YouTube
, with TiVo, with cable TV, people are selective viewers now. . . . People approach their news consumption the way they approach their iPod: You download the songs you like and listen to them when you want to listen to them.” That affects the way reporters spend their days and the way campaigns craft their message.
2. Share this: Sharing is emerging as a way of distributing the news—tweets from the streets of Iran and from the rubble of Haiti have been retweeted hundreds of times in a new, virtual form of word of mouth. The White House’s Facebook page has nearly half a million fans; its Twitter feed has 1.7 million followers. That’s no surprise: President Obama was the first candidate to announce his White House run via Web video and his vice presidential pick by text message. Don’t forget that Sarah Palin began the whole “death panels” discussion not by giving an interview but by posting the idea on her Facebook page, which then got shared with thousands of friends.
3. Like it: By clicking on a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” icon, constituents can give politicians an instant read on opinions and positions posted on their Web pages, sort of a rudimentary straw poll that is faster, cheaper—but less accurate—than a high-priced telephone poll.
4. Connect with others: During the height of demonstrations in Iran, street organizers tweeted safe locations for impromptu protests—building “flash mobs”—to great effect. Similarly, last-minute organizational details for tea parties, town hall meetings, and even State of the Union-watching events get posted on Facebook pages and tweeted to supporters. It sure beats passing out fliers at subway stops, as political organizers used to do.
5. Donate now: John McCain first harnessed the Internet for fundraising after his 2000 New Hampshire primary victory; by 2007, Ron Paul raised $4 million online in one day, despite being largely ignored by the media. Barack Obama raised hundreds of millions online over the course of his presidential run, and in just the last two weeks of the senatorial race in Massachusetts, Scott Brown raised $12 million from 157,000 donors, according to online consultants Mindy Finn and Patrick Ruffini, who helped Brown. Most politicians would rather have thousands of individual givers than a few big corporate donors, and the Internet makes that much easier.
Politicians have long sought to go around the mainstream press filter—from fireside chats, to whistlestop tours, to snail-mail newsletters—but the new media take it a step further by even more directly connecting them with voters. And the technology is moving quickly. Last fall, a Conservative Talking Points iPhone app came out; a few days ago the White House unveiled its new iPhone app, with live-streaming video of presidential events. Who knows what’s next?
The Internet “has reorganized the way Americans do everything—including elect their leaders. Candidates who would have had no chance before the Internet can now overcome huge odds, with the people they energize serving as the backbone of their campaign,” Finn and Ruffini wrote in the Washington Post. To me, it’s a good thing that the new media give a bottom-up boost to candidates facing overwhelming odds. And that far outweighs the supposedly devastating effect of a few big corporate donors buying top-down television ads.
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