Political Communication Tools Used In Presidential Campaigns And National Politics

Political Communication Tools Used in Presidential Campaigns and National Politics

Matt DeLuca [email protected]




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Since the 2000 elections more and more Americans have begun using the Internet for receiving their news and political information. As a result, politicians as a whole have begun using the Internet more and more for campaigning and other political operations. Using the Internet allows for quicker political communication, data gathering and analysis because in today’s increasingly connected world, politicians must stay up to speed - because staying connected with constituents and voters is a vital aspect of politics and campaigning. The presidency of George W. Bush created a fervor within the Democratic base and liberal blogs, and throughout his eight years in office, the Democratic base used the Internet to fuel their candidates and platform, and the Republican Party began to use the Internet. Howard Dean’s ground-up ‘Dean-Machine’ was one of the first successful voter programs that used the web and Barack Obama took the key elements from that program and has created a successful web system that helped deliver victories in the primary elections. The GOP has used the web to create a GOTV database called Voter Vault and numerous Web 2.0 tools on John McCain’s main campaign site and the RNC homepage. John McCain’s supposed technological failings have been brought up throughout the 2008 campaign yet has not stopped his campaign from having an Internet presence. Tools such as Twitter became a primary political tool during the primaries when Twitterers would report on GOTV efforts and results. The opinions of Twitters all throughout the primary elections allowed mash ups to be created to show geo-tagged ‘’tweets’ on a map. Google and Twitter created an application, which allowed one to see where twits were occurring. Twitter has since proved to be a useful political opinion tool — despite the fact Twitter users are limited to 140 characters. Twitter has been shown to be useful in political opinion and breaking news. Anyone can access Twitter and the number of political tweets is quite astounding. The presidential debates were so tweeted about that Twitter was forced to create a live-updating site




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for election tweets only. Current.TV also used Twitter to allow user commentary on the Presidential debates in real time. Normal Twitter users can also report quickly on developing news stories. With a cell phone or web-browser any American can become a reporter breaking a news story. Congressional Republicans used Twitter to tweet about the ‘#dontgo’ movement during the summer energy crisis over Nancy Pelosi’s decision to close congress over the summer without an energy solution. Digg was used during the RNC and DNC to ask user-submitted questions to prominent Republicans and Democrats and has been a mainstay in ranking political stories. Internet tools such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube and Wikipedia along with the voter databases run by the RNC and DNC are the future of social political tools. This paper will detail the types and usages of web-based political tools that have been created during the Bush Administration and their usage by various campaigns in the 2004 and 2008 election cycles. Political Party Tools One of the key uses of the Internet is to build databases of voter data and access that through different applications for different purposes. Because data entry can be easily done automatically by scanners or by hand more campaigns and political operatives are recognizing the importance of capturing, storing, analyzing and using voter information. What used to take days of analyzing can now take minutes by using computers to analyze important information. That data can also be used offline or online for a number of different ways and the usage of these systems have become key components of the political system. The Republican National Committee was one of the first to make targeted voter databases a priority in campaigning. They used their existing database information and bought consumer data from 3rd parties to improve voter IDs. Then in order to improve targeting the RNC used




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surveys to break down voting blocs. The RNC took this data and built into a web database program that allowed operatives to download the data from VoterVault. Future revisions of VoterVault would include walking directions, VOIP options, better stability and better data collection options. The benefits of VoterVault include its mobility and robustness and usefulness in a variety of campaign functions. The RNC has invested a lot of time and money into the database and training operatives how to use it effectively. The backbone of the RNC’s Victory movement is utilizing aspects of VoterVault and collecting and analyzing data as efficiently and quickly as possible. Because VoterVault is online it is also fairly mobile allowing it to be used anywhere with an Internet connection. Voter Vault was assembled to be an online database that could pull voter information and micro target voters based on voting preferences and previous GOP/RNC surveys that had been analyzed through the past several years for all GOP operatives. Voter Vault is also a key tool in setting up VOIP databases and opinion polls. Voter Vault data can be downloaded and processed through a program that will in turn allow a VOIP phone to dial specific voters and run an online poll on the phone. Data inputted into the phone is in turn analyzed by the Victory staff and simultaneously recorded on Voter Vault for future usage. This in turn cuts costs and solved survey problems such as re-dial, non-responsive voters, wrong phone numbers, dead voters and interviewer bias and error. Voter Vault and VOIP phone surveys are also extremely mobile and can be used anywhere there is an Internet connection. Voter Vault can also be accessed on mobile phones - however it is extremely difficult to use this due to the small form factor of mobile web browsing. The DNC has also invested in their own version of VoterVault, which they call VoteBuilder. It is very similar to the RNC’s VoterVault but still trails in size however with the




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inclusion of the 2008 election’s social networking results VoteBuilder will likely quickly rise to match the size and utility of the RNC’s VoterVault. The DNC has begun to train local officials and campaigns how to use VoteBuilder and it will soon become as effective in the DNC’s Victory/GOTV efforts as VoterVault. Both of these tools underscore the importance of collecting voter information online and being able to analyze and target voters. Using campaign social networks the information that is provided by users can be data mined by these databases. It is vital to both parties to collect as much data to improve targeting mailings and messages to the right voter in order to create costeffective campaign solutions. The future is bridging the gap between voter information and targeting and Internet-based solutions are a first step in improving campaigning. Online Tools There are numerous tools that exist for the general public to use that also have a political applicability. These tools are generally designed for the public to network or to be entertained. These tools can include social networking sites, social news sites, forums, video sites, group management sites and blogs. These tools have been embraced by many political campaigns and operatives and -- even the general public in capturing voter attention and informing the voter about politics in general. Because of the open access of the Internet many of these networks are free and available to any person with access to the Internet (computers themselves are no longer required as many phones also have Internet browsers built-in). Each tool shown here has a variety of uses and because of the constantly changing nature of Internet sites and tools these uses may be improved removed and expanded on by the developer based on user demands or developer designs.




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MySpace MySpace was one of the first social networking sites to expand and maintain user growth in 2004 and beyond. It allows users to create profiles and post pictures, video, music, journals, and much more for free. MySpace has over 100 million accounts and is considered one of the top social networking sites. It is mainly advertising-driven and has begun to involve itself in politics. MySpace launched a few political based portals within itself during the 2008 election. Included within these was MyDebate, a debate-centered portal where users could discuss the Election. Many 2008 presidential candidates and local candidates began to make accounts that featured photos, blogs, videos, and a variety of ways for viewers to get involved with campaigning. MySpace would feature these accounts on its front page during the election season for users to follow and add these accounts as friends. Many political organizations have also created MySpace accounts to keep in touch with, promote, and expand their membership base. These range from larger organizations like Greenpeace and the ACLU to smaller locally focused environmentalist groups such as ‘Food Not Bombs’ activists. Facebook Facebook is very similar to MySpace but took a different approach originally to forming a user-base. Facebook originally was a college-centered website which was only open to certain campuses, but it later opened access to high schools and the rest of the Internet. Now anyone with an e-mail account can sign up for an account. Facebook has a wide array of applications and pages that can be used by users. Groups and pages exist for users to invite friends and others into a specified group section and can post videos, images, and links once invited into the group. Officers can also send instantly mass emails and bulletins to users. Facebook users have shown




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an interest in political based groups and are an excellent way of developing bottom-up networking. Facebook members can find candidates' entries by going to a section of the site called Election Pulse and after searching for the candidate by name, party, or geographic location, they can register their support. Facebook can then display the number of supporters for each candidate and calculates the percentage of "votes" that candidate has in their race; while not an accurate measure of the race because of it’s unscientific nature, it does give a glimpse of how much support is being given through Facebook. Members also have the opportunity to post comments on the candidate's "wall" and invite their friends to become supporters. Facebook has also included fundraising capabilities, allowing candidates to raise money right on Facebook’s page. Many politicians have also created profiles that can be maintained by staffers. A Facebook page can be created and fully written in about an hour by an intern or staffer and can be easily maintained by anyone with access to the account. A constantly active profile will give the semblance that the campaign is taking an interest on the happenings of Facebook. Meanwhile, a profile that is merely created and never maintained makes the candidate look like they have no interest on the users of the site. A 2006 academic study of Facebook found that: “36 or 25% of candidates for U.S. Senate have posted their own profiles: 17 Democrats, 11 Republicans, 8 minor party candidates and independents; 139 or 12% of candidates for U.S. House of Representative have posted their own profiles: 74 Democrats, 54 Republicans, 11 minor party candidates and independents; 52 or 43% of candidates for state Governor have posted their own profiles: 32 Democrats, 14 Republicans, 6 minor party candidates and independents; 10 or 36% of Senate incumbents running for reelection have posted a profile; 51 or 13% of incumbents from the U.S. House; and 16 or 64% of the listed candidates for Governor have personalized their profile. Senate candidates with the largest number of supporters are: Hillary Clinton, NY, Democrat (6,971); Bob Casey, PA, Democrat (5,328); and Ned Lamont, CT, Democrat (4,093). The House candidates with the largest number of supporters are: Tammy Baldwin, WI, Democrat (913); Dennis Moore, KS, Democrat (863); and Patty Wetterling, MN, Democrat (693). The Republican with the most support and ranked 9th overall is Speaker Dennis Hastert, IL, with 580 supporters. Candidates for




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 Governor with the largest number of supporters are: Kinky Friedman, TX, Independent (9,363), Dick DeVos, MI, Republican (5,732), and Ted Strickland, O, Democrat (5,092).” (Levy)

2006 proved to be incredibly powerful political years and the response to the elections on Facebook showed that this continued in 2008 and will likely continue for as long as Facebook maintains its place as the top social networking site. The ease of access and use of Facebook allow candidates to quickly communicate with individuals and post information cost-efficiently and quickly. Twitter Twitter was developed as a status/micro-blogging site in which users could answer the simple question “What are you doing?” in 140 characters or less. This 140-character cap is in place so that users can update their status via mobile phone (140 characters is the cap for SMS messages). Twitter has become a popular political tool for Congressmen and politicos alike. During the 2008primaries Twitter became a popular way to quickly report political events and happenings. Mashups involving Google Maps and Twitter began being created and users could track geo-tagged Twitters and follow the primaries from those on the ground. Britney Bohnet, from the "Google Elections Team" wrote: "We've joined forces with Twitter to give you instant updates on Super Tuesday. Instead of sitting on the sidelines, you can send a simple text message about your voting experience. Huge turnout? Taking too long in line? Did you just vote for the first time? We want it all, if you can keep to 140 characters or less." (Bohnet) Soon anyone with a cell phone could become a reporter on the ground. Super Tuesday proved to be a huge day of Twitter usage. Sites such as PoliTweeter showed tweets about the candidates as they were posted. Soon Twitter would launch its own updating service called “Election 2008” which showed what Twitter users were saying about politics.




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 In early August House Speaker Nancy Pelosi shut down the House to stall a vote on

offshore oil drilling and to go on a book promotion tour. House Republicans, angered at this breach of public trust, refused to leave the House and continued to speak on the floor even after the lights and mics were turned off by Pelosi. House Republicans began using Twitter from the floor using the Twitter hash tag #dontgo. House Republicans John Culberson (R-Tx) and Pete Hoekstra (R-Mi) were among the first Republicans to start using Twitter and soon many others began using the hash tag and were commenting on the movement. MoveOn.Org also began to spam Twitter using the #dontgo tag but that only furthered the #dontgo message. Within two days Dontgomovement.com, a website created to track and provide information about the movement was created, saw a traffic surge of about 60,000 people, and added 21,000 names to a petition to tell the House Speaker to call the Congress back for a special session. Patrick Ruffini, a New Media political operative, wrote on the technology and politics blog, The Next Right “#dontgo is positioned to be the event that at last restores Republicans to where they should be in the House. Don’t lift the boot from Nancy and Steny’s neck. Let’s keep this going.” (Ham) Eric Odom, one of the founders of the dontgo site, wrote on his blog “Now we have an e-mail list that is well over 10,000 strong, our e-mail RSS subscriber list is about 1,200 strong, and we have a Twitter army that simply has yet to be matched in size.”(Odom) Clearly building movements using online tools is possible and powerful. Current.TV and Twitter also proved that the mainstream media for political coverage could use Twitter as well. Current.TV decided to overlay tweets that were directed to Current’s Twitter account or tagged with a #current hash tag over their feed of the debate which could then be watched live on TV or Current’s Internet video site. The result showed real-time feedback and thoughts by Twitter users about the debate. Current used Ruby on Rails, a popular programming




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tool, to search keywords from the Twitter API, and built a Flash display that acted like an additional camera in its San Francisco control room where it was overlaid on the video feed. During each debate, Current used a team of editors and a lawyer to find the most topical and FCC standards-compliant tweets. The fastest a tweet could travel from submission on Twitter to airing on Current was 20 seconds. (Gannes) While not totally representative of the population it was more entertaining than watching CNN’s heart rate monitor and showed what the Internet was saying about the debates. Politic rhetoric used by Obama and McCain became fodder for the tweets that were streaming on the current feed. When Barack Obama used the phrases "Wall Street" versus "Main Street," a few moments later several tweets appeared on screen that complained about the overused comparison. "Main Street has become a hideous cliché in this debate," tweeted Tom Watson. (Gannes) And when John McCain emphasized his travel to Afghanistan and Waziristan, it drew this amusing comment from @lauraelizabethm who tweeted: "New McCain-Palin campaign song: 'I've Been Everywhere' by Johnny Cash." Some of the Twitterers noted that McCain looked relaxed, and Obama pensive, and that Obama's interruptions when McCain spoke indicated that he felt defensive. According to NewTeeVee, over the course of the first debate over 2,700 tweets made it to TV. (Gannes) Wikipedia Some will say that knowledge and information are the keys to power and no one will deny that the Internet has expedited access to information. With the help of Wikipedia a usergenerated encyclopedia anyone can obtain knowledge within a few quick seconds with a Wikipedia search. Wikipedia had 25,6-million unique visitors in March, making it the 18th-




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most-popular site on the Internet.

(McCaffrey) However, one of the problems of having

Wikipedia open to the public is the possibility of false or exaggerated information being distributed on the Internet. The ability to post seemingly anonymous information proved to be dangerous for House operatives who in 2007 were discovered to be mass changing entries on Wikipedia. Congressional Quarterly's Drew Armstrong reported, "There are thousands of individual edits originating from computer users on the House of Representatives network. While most of the changes are nothing more than regular Wikipedia interactions on non-government topics, a hefty number include edits to lawmaker’s entries -- and some House Wikipedians might not be entirely pleased to see their handiwork exposed." (Armstrong) Unfortunately, Wikipedia and other open websites leave the possibility of false and damaging information to be posted. The draw to smear opponents or boost candidates becomes strong and the damage can be career threatening. For example, CNN reported “Secretary of State Cathy Cox's opponent, Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor, said Cox campaign manager Morton Brilliant altered an online encyclopedia entry to include a reference to Taylor's son being arrested for DUI after an accident that killed his passenger.” (Hamby) YouTube One of the largest and most popular video sites on the Internet is the video site You Tube. YouTube was founded in 2005 and was designed to be a user-submitted video portal and has blossomed into one of the most visited sites on the Internet. In 2006, it was bought for over one billion dollars by Google and has continued to grow and expand. Its potential for political media has been realized by many campaigns and YouTube was even a main sponsor of some of the 2008 presidential primary debates. By late October, 39 percent of voters had watched some sort of campaign-related video online, according to the Pew Research Center, up from 24 percent who said in December, before the primaries began, that they had watched political videos. "I




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think it's fair to say that this is the first election You Tube has played a critical role in helping the president-elect to reach audiences and get people out to vote” said Steve Grove, YouTube's Head of News and Politics. (Schwab) YouTube recognized the importance of political video and created its own subsection called YouChoose, which groups most of the political videos together so users can find them more easily. YouTube’s service allows campaigns and individuals to post videos free of charge and have them available to the world. This allows campaigns free video campaigns and has been utilized by major and minor candidates. Nearly every single 2008 candidate had some type of political video posted on YouTube. Hillary Clinton used You Tube to ask supporters what her ‘theme song’ should be and Barack Obama had a popular fan base - even having his own ‘fan girl’ the eponymous Obamagirl. YouTube has also been used to show gaffes made by politicians such as the ‘macaca’ gaffe made by Senator George Allen, which would prove to be the end of the road for his campaign in 2006. CNN reported, “Gotcha moments on You Tube, unauthorized campaign videos and hardhitting debate questions from You Tube users are changing the political landscape. The You Tube "Macaca moment" represents a broad new challenge for candidates.” (Hamby) Will.I.Am also posted the popular ‘Yes We Can’ video on You Tube and many other user-submitted videos have been posted that relate to the campaigns. "The 'Yes We Can' video captured the culture of the Internet's interest in Obama at the beginning of the primary season," explains Andrew Rasiej. "It was the perfect melding of Obama's political message with a desire for more engagement by the American public manifested in a simple video instantly viewed by millions without any influence by the mainstream media and the political parties themselves." (Schwab) Joe Biden was caught making some racial remarks about Indians working at 7-11s at a fundraiser and that




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too was posted on YouTube. When Reverend Wright’s comments were buzzing around the Internet the Obama campaign “immediately posted on You Tube the candidate's full rebuttal, a 37-minute-long speech on race he delivered to an audience in Philadelphia. The video clip helped calm the controversy and attracted around 5.3 million views on the video-viewing website, proving the popularity and impact of a medium that was first used widely this election cycle.” (Schwab) Digg The social news site Digg was created to allow users to “Digg” the top tech stories they discover on the Internet as well as discover other popular stories that other users have “dugg.” Digg’s popularity has steadily grown, and it is now one of the more popular sites on the Internet. In early 2006, the site introduced a wide variety of topics other than just tech, such as sports and politics. Soon the website began to receive thousands of hits from interested politicos, and it is becoming one of the top political sites for discovering new and popular stories. Ron Paul and Barack Obama were popular candidates on Digg because of the tech-based campaigns; his popularity grew to such a point that Ron Paul stories seemed to clog the site and at times resembled spam. In 2008, the site introduced its Digg Dialogue feature, which allowed users to submit questions prior to the DNC and RNC for Nancy Pelosi and later Al Gore. The site had an incredible response to this and later would partner with Current and Twitter to host an Election Night coverage event that would detail top stories that were hitting the website as the results came in on the Election. Digg has also sponsored events at both political party conventions, including the Big Tent in Denver that hosted hundreds of bloggers and new media journalists.




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 Digg’s popularity and future as a political tool will likely not decline, and Digg will

continue to be a popular tool for politicos and politicians. Digg Dialogue may likely to continue as the new Obama Administration ushers in policies that foster debate online. Digg continues to grow and expand and, campaigns should utilize social-driven news and promotion as a means of increasing branding and bringing in new supporters. Ron Paul and Barack Obama both used Digg to find new supporters and energize their own supporters to great success. 2004 Presidential Campaign The 2004 Presidential campaign saw the rise of grassroots political power through the Internet. Howard Dean was able to capture the anger of the left in the blogosphere and fuel his campaign. Dean was able to map out a strategy that created a bottom-up network using social networks to recruit other volunteers and to raise money for the campaign. Dean used the Internet to overcome the advantage that higher-profiled Democrats had in fundraising and support. Dan Ancona’s experience on the Dean campaign allowed him to discover how social networking could be used in a political campaign: “First, a campaign would need to invest in a social networking tool that would let early supporters start to self-organize. Ideally the tool would let people find and connect with each other, blog, easily manage email lists, set up their own house parties and events, and maybe even do a little small-donor, person to person fundraising. (Or rather a lot of that kind of fundraising, even.) The second component would involve some way to turn all that self-organized volunteer energy into a field program, and thereby turn volunteer energy into votes. The tool to do that was some kind of web-based, distributable voter file system. (Anacona) These tools were nicknamed “Deanspace” and were the brainchild of campaign manager Joe Trippi. Trippi realized that the Internet is very close to a true democracy and that it contained resources that had yet to be utilized. Trippi harnessed the democratic nature of social technology




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and networking and used it for advocacy and to build support for Dean. Allowing every citizen access to participate in the campaign made them feel like they were part of something bigger. Deanspace was an attempt to create a complete web-based social networking toolkit for campaign volunteers to deploy broadly, creating many sites for different groups and geographical communities. These components allowed Dean to rise to the top of the Democratic field. Dean also set new fundraising records using the Internet raising over 20 million dollars online in March 2003. Deanspace’s success would later become the foundation of another Presidential candidate’s campaign, Barack Obama. (Trippi) Using Internet tools like Meetup, MySpace and Moveon.org allowed the Dean campaign to reach supporters that previously may have been left behind or ignored. Dean’s usage of Meetup marked the first time a campaign had outsourced online organizing to a commercial site. MoveOn.org also held the first online endorsement poll, which Dean won with 43.9% of the vote. John Kerry’s campaign was not particularly groundbreaking when it came to harnessing the power of the Internet – Kerry’s campaign created a campaign blog but failed to create a stunning toolkit similar to that of Dean’s and ran the same type of campaign that Democrats had been running since the Carter administration. While Kerry didn’t use online tools to further his message or base in any substantial way he did use the Internet to fundraise and create a volunteer portal. SolutionSet, an Internet company that creates portals and databases worked with the Kerry campaign to develop a working and effective volunteer portal. The Kerry Volunteer Center became a management portal for over 1,000,000 volunteers nationwide and handled some of the most critical political operations namely: fundraising, voter contact, and voter turnout efforts. Using ‘The Kerry Volunteer Center’ the Kerry Campaign was able to set firsts in fundraising - raising 3 million dollars in one day in June and then over 5 million dollars in July.




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(SolutionSet) However, the Volunteer Center never reached the level of success that Dean’s Deanspace had reached. George Bush and the RNC utilized Voter Vault, their online voter database, as their central means for running Victory operations during the 2004 elections. Throughout the 2004 primaries and general election period any individual who donated to the Bush campaign or RNC or entered their information on the RNC or Bush websites was registered into Voter Vault allowing Voter Vault to be constantly updated with new user information. Voter Vault was also used to send targeted emails to voting blocs within the Republican base. The LA Times reported that “The program allows ground-level party activists to track voters by personal hobbies, professional interests, geography — even by their favorite brands of toothpaste and soda and which gym they belong to.” (Wallsten) Voter Vault’s ability to break down voting blocs proved extremely successful as Bush and the RNC were able to target the right voting blocs in key battleground states such as Ohio and Florida. 2008 Elections The 2008 election cycle is widely believed to be one of the most historic elections in American history. Candidates began running early in 2007 and the amount of money raised and spent on the campaigns will be the largest in history. Also of importance is the reliance and usage of the Internet. The 2008 elections saw most of the candidates use the Web to attract voters and volunteers with three candidates using the Web extensively. Ron Paul, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton all used the Internet to fuel their Presidential runs. Although Paul failed to win any Republican primaries, he has shown that it is possible to run and attract followers through the Internet. Both Obama and Clinton used the Internet and blogosphere extensively in their




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campaigns – yet it is Obama who still garners the most support from the blogosphere and easily could be called the Democratic blogosphere nominee. Obama’s website is widely regarded by political pundits as one of the most brilliant websites in political history. His bottom-up approach allows any web user to join the campaign through his website and gives them access to different outreach resources on the website. Obama, Paul and Clinton all used the Internet to fundraise their campaigns. The Paul campaign was able to make one million dollars in one day just through the Internet alone. A majority of the other presidential candidates also spent large quantities of money in web advertising and built their own websites to harness the influence of the blogosphere. It is important to look at the Obama, McCain, Paul and Clinton campaigns’ usage of the Internet, as they will become indicators of success in future elections. Ron Paul Libertarian Republican Texas Congressman Ron Paul could easily be called an Internet candidate. Paul never gained much popular support offline but his online popularity easily dominated any other candidates. Paul’s libertarian views attracted many Internet users who primarily favor freedom over control. Paul’s followers crowded social networking sites such as Digg and Facebook and his views, speeches and ads were spread all over the Internet: “Pick any Web 2.0 phenomenon and you'll find Paul's supporters exploiting it. Digg? In just two months, a user-generated campaign video picked up more than 16,000 diggs, making it the sixth-most popular video of 2007. Flickr? A group photo pool offers a profusion of grassroots agitprop. (My favorite: a Star Wars-inspired logo declaring Paul "A New Hope.") Facebook? 5,589 fans and counting, baby. For 24/7 Ron Paul junkies can sign up for his Twitter feed or check out the campaign lifecast on Justin.tv. Meetup? There are 10 Ron Paul Meetup groups within 20 miles of San Francisco alone; the biggest hosts near-daily events for its 432 members. The candidate has proven such a draw that page view-starved webmasters publish




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 lolRons — Paul-themed lolcats — as a cheap and easy way to boost their traffic. Paul's people are so Web-savvy they've even achieved the impossible: a MySpace page that doesn't induce seizures.” (Tanz)

Paul’s website was the leading website for hits before the Super Tuesday primaries. Paul’s website outdrew mainstream Republican candidates Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney. Paul’s popularity on the web did not stop at the keyboard it also correlated into dollars – he was able to use the Internet to primarily fund his campaign. On Guy Fawkes Day, Paul set a campaign record for one-day fundraising by a Republican, pulling in $4.2 million in online contributions. (RonPaul.com) He then outdid himself six weeks later, using the Internet for more than $6 million in a single day. The same online followers of Paul were also offline followers – showing up at user-created events and creating signs and media to display all over the country. A drive along NJ’s Route 287 during the 2007 summer would see the site of over 20 different Ron Paul banners or signs. Despite Paul’s inability to garner widespread support offline in the polls and primaries, Ron Paul fans and volunteers tried their best to make sure that any Internet user knew whom Ron Paul was and that he was their candidate. Ron Paul’s stance as an anti-war Libertarian Republican conflicted with the rest of the Republican Party. Paul’s beliefs only garnered support from a minority of Republicans despite the campaigns’ efforts to reach out to the masses. This lead to Paul’s inevitable failure but Paul’s campaign showed that a candidate could use the Internet to help drive their campaign. Paul’s popularity and usage of the Internet is historic in that only one other candidate has come close to the support and success that Paul had achieved.

Hillary Rodham Clinton




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 Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign also used the Internet throughout her campaign but

not as extensively as Barack Obama or Ron Paul’s campaign. Whereas Obama and Paul’s campaign allowed the user to become part of the campaign, Clinton’s campaign used the Internet merely as a one-way street to users with only a few ways to participate in the campaign. However, despite this, Clinton drew both ire and attention from the blogosphere. Clinton’s comments on Obama’s suspected plagiarism of speeches, his lack of readiness at 3am, her arrival in Bosnia under sniper fire all drew criticism from bloggers on both the left and right. The rightwing blogs also have had a field day criticizing Clinton for her campaign mistakes and claims. Because of Clinton’s determination to stay in the race The presence of social networking and media sites has also opened new ways for liberal and conservatives to attack Clinton. In response to Clinton’s claim to be ready at 3am, Slate’s John Dickerson asked during a press conference for an example of when Hillary has been “tested by crisis.” After six seconds of silence, Clinton chief strategist Mark Penn finally attempted a response. Within hours You Tube user mingusx902 was able to record a parody video with a ticking clock ala ‘24’ showing just how long those seconds actually were and making Penn and Clinton look even worse. The number of Clinton parody ads on You Tube and other social networking sites are astounding. Clinton also took advantage of the new DNC Voter Vault competitor - VoteBuilder. She and Barack Obama both used VoteBuilder extensively to target voters through offline and online mailing. VoteBuilder, like VoterVault, could be used to fuel call centers with numbers and data for volunteers. Clinton and Obama both used websites to run their call centers through - Clinton primarily used text based scripts and simple radio buttons on her website making it easy to select a specific response. Clinton also used a registration system for volunteers that would ask volunteers when they could volunteer - this allowed the campaign




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to send emails to volunteers giving them times and locations where they could volunteer. This data was also used to update VoteBuilder databases and add new entries for volunteers that were previously not in VoteBuilder. John McCain Senator John McCain’s campaign suffered many blows throughout 2007 – much of the campaign staff was let go throughout the summer of 2007 and McCain’s comments on Iraq and Iran were slightly damaging. However, McCain recovered in the Republican debates and through careful planning and campaigning was able to navigate the Super Tuesday primaries and lock up the Republican nomination. McCain’s 2000 campaign was focused on independents, moderates and used the Internet slightly. His 2000 campaign used the web for organizing, and was rewarded with impressive support at the time, including 86,000 registered web supporters. After he won the 2000 New Hampshire primary, he was able to raise $2.2 million in a week just through the Internet. (Pew Internet) In February 2000, McCain held what is believed to be the first presidential campaign political fundraiser held entirely on the Internet. McCain, campaigning in South Carolina, spoke in Washington and 17 other places via the Internet. McCain’s campaign did not create any new or spectacular tools to use but rather made sure that he had a consistent presence on the Internet and offline. McCain’s website is not a spectacular website –traffic to his website still lags behind that of Obama’s and Clinton’s websites. Conn Carroll, a blogger for The Heritage Foundation explains why: "I wouldn't expect any bump in online traffic or activity for McCain. He won the nomination on the backs of moderates and independents. Moderates and independents don't spend any time online obsessing about politics…While McCain's Internet audience lags far behind both Obama and Clinton; his official websites allow more dissent and tough feedback than the Democratic candidates, according to an unscientific comment experiment conducted by The Nation. We posted about 50




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 comments on the candidates' websites and You Tube accounts, ranging from bland encouragement to policy criticism to sharp complaints. Only the McCain Campaign posted every comment.” (The Heritage Foundation)

McCain’s focus online was on advertising and making sure that there was a focus on Internet ads. McCain had 12 times the exposure of other candidates because of heavy online advertising in April 2007, generating nearly 26 million unique impressions. Senator McCain generated over 40 million unique Internet impressions utilizing paid Internet advertisements in just April and May 2007 from both image- and sponsored link based ads. (Pew Internet) In comparison, Mitt Romney had 5.8 million unique impressions and Friends of Hillary made just 2 million impressions. McCain also created a series of online tools for their supporters. The McCain campaign created a online tax estimator tool, a MySpace clone called “McCain Space” which would take user submitted data and update Voter Vault, and an online Action Center which gave points to users who fulfilled campaign goals. These goals included: recruiting 10 friends, registering to vote, making phone calls, downloading flyers, hosting parties, attending events, joining McCain Space (a MySpace clone). McCain Space is a place where users can discuss and interact with other McCain supporters. McCain Space has forums, videos, pictures and blogs along with an online store. McCain also has links to MySpace, Facebook and You Tube groups on his website for users to join. McCain’s call system in the Action Center is once again powered by data from VoterVault and uses a web based portal which allows supporters to make phone calls from anywhere they have access to the Internet and a phone. The call script asks the callee who they are supporting, how strong they are supporting them, what their major key issue is and their email. The McCain online call script uses drop down fields to make selection information easy.




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(JohnMcCain.com) Barack Obama If Ron Paul was the GOP master of the Internet then Barack Obama is his equivalent for the Democratic Party. Barack Obama’s campaign has taken the success of Howard Dean’s campaign, fused it with a standard ground campaign, and reaped the rewards that the blogosphere can provide. Obama has been able to recruit new volunteers and supporters through his website and give them access to all sorts of campaign tools that can be used to promote the campaign. Obama’s campaign has allowed users to create their own videos for the campaign – leading to a rise of user submitted content that the campaign does not have to purchase. Obama’s platforms of change, hope and destiny have captured the respect and support of the blogosphere. Obama’s campaign easily could be considered the first legitimate blogosphere candidate because of his support online and offline. Obama’s campaign also did not happen to stumble upon the Internet rather Obama’s campaign made the Internet a central part of the campaign. “Obama spent more than $2 million on hardware and software, paid the Internet consulting firm Blue State Digital nearly $400,000 and paid technology consultant Joseph Rospars more than $90,000.” (Mosk) In April 2007, Nielsen NetRatings reported that although Obama has spent very little on official online advertisements he leads any other candidate by an impressive spread: “Obama had nearly double the amount of Buzz than Hillary Clinton (who is ranked #2 in terms of Buzz volume).” (Nielsen) Obama’s website in April 2007 garnered over nearly 4 million page views. The Obama campaign implemented a brilliant grassroots campaign that uses a bottom-up approach to reach other voters. The result is that one volunteer for Obama can recruit more




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volunteers who will in turn either support the campaign and/or also recruit more volunteers for the campaign. The tools and resources available to a regular volunteer from the Obama website are unmatched by any other campaign and the campaign knows that it is important to involve every single visitor to the website because they are a potential vote and a potential recruiter for more votes. Obama’s website allows users to create their own Obamalogs and blog about Obama’s campaign and create content for the campaign for a small or no cost at all. Obama’s bottom up approach also has been effective because the campaign recognizes that politics is local and that it is important to make sure volunteers have an impact locally before influencing other areas. This is to combat the problems that the Dean campaign faced – in that volunteers were working in areas where they weren’t known and voters began to feel that Dean’s volunteers weren’t one of them and as a result, they weren’t as receptive to the Dean campaign. Since April 2007, the Obama campaign had placed a record breaking amount of online advertisements, more than 70 million ads in January, to drive Internet users to his website in order to ‘Help Elect Barack Obama President of the United States.’ The results have been visible – Obama was able to capture a mathematical victory over Hillary Clinton and now stands to receive the Democratic nomination. Obama was also able to raise over 28 million dollars online through his website and Internet advertisements. Obama’s Internet support is at an unprecedented level and easily beats out any other candidate’s support. Micah L. Sifry for TechPresident wrote during the primaries: “If it were not for the Internet, and all the campaignand voter-generated activism that it has enabled, Hillary Clinton would already be the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee, and Barack Obama or another reform-minded candidate would be trailing badly,” (Sifry) Along with regular Americans joining Obama’s website and becoming volunteers Obama




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has been able to gain endorsements from many popular bloggers or techies including: Dinah Boyd, Larry Lessing, David Weinberger, Dave Winer, Ross Mayfield of Socialtext and Michael Arrington. At the moment about two-thirds of those polled on OpenLeft and DailyKos, and about 60% at Swing State Project, think it's time to support Obama. Obama has even won the online primary conducted by DailyKos and easily can be considered to be the frontrunner for the Internet. “Today Barack Obama earned the endorsement of MoveOn, one of the largest grassroots membership organizations in the United States, after clobbering Hillary Clinton by 40 percent in Internet balloting. Obama led the final tally 70.4% to 29.6%, clearing the supermajority required for the endorsement. MoveOn, which has never endorsed a presidential candidate before, boasts that it has 1.7 million members in Super Tuesday states. The group has over half a million members in California alone – roughly one out of ten primary voters in Super Tuesday's largest state.” (Melber) Obama also commands a powerful presence on social networking websites. Obama’s website includes a sidebar widget that lists all the social networking websites and groups that he is listed on and as a result any user can join other Obama supporters on the social network of their choice. These networks include: Facebook, MySpace, Youtube, Flickr, Digg, Twitter, Eventful, LinkedIn, BlackPlanet, Faithbase, Eons, Glee, MiGente, MyBatanga, AsianAve and the DNC’s PartyBuilder network. (BarackObama.com) The benefit to joining a social network is that one can discover other supporters and create a network that otherwise may have never existed. These networks allow the Obama campaign to find new supporters that conventional methods may have failed to recruit. It also makes the campaign appear to be more accessible to younger voters who are used to ‘old men’ running for office and failing to identify with young adults. Obama’s website is a beautiful example of how the Internet can fuel a campaign. It is




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visually stunning and features video, online tools, social networking options, user submitted content and content all in a manner that doesn’t crowd the user. Obama’s blog has a sidebar that features: HQ Highlights, upcoming events, photo submissions, an option to create a personal fundraising page, BarackTV (a YouTube portal), donation links, voter registration links, a welcome to Clinton supporters, a smear email watchdog group, a mobile text notification ad, a social

networking

link

hub,

and

a

link

to

Obama’s

social

networking

site

-

my.BarackObama.com. Obama’s website also includes a tax calculator, a place to view ads and a portal called Neighbor to Neighbor which opens with a video describing how the program works. Obama has said, “This campaign is built on the belief that everyday Americans, when organized and focused, can change their country. Now you can have an even greater impact on your community. Start today by logging in to our new voter contact tool to find voters near you, or in a critical battleground state, to reach out to. You can go door to door or make calls at any time that’s convenient for you. Ordinary Americans reaching out to ordinary Americans is going to make the real impact in this election, and we're counting on you to help” Neighbor to Neighbor uses Obama’s own voter database and VoteBuilder to propagate calling lists and door to door lists. Obama’s site also features a social networking community called my.BarackObama.com, which allows access to the Obama Action Center and social network. This also allows for user data collection for VoteBuilder. Unlike McCain’s campaign Obama’s website features videos about how to use Obama’s tools and spread Obama’s message. Nearly every single page has some video attached to it allowing for the user to feel ease using the online tools. (BarackObama.com) Obama’s campaign also actively uses e-mail and text messaging to keep volunteers and supporters totally informed. If Obama was debating live, the campaign could send out messages




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saying ‘go watch him’. Obama also created campaign challenges to combat Clinton or McCain’s fundraising success. When one candidate would raise a certain amount the Obama staff could contact every volunteer and let them know that they needed to raise a certain amount to beat the other candidates. Email and text messaging are instantaneous forms of communication and incredibly effective in today’s mobile world. Moreover, these forms of communication are not one way – an email or text message can be sent from a supporter to the campaign with an idea, a picture or a report about an event. This capability makes every recipient feel that they can contribute back to the campaign without a hassle. Back in Barack Obama’s Iowa headquarters, young staff members can sit at computers, analyzing online local voter data and targeting potential backers. They can send one e-mail to an undecided voter and zap a different message to a firm supporter. Depending on the voter, they follow with Facebook reminders, telephone calls, text messages and, most important, house visits. From fundraising to voter contact to social networking to online organizing of offline events, the point is that the Obama campaign seems to have integrated their supporter communications to a very effective degree. The Obama’s campaign’s usage of the Internet and blogosphere has been a resounding success. Without the Internet support, other well-known and more powerful opponents within both his own party and the Republican Party would have certainly left Obama in the dust. Yet, it was the Internet, the same Internet that brought down Howard Dean and kept the Paul campaign afloat despite poor offline numbers, which nominated Obama. Obama possesses a web viewer market share that is nearly twice that of Former First Lady Hillary Clinton and 40 times as Senator John McCain. Obama’s website has seen an atmospheric rise in traffic since the New Hampshire elections and he is supported by nearly every single major blog. (Pew Internet) The Obama campaign cannot hope to be called the only campaign to use the Internet successfully




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rather it can be considered the first legitimate Internet and Blogosphere candidate and his campaign model will become standard in many campaigns to come. The 2008 Presidential Election was the first to fully realize the potential of the Internet and the tools it can offer. Both parties had candidates that took advantage of the tools the Internet offers and used them to increase fundraising and branding opportunities. Political fans took the Internet to show their support and voice their opinions. Tools such as Facebook and Twitter allowed the average user to become part of a campaign and campaigns used tools like VoterVault and VoteBuilder to target voters and create their own social networking sites within their campaign. Online tools have also become part of the media’s usage of covering politics and the gap that formally divided politicians and the people is slowly closing. The future of politics includes Internet campaigning and involving social aspects into the campaign. The Obama campaign showed that involving supporters in the campaign is a great way to increase turnout, support and fundraising. The 2012 elections will likely involve more Internet tools and likely new ones that have not been created. It is vital to all to utilize and realize the potential of all political tools and utilize them in campaigning and general politics. The 2008 elections are likely the start of WebGovernment 2.0 and its vital that both parties and all politicians recognize the benefits and pitfalls of the Internet.




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