A little while back — just before the ’08 election, actually — I wrote up a piece about why Obama would win: His harnessing of technology. Change for America (who has mysteriously taken down their web site) set up a campaign that put Obama EVERYWHERE on the web, from Facebook to Twitter to just about every other Web 2.0 social utility imaginable. The success was enormous.
Since my article was posted, I’ve had several people approach me privately to discuss whether Republicans even have a prayer at winning an election in the near future now that the Democrats have so well embraced branding a politician and marketing them socially online. I said, “Sure, they just have to do the same thing, and with a new unique take.” The usual reaction to that comment is something like, “Yeah, but do you really see that happening?”
Nope, at least I didn’t. The people running the McCain campaign had forgotten just who people were nowadays. They kept trying to somehow get McCain some inroads with the press, while the Obama campaign went completely around the press and directly to where the American people were at: their computers and their cell phones. The big problem, as I saw it, was that the GOP didn’t see the need to make a push virally. And post-election thus far, I’ve seen or heard nothing that the opinion had changed. They claimed Obama won because of the “change” message or because he’s the first African-American to be president. But the truth is he won because he put his message out in a far superior manner than his opponent did.
Now it would seem that the Republicans finally agree with me. Or at least some of them. CNN put out a story earlier in the weekend about the GOP’s need to embrace technology. It’s a good read, with good points that almost sound as if they were ripped from my blog post. The RNC Chairman seems to be on board, but only 2010 will tell whether or not they actually understand how to use the Internet, or if they’re just treating it like a “necessary evil.”
We’ll see.
UPDATEMUS MAXIMUS! This just in: Our very own Beth Honshell found this great little piece concerning Obama’s online policies over on the 1to1 blog. I’d like to add that he should instate a rule that people on his staff shouldn’t post pictures of themselves at parties on Facebook.
This makes so much sense in hindsight. Unfortunately.
I actually don’t think Obama’s web presence had anything to do with his victory. I think enough people were fed up with Bush and his inability to communicate effectively that they gravitated towards the best public speaker, one who also happened to have different opinions about most things.
Those of us in the web biz sometimes think our bubble is representative of the world at large, but I don’t think so. When I was in the voting line, there were plenty of people whom I could safely assume don’t spend much time at all on the internet. If you looked at exit polls, they show that Obama improved with every demographic compared to Kerry in the last election–everyone seemed to respond to the guy, not just technophiles.
That said, of course it wouldn’t hurt for Repbulicans to mobilize people on the web–but I feel only a very small percentage of people would vote for someone based on how cool their website is.