Flickring Here, Twittering There

August 25, 2008

On july 30, John McCain’s campaign released an anti-Barack Obama advertisement on the McCain YouTube channel. The ad compared Obama’s celebrity to that of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. It had been viewed 2 million times, TV and newspapers had taken it up, a bikini-clad Paris had launched a spirited riposte and it was still the most viewed clip on the McCain channel. In reply, Obama’s campaign launched ‘Low Road Express’, a website that mocked McCain’s reputation for straight talk. Late last month, the Republican National Committee launched ‘Obama Audacity Watch’, to track less-than-glowing stories and clips about him.

Last year, seven of the 16 major presidential contenders kicked off their campaigns online. Andrew Rasiej, a former Howard Dean adviser and founder of Personal Democracy Forum, a website and annual conference that explores the relationship between politics and technology, thinks the internet will change not only campaigns, but also democracy itself. He points to Utah’s Politicopia, an open wiki (a collaborative website where content is added or modified) through which citizens can influence the legislature.

This changed the way campaigns are organised. Using social-networking tools, Ron Paul’s supporters generated a ‘money bomb’—$6 million in one day, shattering the previous record. Huck’s Army, an online network of Mike Huckabee’s supporters, rallied 12,000 campaign volunteers. Both networks meant that Paul and Huckabee stayed in the race a lot longer than they might otherwise have done.

Obama took it another step, raising more money—seen in real time—from the grassroots than any campaign ever. In June alone, he raised a near-record $52 million, of which $31 million were donations of $200 or less. Arianna Huffington, co-founder of the Huffington Post, says that he has ‘succeeded in translating what was happening online to getting the vote out’. Obama has 1.3 million supporters on Facebook, a popular social-networking site; John McCain has only about 2,00,000. The Democrat is using Twitter, a social-networking and micro-blogging service featuring instant messaging (each answer, or ‘twit’, is limited to 140 characters). By signing up to Obama’s twitters, the campaign at once signs up to yours.

This, says Rasiej, proves that Obama ‘understands the DNA of the internet’. McCain frankly admits he doesn’t. But this may not matter, says Patrick Ruffini, who worked on George Bush’s 2004 run and is co-founder of The Next Right, an online hub for centre-right activism. What matters a lot are the tactics he employs. The Republicans are beginning to raise their game to compete with Obama’s skill.

Peter Daou, Hillary Clinton’s internet director, says that YouTube, even more than Facebook or MySpace, has had a huge impact on the campaign. Will.i.am’s ode to Obama, ‘Yes we can’, has had nearly 9 million views since it was uploaded six months ago; some 1.9 million have watched the McCain Girls’ ‘Raining McCain’ over the past four months. Thousands of clips created by ordinary people have been uploaded, to be shared in blogs and often covered by traditional media too.

Both nominees have their own YouTube channels. Obama’s videos have had 52 million views, McCain’s 9.5 million. Obama’s entire 37-minute speech on race in America has been viewed 4.7 million times on YouTube. But the inflamatory sermons of his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, have also been seen by millions.

YouTube is moderating a joint Democrat and Republican contest. Each party is asking YouTube users to submit two-minute clips explaining why they will support either McCain or Obama. The winner of each will receive a trip to their party’s convention. The conventions themselves are more ‘techie’ than ever before. Twitter feeds, Facebook pages, MySpace profiles and Flickr, an online photo album, will be on offer as well as YouTube.

Texting from mobile phones is also playing a role. Some 255 million people have mobile phones in America, and about two-thirds of these, in almost every age group, use texts. On August 12, Obama sent out an email inviting supporters to sign up to receive an email or a text to be the first (or in the first few million) to know who he picks as his running mate.

Much of Obama’s support comes from members of the Millennials, the group of young people born roughly between 1978 and 1996. According to the New Politics Institute, the number of eligible millennial voters will be close to 50 million this year and about a third of all voters by 2016. About 90% of them are online, compared to 75% of all adults. Two-thirds of internet users under the age of 30 have a social-networking profile, and half of these use the sites to get information about politics or the campaigns.

Older, and historically more reliable, voters still prefer to use TV and newspapers to keep up with politics. But about 40% of all Americans get their campaign news from the internet, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Around 20% go online at least once a week to do something related to the campaign, and about 10% use social networks to get information or to become more involved. Technology has undoubtedly transformed the campaigns. It is still unclear what effect it will have on election day.