Web Watch: United States Presidential Hopefuls Look to Web for Voters

By Bill Law

More interestingly still, their campaign contains a few lessons for business in the fields of presentation, style, sales, marketing and interaction with the customer or, in this case, the voter.

Jon Henke, new media director for the Republican Communications Office in the US Senate, says Republicans have got into the game late (see his contribution to the Q and O blog on this subject at www.qando.net/de tails.aspx?Entry=5169).

Henke describes the web and associated media as the new political battleground. This is no exaggeration. So far the Republicans have failed to build up online communities and have missed the opportunity to gather e-mail addresses to assist with targeted campaigning.

Meanwhile, one of the Democratic candidates, Barak Obama, is unmatched when it comes to creating a profile on social networking sites like Facebook (www.facebook.com) and MySpace (www.myspace.com).

As for raising funds, the Democrat trio of Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards brought in more than $$14m in online contributions during the first quarter of this year, compared with the $$6m collected by Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney, the Republican contenders.

So what’s responsible for the difference?

Well, it’s largely the result of the same phenomenon that made the social networking sites such a hit. Grassroots activists have joined with their official counterparts to create a bottom-up momentum among internet users.

The Republicans, on the other hand, have tended to favour a top- down approach. Where the Republicans win hands-down is in the radio talk show market, but that can hardly be classified as new media.

Incidentally, the candidates – as usual in American elections – are fighting not just the opposing party but also each other in the contest to win the nomination. This, too, has led to some quite tough exchanges on the web.

Take a look, for example, at a video posted on YouTube – www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h3 G-lMZxjo. It depicts Hillary Clinton in a less than flattering light, and was created by an Obama supporter using images from an Apple Mac commercial. The Clinton camp hit back, but by then it was too late.

Another new development in this campaign is party activists turning up with video cameras at rallies organised by their opponents in the hope of capturing a slip of the tongue or other embarrassing incident.

This tactic cost Republican Senator George Allen his seat last year, when he made a controversial comment at a campaign event.

While a video on YouTube changed the course of the vote in that case, it is unlikely to cause a similar upset in the more highly polished Presidential contest.

Where it can make a difference, of course, is in levelling the playing field between those with huge funding and the candidates with smaller financial reserves. Barak Obama is the perfect example, given that his campaign bank balance is much smaller than that of Mrs Clinton.

The Republican candidate Mitt Romney has similarly latched on to the need to embrace the internet (just search for his name on www.google.com to find a campaign website, a MySpace page and hundreds of other resources).

When he announced his decision to enter the race, the only people invited to record it for the media were two bloggers.

He has also signed up Matt Rhoades, a communication specialist who, together with Matt Drudge (http://drudgereport. com), inflicted damage on Senator John Kerry’s presidential campaign in 2004.

As if that were not enough, he has also started offering podcasts.

In politics as in business, what you do online can help you punch well above your weight.

Bill Law has 30 years’ experience in IT, and works in the industry for Fujitsu Services in Northern Ireland. The opinions expressed are his own and not necessarily those of Fujitsu Services. He can be contacted at Bill.H.Law@uk.fujitsu.com.

(c) 2007 Belfast Telegraph. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.