e.politics: online advocacy tools & tactics

What We Can Learn About Online Politics From the 2006 Campaign

We made it! The 2006 campaign season is dead (well, mostly), and it’s already time to dig up the bodies and see what they can teach us. Here are some lessons I’ve taken away from the last few months of online political frenzy.

The Internet is Still a Spark, Not a Firestorm

This year, YouTube and online video really came of age: a slew of campaign ads, embarrassing candidate gaffes and satirical commentary pieces ended up on the web and some were seen hundreds of thousands of times. Online video could highlight a candidate’s troubles, provide an outlet for supporters’ creative enthusiasm and even raise the profile of an otherwise obscure campaign.

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The Campaign is Dead; Long Live the Campaign

Well, the elections are over except for the wailing, moaning, gnashing of teeth and of course the recounts and lawsuits. Now it’s back to the business of actually making politics work — proposing policies, persuading people that they’re good ideas and getting them passed. This year’s electoral frenzy has popularized a whole new set of electronic communications tools, from video to social media to text messsaging, and issue advocacy campaigns are busily incorporating them into their strategies. One set of campaigns has ended, but thousands of new ones are just getting started. Coming soon: what we’ve learned this year.

– cpd

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