For a look at one of the real stories of the 2008 campaign, check out this NY Times article about attempts by the top Democratic presidential campaigns to cut back on the amount of money siphoned off by political consultants, bringing them more in line with their Republican opposites. In the past few election cycles, Democratic consultants have generally taken a percentage of television ad buys rather than a flat fee, creating an obvious conflict of interest when it comes to determining how a campaign should spend its money. Though the article doesn’t mention it, Howard Dean has criticized this practice repeatedly since he became DNC chair. The online revolution is wrapped up in the issue, in part because of the rise of the web as an alternate message-distribution channel:
But the bigger change may come as the Web redefines the entire media world. John Brabender, a Republican consultant who is working for Rudolph W. Giuliani’s presidential campaign, said that 5 percent to 10 percent of advertising expenses were already going to the Web. And Mr. Trippi, who helped pioneer the use of online fund-raising during Mr. Dean’s campaign, said the Edwards campaign had produced attack videos for the Web for as little as $800, a tiny fraction of what it costs to create and broadcast a television commercial.
Though of course we should note that online videos aren’t intrusive in the way that TV ads are, and so aren’t a true substitute mechanism for reaching the uncommitted and/or marginally interested. But, political campaigns have generally lagged behind the commercial advertising world in the percentage of money spent online, and removing consultants’ bias toward TV ads should help bring more balance to the system. Also, as online donations bring a larger group of small donors into the process, they’re going to demand that their money be well spent if campaigns want more of it.
– cpd
December 24th, 2007
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Is the former President Clinton supporting Obama instead of Hillary? Time to sleep on the couch again! Or so an online trickster would have us believe — the owners of the domain names presidentbillclinton.com and williamclinton.com have redirected them to the official Obama website and also sent around an email to promote their actions. I got the message overnight but frankly found it somewhat opaque and had filed it to look at later, but I’ll reprint it here for your enlightenment instead. For more details, see Chadwick Matlin’s piece in Slate’s Trailhead column.
– cpd
December 24th, 2007
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With many of our online colleagues taking the holiday week off, it’s time for e.politics — temporarily ensconced deep in the Piney Woods of East Texas while measuring the Pulse Of The Heartland — to take up the slack. And maybe to finish off a few articles that have been screaming for conclusion for weeks.
But first, let’s connect some dots international-style, with a nod to the globalization instincts of How The World Works. What does a European rocket launch from Guiana have to do with the rise of global people power? When an Ariane 5 boosts an African communications satellite into orbit, plenty. The Rascom consortium — dig the animated intro with an excellent backing track — aims to bring new digital communications access to telecom companies and internet service providers across this tragically most unwired of continents.
And based on a Netsquared presentation from Kim Lowery of Kabissa back in September, they should see plenty of demand. Among other things, she talked about how people in one small town, lacking a ‘net connection, would type out emails and give them on disk to a car owner who would drive them weekly to the nearest city (hours away) and send them to the wider world, returning later with the replies. THAT’S being hungry for communications.
Political implications? In countries where even the basics of government spending are closely held secrets, information that we in the industrialized world take for granted can be revolutionary (remember Google Earth and Bahraini corruption?). For a hint of the new potential, see this Post piece on modern campaign tools’ spread to Kenya (note that Dick Morris unfortunately went along for the ride). And while cell phones are still much more common than computers in the Third World, the tubes are coming: I got my first look this weekend at the one-laptop-per-child XO machine, courtesy of my father, who’s taken advantage of the give-one/get-one holiday offer (my brother and his IBM-Linux-guru wife have done the same). The user interface seems clunky, but the wifi works and the next generation of the software promises to be much more straightforward. Just you wait until these little critters and their descendents overrun the globe….
– cpd
December 24th, 2007
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