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Obama used Net effectively

By Jeff Smith, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published November 10, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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The Internet played a key, transformational role in this year's election - with President-elect Barack Obama effectively using the Web for fundraising, organizing, voter-education and advertising, experts said.

Lee Rainie, project director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, said it is impossible to say whether the use of the Internet resulted in a larger voter turnout. Or, to what an extent it contributed to Obama's victory.

But, Rainie said, the Internet changed politics by integrating itself more fully into everyday activities.

"Particularly with the Obama campaign, it worked seamlessly with other things he was doing - fundraising, his social-networking operation, mobilization (of volunteers)," Rainie said.

Experts have said John McCain's core supporters weren't necessarily the types to spend time on social-networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. But McCain was credited for effectively using the Internet as a way to attract media attention, such as through a series of videos posted on his campaign's Web site and YouTube.

Julie Barko Germany, director of George Washington University's Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet, said the Internet played an integral role in Obama's "ground game" of organizing volunteers district by district, state by state.

"In fact, it functioned as a central nervous system for all the campaign's organizing efforts, and it provided tools for volunteers to train themselves - and then do their own thing," Germany wrote by e-mail. "I'm reminded of a Civil War general who told his troops to 'be your own general' in battle - and that is exactly what the campaign did."

She also noted Obama's campaign "married" technology such as online videos, e-mails and text messages with face-to-face voter visits by volunteers.

She said she was struck by the number of text messages she received from the Obama campaign on Election Day itself, including one to tell her that "we just made history."

"It was a nice way to connect with voters after the big win," Germany said.

Earlier this fall, Tom Gensemer, managing partner of Blue State Digital, the Internet agency working with the Obama campaign, said that one of the most critical pieces was Obama's "neighbor-to-neighbor" online tool for identifying and persuading undecided voters through door-knocking by a volunteer or a timely phone call.

This reporter, registered as an independent, got more automated calls from McCain supporters during the election. But I got dozens of e-mails from the Obama campaign and was visited by about a half-dozen Obama volunteers, compared to one from McCain's campaign.

During the final weekend, an Obama volunteer came knocking on my door still again. But the volunteer seemed to know I already had voted and this time was looking for my wife.

In his victory speech, Obama referred to the number of Americans who had donated as little as $5 or $10 to his campaign, donations generated from the Internet. Those donations added up and enabled Obama to raise more money than McCain and spend more on online advertising.

Obama's online ads could be seen almost everywhere during the campaign, including social-networking sites and YouTube, which didn't exist four years ago. The ads were at the top of such online newspaper sites as the Rocky Mountain News during parts of the final stretch of the election.

Andrew Lipsman, a senior analyst at comScore, tracked the online advertising during the campaign and previously had described Obama's ads as effectively building his brand of change and recruiting supporters.

"I tend to think TV ads are going to create the strongest impression," Lipsman said, but Obama's ads were effective in "getting people to join the e-mail list or the movement, donating money, helping (his campaign) build that network of people who are going to be involved."

Lipsman said one of the most interesting applications he saw toward the end of the election season was an Obama tax calculator Web site to try to counter attacks by McCain on Obama's tax policies. He said it reminded him of other Internet calculators.

TV and online ads directed people to the site - found by typing in TaxcutFacts.org or taxcut.barackobama.com.

On the site, people could type in such information as their gross income, number of dependents, filing status, mortgage balance and find out what their tax savings would be under Obama's plan vs. McCain's plan. The site also featured a 30-second YouTube video, answers to frequently asked questions and more detailed comparisons of the two tax plans.

"I think the whole digital strategy (of Obama's) from social networking sites down to the advertising was way ahead of the curve from what we've seen," Lipsman said.

He may be partial - he attended Obama's victory party at Grant Park in Chicago and afterward walked 45 minutes back to his apartment.

Rainie said Obama essentially found new and interesting ways to do very old things. E-mail continued to be a powerful tool, as it has been for a decade.

But Rainie said online video became a much more central aspect to the campaign than ever before, reflecting how the Internet has moved from largely a text-based experience to one where text, video and audio work together.

"Social networking had its coming-out moment in 2008," Rainie said, with Obama's "myBo" social-networking application promoting tens of thousands of campaign events. Obama also connected to such popular social networking sites as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and more specialized ones as MiGente.com, BlackPlanet.com and AsianAve.com.

Rainie said the trend promises to be even more powerful in 2010 and 2012 as "we learn how to build social networking into our lives."

He said he expects the same for the Internet's role in politics in general because the Web constantly is evolving through innovation.

"It's safe to say the Internet story is not over," Rainie said.

Comments

  • November 10, 2008

    4:48 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    HilltownUSA writes:

    Actually, it was a confrontational question (from Dr. André Action Diakité Jackson) that urged me to cast my vote for Senator Obama.
    ________________________________

    Dr. Jackson's comments were:

    "THE QUESTION that EVERY U.S. registered voter should be asking themselves before entering that voting booth on Nov. 4th is:
    Which VICE-PRESIDENTIAL candidate would I feel most comfortable with assuming the role of the President, if Barack Obama or John McCain failed to complete his term?"
    ________________________________

    I am certain that other undecided voters were also moved by his question.

    Congratulations, President-Elect Obama!