December 9th, 2007
The Web campaign is about everything but control
It’s a little hard to follow but Matt Bai’s piece in the NYT Magazine argues that the real power of web campaigning is in giving up control.
Howard Dean’s web explosion happened not because his staff knew how to create the energy but because they knew how to get out of the way when the magic happened. Ditto for Ron Paul:
How else to explain the notable online surge of support for Ron Paul, the onetime standard-bearer of the Libertarian Party? Unlike his main opponents, Paul himself didn’t have the resources to build a sophisticated Web campaign, but antiwar and antispending Republicans were happy to do it for him.
Check out YouTube subscribers to various campaigns. Paul has more than three times as many as Obama, who in turn has twice as many as Clinton. As hard as Edwards has tried to be an Internet candidate, his YouTube numbers put him below Dennis Kucinich.
As for Obama, his campaign is certainly using online avenues for fundraising and organizing but how do they deal with Obama Girl?
Meanwhile, those candidates who have amassed roomfuls of well-paid online experts have frequently found themselves buffeted or embarrassed (or sometimes both at once) by mysterious forces outside their grasp.
What about Hillary (”Let the Conversation Begin”) Clinton? Her staff apparently has planted questions in online forums in an attempt to control the “conversation.”
Bottom line, says Bai, candidates need to learn to “fall backwards and hope to be carried aloft.”
