November 9th, 2008
The End of the Party
Does Barack Obama’s powerful use of social networking herald the end of the political party?
That’s an, um, audacious claim, but one that David Carr makes in passing in Saturday’s New York Times.
Political parties supply brand, ground troops, money and relationships, all things that Mr. Obama already owns. And his relationships are not the just traditional ties of Democrats — teachers’ unions, party faithful and Hollywood moneybags — but a network of supporters who used a distributed model of phone banking to organize and get out the vote, helped raise a record-breaking $600 million, and created all manner of media clips that were viewed millions of times. It was an online movement that begot offline behavior, including producing youth voter turnout that may have supplied the margin of victory.
The story starts with an anecdote from Marc Andressen, in which the Netscape founder meets Obama to discuss the possibilities of Web 2.0 in his run for the presidency.
“Other politicians I have met with are always impressed by the Web and surprised by what it could do, but their interest sort of ended in how much money you could raise. He was the first politician I dealt with who understood that the technology was a given and that it could be used in new ways.”
Obama has taken a cool attitude towards the press, keeping them on ice for two whole days after his election before a press conference on the work of his transition economic team. That may be because he believes he has the means to communicate directly to the electorate.
All of the Obama supporters who traded their personal information for a ticket to a rally or an e-mail alert about the vice presidential choice, or opted in on Facebook or MyBarackObama can now be mass e-mailed at a cost of close to zero. And instead of the constant polling that has been a motor of presidential governance, an Obama White House can use the Web to measure voter attitudes.
