The Modern Campaign: on the Bleeding Edge?

Is the American political process ready for Web 2.0?

Depends on who you talk to.  Social networking, easy-to-upload video, and rich internet applications have become buzzwords in the 21st-century internet technology field.  So which Minnesota candidates are doing what with Web 2.0?

It may be telling that a significant foray into Web 2.0 technologies by a major political campaign was noticed first by technology writers instead of their political counterparts.  But nevertheless, that’s the case of Al Franken’s event map.  Instead of a simple list of events, perhaps a drill-down page with more information about each one, the map allows users looking for more information to use an intuitive graphical interface to find events near them. 

Franken staffer Andy Barr said, “We’re going to be asking a lot of our supporters in the coming months in terms of time, energy, and resources.  So whenever possible, we try to make sure that we offer people the opportunity to feel involved and invested.  A website that allows folks out there to connect with Al and with our campaign is a big part of that.”

The campaign of fellow DFL Senate candidate Mike Ciresi has also been engaged on the major social networking sites.  Ciresi staffer Andy Pieper indicated that in addition to Flickr and YouTube usage, “we’ve built an official Facebook group, and we’ve incorporated an unofficial Ciresi for Senate Facebook group that was started before our entrance into the race by others unaffiliated with the campaign. Facebook has (finally) incorporated 2008 candidates into its US Politics application, so now Mike is an official Facebook candidate with a following of supporters.”

Several campaigns did not respond to requests for information on their advanced Internet activities.  One DFL campaign indicates an upcoming website redesign, but could not comment on other internet initiatives still under wraps.  Several Google Ads have appeared on political sites with the headline “Franken for Senate?” which directs users to ColemanForSenate.com; however, beyond MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube links, Coleman’s otherwise clean and flashy website contains few if any indications of other Web 2.0 projects.

Which begs the question:  if so few campaigns are using them, what do these technologies gain for their users?  Pieper noted of the Ciresi campaign that “while the Web has increasingly played a bigger and bigger role in campaign toolboxes, the most proven tactic for garnering support is plain old direct voter contact.”  Independently, Barr agreed:  “This is a real grassroots campaign – Al [Franken] told us at the outset that he wanted to reach every corner of the state and work with as many people as possible to change the direction of our country.” 

So while modern campaigns recognize that these technologies can help their causes, those campaigns are not using them as central parts of their voter outreach, fund raising, and field operations — not externally, at least.  In the notoriously risk-averse field of political campaigning, there seems to be a measurable benefit to letting new technologies become established and then integrating them into a campaign structure instead of being “on the bleeding edge” of internet technology advances.