Presidential Announcements v2.0

by Brian Reich | 21 Jan 2007, 2:00am

I had this really long, eloquent post written about how all the candidates are using the web to launch their political campaigns.   I hit the wrong button and the whole thing was lost.   I won’t try to reconstruct the entire thing, but let me try and summarize a couple of the key points.

John Edwards announced his campaign for the Presidency with a web video.   Barack Obama used a web video a few weeks later to do the same.   And now  Hillary Clinton, who announced her intention to run for President on Saturday, has used a video on her Website to break the news.   It seems you can’t be a candidate for President - at least not a Democratic candidate - without launching your campaign on the web.   (Memo to Joe Biden and Bill Richardson, who announced their candidacy’s on the Sunday Morning Talk Shows — you might want to check to make sure your announcement registered at all, or consider posting the video of your appearance on YouTube to make sure people take it seriously).

Both the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post used Senator Clinton’s announcement to analyze the role that the web will play in the upcoming campaign.   The LA Times offers a brief history of the highs and lows of internet campaigns over the past decade, writing:

The Internet’s power both to make and break politicians has been vividly demonstrated in recent years.

In 2004, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean jumped from political obscurity to grab the front-runner’s position in the initial stages of the Democratic race largely on the strength of the interest and fundraising he generated online.

Last year, Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) watched his reelection campaign — and his hopes of emerging as a prime contender for the GOP presidential nomination — go down in flames after a video clip of him addressing a young man of Indian descent as “macaca” made the rounds on the Web.

Barely a factor in campaigning 11 years ago when Clinton’s husband won reelection as president, the Internet has become an integral part of the political landscape, with every major candidate fielding a website and seeking to create a virtual community around his — or her — campaign.

But with the recent advent of YouTube and other video-sharing sites, analysts said the most intriguing aspect of the evolving use of the Web may be as part of an immense game of political “gotcha,” in which campaigns seek to catch opposing candidates off-guard and off-message, as happened to Allen.

By contrast, the Washington Post took more of an editorial stance on what makes for good web video in Politics, offering this comparison Clinton, Obama, and Edwards:here) and has posted his announcement video to YouTube and other places.   He has  a MySpace page, a Facebook profile, etc.   He’s following the new media playbook pretty much to all the way.   We will have to wait and see how that works for him.

Unlike other candidates (coughBarack Obamacough), whose videos might have been produced by a guy with a cellphone camera, Clinton’s announcement was a veritable showpiece of Hollywood-style set design, lighting and cinematography. While Clinton, looking radiant in a red jacket and flattering makeup, affected the demeanor of a kaffe-klatching neighbor while speaking about the Iraq war, energy, Social Security and health care, the camera swung with pen dular subtlety between a background tableaux of framed family pictures and a fabulous table lamp exuding a warm glow. In fact, the background is so eye-catching, so crowded with totemic details, so bursting with semiotic potential, that I missed whole passages of Clinton’s statement the first time around. (And yes, I do want that lamp.)

The effect was one of breathtaking political shrewdness and brilliant staging, like a mash-up between “The West Wing” and Diane Keaton’s latest holiday heartwarmer. And for all its studied spontaneity, its air of having been pre-tested, choreographed, and managed to within a microfiber of Clinton’s mascara, it worked, if only to provide a little eye candy within a grainy sea of canned speeches and awkward iChats. The aesthetic sophistication suited Clinton, who, as a former first lady and a U.S. senator, would look hopelessly out of place in most other contexts (rocking the mom jeans in the Ninth Ward? Uh-uh. Maybe an ornate Senate office, but where’s the zazz in yet another wall of law books?), and the look and the script warmed up a woman portrayed as either an amoral ice queen or control-freaky dragon lady by her political opponents.

Three quick points: First, the novelty of launching a campaign on the web should have worn off a long time ago.   The web is not even close to being the most dynamic vehicle for delivering information anymore, politics has just been slow to embrace what virtually every major consumer brand and entertainment company in the world has been doing for the past five years.   A really nice website, a blog, or even a web video announcement is not enough.   Its time you ran a fully funded, fully supported effort online to promote your campaign - and to engage the audience that chooses to get its information there instead of through traditional news or campaign events (which are still important as well).   Second, announcing your campaign online sets all of our expectations very high that you, as a candidate, will remain committed to using the web.   John Edwards, you have already created behind-the-scenes web videos about yourself, recorded  podcast conversations about issues, and similar.   Are you going to keep doing that when you are visiting four states a day - so we can see what really happens to a person when they don’t sleep enough, eat healthy, or have  complete control over their message?   Hillary Clinton, you are taking your web efforts to the next level already,  inviting the audience to create the first guest blog post  to be published on  your site and hosting a series of live video chats with the web audience over the coming week.   Are you going to host live web-chats every week, about any topic?   Are you going to take on the large and vocal segment of the online audience who questions your policies, challenges your positions, and even insults you personally — or will your web campaign, like your offline efforts, be so highly managed and controlled that it fails to really engage people?   Finally, the media needs to find a better way to cover and express the value the web plays in this upcoming cycle than how they are currently doing it.   We have all read, time and time again, what a big impact the web is playing and will continue to play in politics.   Its time  to assign a full time, daily reporter to cover each campaign’s online efforts.   It is time to hold the campaigns accountable for what they say will be an online, grassroots fueled effort and  put the same scrutiny on their web efforts as you do on their fundraising, their television ads, their speeches, and — even in some  cases, their clothing.   Just as you have pushed increasing resources into covering traditional news through the online medium, now its time to recognize that the online efforts of a presidential campaign are also news and cover them accordingly.

It should be an exciting couple of years for those of us who live, work, and love the online medium.   I will definitely be watching to see what happens.   I hope the political world realizes the potential that it has to reach and engage the audience before and lives up to its end of the bargain.

Update: I wasn’t totally fair to Bill Richardson.   He has a very nice website (

TAGS : Barack Obama Blogging Campaign Web Review Clips and Tips Commentary Free Advice Hillary Clinton John Edwards Journalism Los Angeles Times politics Technology Washington Post