Internet & Democracy Blog

This morning at the Internet and Politics conference in Cambridge we’re having a fascinating, and surprisingly frank, discussion with representatives from the McCain and Obama online campaign staff; likely because its under Chatham House rule, so no names or direct quotes below.

First the McCain Team:
They argue that the web strategy is what kept McCain alive when he was left for dead in 2007. It was critical during what was really three campaigns for them (early on when he had tons of support/money, then the phase where they went from hundreds of staff to a handful, then after he became nominee.)

Republicans believe that YouTube was a huge help for them in getting their message out. They really liked a totally in-house produced video about John McCain’s record of service. They believe that it helped to define McCain in the terms that the he wanted.

They also report that the Internet responsible for 1/3 of all money raised in primary.

This campaign was a David and Goliath story according to Republicans. They argue that they did more with less; but next time they’d rather be in Obama’s shoes–with lots of resources and lots of people.

McCain didn’t keep bloggers at a distance like Obama did. Bloggers and conservative blogosphere hugely important to the McCain comeback according to his e-campaign folks. They say McCain loved the conference calls and outreach that he had with conservative bloggers. Loved their questions; loved the whole thing. This seems like an under-reported story to me. Not entirely surprising given McCain ‘straight-talk’ approach.

They said they had a different audience online and on YouTube. I’d imagine that’s a big reason why they were less successful was because their supporters, and their candidate was older and less likely to use the Internet.

They argue that pro-Sarah Palin blogs and grass roots activism around her was totally organic. The Palin google search/optimization strategy was one of their biggest spends, but there really was a groundswell of organic support around her that really re-energized the campaign. They in no way saw her as a drag on the ticket.

And now to the Obama folks:

Define their role as tapping the huge grass roots network that was out there for Obama and putting them into a larger organization. They argued that there was a lot of people already excited and waiting to help. Leadership in campaign said that having a successful online strategy was critical because the party establishment was behind Hillary. Also sounds like they had a good management team.

Interesting to hear the words they use to describe the campaign as work place: values and ethos around candidate, creativity encouraged, told what to do but not how to do it, expertise of teams valued.

They noted that the campaign had a Chief Technology Officer in the campaign, who was very customer oriented, where ‘customers’ were the rest of the campaign.

Online and offline distinction is false. Democrats saw the IT piece as an integral part of a larger goal. It was their challenge to use technology to make the jobs of everyone else in the campaign and the field easier and more efficient. This seems to be in contrast to the McCain online reps who had more specific online and offline. According to one partipant, the McCain folks also outsourced a lot of their work.

They argued that Mybarackobama.com site had a broad demographic. It was designed for the entire network, not just for ‘kids’ on facebook or other online campaign networks. Listservs on ‘MyBO’ was the frontline in field network.

They advise that people should not freak out about negative attack videos or other online content created by users or professional campaign folks. One argued that the mainstream media had evolved in their thinking about online content about Obama, and there was a cultural evolution about it more broadly in society. Media realized that not everything about Obama online is official.

Use of YouTube: best cases of their use was as a distribution vehicle for mobilizing offline action. Learned a lot about how to use YouTube. Did a lot of in-depth profiles of stories, as opposed to about Obama. Created over 1800 videos, which meant that almost every type of person in the country could find someone with a story just like them.

Interesting that they said young people don’t use email compared to older voters. So facebook was huge for reaching and organizing those young people within smaller social networks.

In sum, seems like the two campaigns took different approaches to online campaigns. The McCain campaign seems to have focused on messaging and getting information out about their candidate. The Obama team seems to have focused on mobilization of supporters, creating a movement, and getting volunteers to do work for the candidate.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 
•