Old-fashioned politicking
The truth is, no matter how much new technology comes running into our lives and no matter how many mountaintops the tech evangelists find to shout from, politics -- the kind of old-fashioned, gotta-get-more-votes-than-the-other-guy politics -- really does not change.
Voters depend fundamentally on two things to make their decisions. First, they want to know the candidate is a human being they can relate to and would even invite home to dinner with their family. Think about Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton versus Bob Dole and John Kerry. Second, voters look for cures from those people they know and trust. This might be their minister, their local labor president, their spouse, their co-workers, or even (Heaven help us) a celebrity like Oprah Winfrey or Charlton Heston.
The dot-commers in the late 90s traveled to DC insisting that EVERYTHING was going to change and that those Luddite senators, congressmen, and especially the back-room-cigar-chomping-money-grubbing POLITICAL CONSULTANTS would know that the train hit them only when they looked back and saw the caboose on its way down the track. Ooops. Didn't happen. Al Gore and George Bush and John Kerry still had massive campaigns going door-to-door with clipboards, held campaign rallies and rubber chicken fundraising dinners, and good old-fashioned call-me-at-dinner phonebanks never stopped running.
Disintermediation / Giving more voices more outlets
On the other hand, this YouTube thing and technology in general has truly democratized the power of communication and information in politics. Howard Dean's presidential campaign manager Joe Trippi talks about "disintermediation", which may in fact be the truly revolutionary thing about technology. If you assume that information is power and you want to accumulate power (what good DC politico does not?), then getting and hording information is your pathway. The Internet has disrupted this whole thing. Access to elected officials is easier because of telephones (once a new technology itself), the Internet, well-read political blogs, citizen journalists researching and spreading data, and the occasional Macaca who chases a Virginia U.S. Senator around until he says something just plain stupid and ignorant helping cost the poor fellow his seat.
Journalists vs. people
There are differences and advantages in having regular folks ask questions rather than journalists. This is true for a regular, in-person town hall as well. For example, one journalist on CNN actually admitted that there are questions that he would never ask a presidential candidate, though he knows that regular folks might ask them. (When pressed to offer an example, the reporter declined! What are they afraid of?)
Participation
Finally and perhaps most importantly, the CNN-YouTube debate provides something that is essential to a thriving democracy -- a way to participate and a belief that citizens will be heard. Whether citizens have this opportunity because of a novel use of new technology or because they simply feel like the system is responding, the CNN-YouTube debate is great for the process.
What's one of the really amazing stories? It's not that Clinton the Democratic "frontrunner" raised about $10 million less than Obama the "challenger" in the last three months or that McCain the Republican "frontrunner" is in third place in fundraising for his party. (Well, those are pretty neat.)
The story technophiles should celebrate and fear is how the Internet has enabled such an extraordinary, incredible, surprising increase in dollars collected compared to the outrageously expensive 2000 and 2004 nominating cycles. The Internet has created a new paradigm, connecting once dormant activists to politics and telling them how important money is to victory. Campaigns have mastered the Internet to reach these otherwise hard to reach small givers (those who pay $10, $25, $150). Before John McCain in 2000 and Howard Dean in 2004 showed that the information highway was paved with gold, Republicans and Democrats relied almost entirely on direct mail to reach these smaller donors. The big rubber chicken fundraising events with Barbara Streisand and Clint Black were only for those could pay $1,000 or more.
There were no cheap seats. But now, just about anyone can get in. On the one hand, there are more people voting with their pocketbook AND their ballot. On the other, it's just more money in a process already full of it.
The details are below, but take this one point as proof of the huge gap that the Internet has created between 2000 & 2004 and the beginning of this 2008 election cycle:
- Al Gore raised a TOTAL of $43 million to oust former Senator Bill Bradley (starting in 1999 and going through the Democratic National Convention in August 2000)
- John Kerry raised a TOTAL of $31 million to get rid or Dean, Clark, Gephardt, & Sharpton (from the beginning of 2003 through February 2004)
- Now in only two quarters in the year before the election Clinton has banked $63 million while Obama has collected $58.3 million and Republican leader Mitt Romney has deposited $43.9 million.
Let me restate that for those of you keeping score at home:
Gore 2000: $43 million in 6 quarters
Kerry 2004: $31 million in 5 quarters
Clinton 2008: $63 million in 2 quarters
Obama '08: $58.3 million in 2 quarters
Romney '08: 43.9 million in 2 quarters
Here are even more details for you junkies ...
2000 Nomination Season (1999 Q1 - 2000 National Convention)
Bush $ 94 million
Gore $ 43 million
2004 Nomination Season (2003 Q1 - 2004 National Convention)
Bush $ 257 million
Kerry $ 215 million ($24 million thru 1/31/04, $31 million thru 2/28/04, $74.7 million thru 3/31/04, and so on)
Dean $ 53 million
Edwards $ 33.6 million
Clark $ 29.5 million
Gephardt $ 21.5 million
2008 Season (2007 Q1 + 2007 Q2)
Clinton $ 63 million
Obama $ 58.3 million
Edwards $ 23 million
*
Romney $ 43.9 million
Giulani $ 33.6 million
McCain $ 24.2 million
To make a little more sense of these numbers and why I focused only on the nomination season, here is a primer on raising money to run for president. Candidates begin raising in January of the year before the general election. So Bush and Gore started in January of 1999 for the 2000 general election; Kerry and Bush started in January of 2003 for 2004; and all the candidates now running started only six months ago for 2008. Traditionally, candidates quit raising money at their national convention in the summer of the general election year . That's because the federal government has always paid the Democratic and Republican nominee a lump sum to run their general election campaign as long as he agrees not to raise any additional cash. (This year, however, it looks like the nominees will decline that subsidy because they believe they can raise more than the government would otherwise give them.)
* SOURCES: Federal Election Commission, OpenSecrets.org, and ABC's "The Note" (7/3/08)
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