The obscene costs of modern campaigning have been driven almost entirely by broadcast advertising, which consumes more than half of your average campaign budget. But even the people who make ads for a living now admit that they are losing their mystical hold over the electorate. This isn’t so much a political phenomenon as a societal one. As a New York ad executive recently told The New York Times, “The dirty secret is, people have been avoiding commercials, bad commercials in particular, for a very long time.”...Great.
In this new world, the most effective political ad makers may be amateurs like Phil de Vellis, the Internet consultant who recently took it upon himself to make a powerful pro-Obama ad, based on a famous Apple spot from 1984, that portrayed Hillary Clinton as Big Brother....
[T]he emerging high-tech marketplace may yet bring us closer to what decades of federal campaign regulations have failed to achieve: a day when candidates can afford to spend less time obsessing over the constant need for cash and more time concerned with the currency of their ideas.
But will the shift really be to ideas? What sorts of ideas will help you win under the new conditions? Blogs and YouTube chew over all sorts of cute little nuggets -- odd quotations, gaffes, images. It's likely to be just as shallow as old-style advertising, but wild and strange and completely uncontrollable.
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That's an excellent article! I am glad that the broadcast/money era is coming to an end. (Honestly, I can't remember the last time that I watched network television other than my weekly recording of The Office, and nary a commercial.) I think that candidates will now have to work harder to appeal to analytical thinkers and reach them in their online niches. Blogging and online sharing have, in a sense, given America back to those who are actually interested (activists, intellectuals). But, like Bai said, it's still classist in that not everyone has access to online content or can fast-forward past campaign ads. However, many people now opt for the Internet over television for news and hot issues, and even entertainment. We like the freedom of choosing our own content and voicing our views instead of having someone else's fed to us. Candidates sense that they are answerable, that it's not one-sided like broadcasting was. Blogging is an excellent vehicle for that. Online sharing and commentary are where it's at. Good luck to candidates' PR to find the key to most widely publicize. I'll bet that places like YouTube and well-read blogs will be important in this campaign.
Much ado has been made about the internet money raised by candidates especially Dean. Thousands of small internet contributions still don't make up for hundreds of $4,000 dondations. Just look at the last reports- Hillary or Obama got 80% of their dough from 10% of donors. So who is kidding who about influence shifting to small donors. Their aggregate donations amount to little more than lunch money.
However, the main impact of the internet is it has made available almost without limit , video and soundtracks that are not flattering. Just look at the stuff out there on Bush, Hillary, or Edwards combing his hair.
The internet is slowly reducing the influence and power of large political parties and traditional power-brokers to ram through their chosen candidates. And it will decimate the ranks of incumbents by showing they don't do get anything done.
Lastly, I can't tell from the title of Bai's book, but is his discussion limited to the Democratic party?
Another thing that Bai is right about -- campaigning will get every bit as ugly and petty on the Internet as it has in other media. To be frank, people haven't seen real mudslinging and ugliness yet as they will in blogs and vlogs in this upcoming campaign. I kind of feel sorry in advance for the candidates. May the purest survive that trial by fire!
"But will the shift really be to ideas? What sorts of ideas will help you win under the new conditions?"
No. It will shift to perfecting lies. One party favors individual responsibility, a freer-market and a strong national defense. The other party favors social responsibility, a more regulated market and deference to international security coalitions. One third of the voters are aligned with one party; another third aligned to the other party, and the last third doesn't have the first clue as to what it thinks or in what it believes. Both parties will chase this last third with coded, nonsensical bromides such as "markets with a conscience" or "socialism with opportunity" in hopes of securing votes.
Democracy in the U.S. ultimately fails because that political culture requires both informed consent AND equilibrium between rights and responsibilities. Our current culture is dangerously out of balance, as too many of us are too ill-informed to meaningfully consent to much of anything, and demand freebies, like health care, as if it were someone else's job to provide for us. It is not sustainable.
The blogosphere has clearly given rise to the Libertarian party, I think. I think that party is growing with the systematic loss of individual rights, and it's one to be reckoned with this election. Take it from a libertarian. :)
The soap opera horse race, the only mode the MSM knows, isn't aimed at normal people. It's aimed at soap opera women, which is the MSM target demographic, that being the only one that they can attract and hold daily, and hence the only one that can pay the bills when they're sold to advertisers.
They're a big voting bloc, so it isn't going to go away. Probably it's the best reason not to let women vote, just to clean up public debate.
It's only 40% of women, not even a majority, but too many.
Blogs at least give the other 80% of the population someplace to escape to for relief. Possibly even issues are discussed occasionally.
rhhardin: "Probably it's the best reason not to let women vote, just to clean up public debate."
So there are other reasons, in your opinion, not to let women vote? I'd be interested to hear them.
It will be a matter of figuring how to press the public's buttons better than current advertisers do. (There's no time in a sound bite to do much more than press a button.) Presumably, even we sophisticates in the blogsphere have "buttons" -- the irony button, the "surprise me" button, the hip cultural reference button. We're suckers for the articulate -- Obama is in fact unusually articulate, whether he is being substantive or not, and listening to him makes YOU feel smart.
Tim said a mouthful, by the way.
I think it is more amazing that we constantly elect people to office who require more and more money to win. Then we expect them to have the country live within its means when they get there and the only thing they know how to do is raise more money to solve the problem.
I would suggest giving each pres. candidate a limit. say 20,000,000 and telling them to run their entire campaign from that. no extra money..just live within your means and campaign within your means. no PACS not target ads, not nothing like that.
Sheeesh
hdhouse -- what a cool idea! Too bad the consitution would rule it out..."the pursuit of happiness" (er, power for some) and all. :/
That's another in a long line of stupid ideas, hd. There are a lot of people who are 35 or older and born as citizens who would take you up on that offer. I certainly would.
Please explain to us how limiting campaign expenditures by candidates themselves is not a facial violation of First Amendment rights.
Politics is dirty and it's expensive. It's very much a business as well. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. The only way to manage the filth is to absolutely require candidates to report their expenditures and their revenues. Who is giving the money? Where is it going?
If people are content with how a candidate gets and spends money, fine. If a candidate lies about it, they don't get to hold office.
7 nachos.....again you amaze me for your sheer lack of an ability to think. it just must be horrible, when confronted with something that isn't just black and white to go into some amorphous haze. its like all the blood rushes from your teeny tiny brain and all your cells die at once. I truly believe you are, well, how can i put this kindly, everything that the world sees when they see a underachieving American braindead asshole.
let's try this again: we entrust the running of our nation's fiscal affairs to people who, right from the getgo, demonstrate that their only method for campaigning is raising more money. They can't meet a budget or a set spend during their run for office and we expect them, when elected, to run the country when the only thing they know how to do is raise more money to address a problem.
Now what isn't it that you don't get? What irony don't you see?
Damn, you are such a nearsighted jerk. You take all the fun out of being smarter than you.
Right, hd. Which is why I'm sure you support any number of large government programs spending lots of money to solve problems. Starting with facially unconstitutional campaign finance reform.
I find, as a rule, that when people avoid your questions and instead criticize your intelligence, that you've won the argument in a landslide.
Anyway, hd, about the constitutional problems with your dazzlingly brilliant suggestion...
Not to mention that hd's structure is a bit clumsy:
that their only method for campaigning is raising more money
Can you be more precise, hd? method for campaigning? What is that sentence supposed to mean?
Phil de Vellis was no amateur, but it's too late for that fact to register, as truthiness rules.
HD Houses' suggestion is interesting. So lets stipulate the constitutional objections. Seems to me that something like that might not be a bad approach.
The downsides, it seems to me, are more for contributors, advertisers, networks, and pundits who wouldnt be able to do their inane spinning after a debate. The American public wouldnt be treated to the spectacle of attack ads, sound bites, and speeches masquerading as debates.
The more I think about it, I don't say all that many downsides!
The blogosphere has clearly given rise to the Libertarian party, I think. I think that party is growing with the systematic loss of individual rights, and it's one to be reckoned with this election.
The Libertarian Party peaked in popularity in 1980, with 1.1% of the vote. The last three elections it received 0.50% ('96), 0.36% ('00), and 0.34% ('04).
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