The US election goes online*

Emmanuel Dunand ©Newspix

Many would be aware that the United States presidential election of 2008, scheduled for Tuesday, November 4, 2008, will be the first time in history that two sitting senators will run against each other President. It will be the first time in more than 50 years that neither the incumbent President nor incumbent Vice President is a candidate in the general election, and the first time since 1928 election in which neither an incumbent president nor an incumbent vice president ran for their party's nomination in the presidential election. We also have the first African American candidate to be nominated by the Democratic party.

But those who are interested in the increasing convergence of technology into politics, the 2008 US Presidential election race, has produced the following “internet firsts”:

· Three of the Democratic candidates, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama declared their candidacies online;

· Online fundraising records have been shattered. Obama raised more money in January online than Howard Dean (former Democratic candidate) raised in his entire 2003-2004 campaign (he raised a total of US$27 million).More than 1.5 million people have donated to Obama’s campaign alone;

· Presidential candidates responded to questions in debates through online videos;

· Presidential candidates now recruit supporters online through social networking sites like Facebook; and

· The most popular political video for the 2008 US Presidential campaign, was not developed by either the Democratic nor Republican party, nor any particular interest group. It was developed by a group of individuals online, and has been seen by around 9 million viewers - ‘Obama girl’.

Put simply, American politics has been transferred to internet politics. As people increasingly live their lives online, they expect more transparency, responsiveness and believe in a sense of community not defined by borders.

According to the Pew/Internet report into the 2008 Presidential election, a record-breaking 46 percent of Americans have used the internet, email or mobile phone text messaging to get news about the campaign, share their views and mobilise others. And Barack Obama's supporters have an edge in the online political environment.
Two-thirds of internet users under the age of 30 have a social networking profile, and half of these use social networking sites to get or share information about politics or the campaigns.

Of interest, Obama supporters outpaced Clinton and McCain supporters in their usage of online video, social networking sites and other online campaign activities.
Yet despite the growth in the number of people who are politically engaged online, internet users express some ambivalence about the role of the internet in the campaign.

The 2008 Pew/Internet report observed that many feel that the internet magnifies the most extreme viewpoints and is a source of misinformation for many voters.

That said, in the United States, Markos Zuniga, and his blog Daily Kos (www.dailykos.com) drew 600,000 readers a day during the 2004 Presidential elections, more than all but a few daily newspapers in the entire country. These and many other bloggers are courted by members of Congress and the US Senate, as they are seen to influence public opinion.

The challenge for online political campaigning will be the middle ground or centre - the ability to capture and influence what Australians would call ‘swing voters’ and the once so-called ‘Howard battlers’ now re-labelled ‘working families’ by the Rudd Government, or as the Americans would like to say ‘independents’ and ‘Reagan Democrats.’

Sassoon Grigorian

*Published in the Canberra Times, 28 July 2008