CYBERSPACE — “One nation under Google, with video and email for all.” That’s the way Washington Post staff writer Jose Antonio Vargas describes politics in the digital age — and he’s right. The internet has changed the political landscape, allowing voters more access to candidates and their platforms than ever before.If they can wade through the flood of misinformation, disinformation and hype.
The Web also makes donating to political campaigns easier and more egalitarian. No longer are special interests with heavy coffers the only ones chipping in to elect their favorite candidates. Now the common man can contribute his hard-earned wages in small increments simply by making a few clicks on the website of his choice. According to Vargas, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama raised a combined total of $75 million online in February alone.
The effect on the body politic is not all positive, according to some observers. The Cult of the Amateur author Andrew Keen criticized the process, writing it’s “mostly hype, personality-driven, the ‘American Idol’-ization of politics.” He also said it’s ineffective, noting that for all his popularity with the online masses, Republican Ron Paul failed to snag the party’s presidential nomination.
“The problem with the internet is it’s the opposite of nuance,” Keen wrote. “It’s media with a hammer.”
However, the majority of pundits seem to believe the Web has added a new, more democratic dimension to the stodgy political arena. Obama, for example, might have remained in relative obscurity except for his deft use of the internet to propel his campaign among the youngest voters, who often spend more time in cyberspace than they do in the real world. Now, he stands a chance of overcoming the much more prominent Clinton.
As Vargas observed, “nearly 60-percent of the $193 million that Obama has raised so far in his campaign — about $112 million — came from online contributions, with 90-percent of them in amounts of $100 or less.”
“What we’re watching is an evolution away from Washington’s control, away from the power that big money and big donors used to have a monopoly on,” South Dakota Democrat and former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle told the Washington Post.
“The establishment, the power structure, the Karl Roves, are losing control of the process,” conservative Richard Viguerie added.
The danger for campaigns is that they are losing control of their messages. That happened to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, whose promising Republican presidential campaign was scuttled after a staggering collection of YouTube videos labeled him a “flip-flopper” on the issues of abortion and gay rights — in his own words.
Such incidents embody not only “the beauty [but] also the curse of the Web,” according to former Howard Dean campaign strategist Joe Trippi. “Like it or not, an army of people are working for you or against you.”
It is perhaps online that subtle differences between the two major American political parties are most evident. According to Republican political strategist Michael Turk, many Republicans consider the Web “an expensive brochure, like a slick direct mail.” Unlike the Democrats, Republicans’ online messages are all about the candidates and don’t allow supporters much of a voice. That has tripped up more than one Republican presidential aspirant by leaving voices loose in the wild, where they may or may not stay on point.
“In this new online era, everyone’s watching, and if [a candidate is] not being [himself or herself], chances are [they’ll] slip,” Mindy Finn, a veteran of George W. Bush’s two campaigns, told the Post. “And someone, somewhere, will blog about it or upload it on YouTube.”
Slip-ups are more dangerous than ever to candidates, because more of the oldest and most reliable voters — the ones whose internet use is spotty, at best — are beginning to look to the Web to get at least part of their information. According to a Pew Internet & American Life survey released in January, nearly one quarter of Americans say they regularly learn something new online about the current presidential campaign. Among under-30 voters, the figure is 42-percent, and it has to be surmised that the historically unreliable voting bloc has been spurred to action recently by its online interactions: Young voters have turned out in record numbers for Democratic primaries this year.
