Run Better Campaigns!

It is so frustrating to read all of these articles about how great the Bush campaign was run and how poorly the Kerry campaign was run. Nothing was coordinated, there didn't appear to be any real strategy, just poorly, poorly run. The few ground reports are bad, but I think most of us saw it all along with the lack of message from the Kerry campaign the whole campaign. It's amazing to think that the Bush team had to run a nearly flawless campaign just to beat a completely incompetent Kerry team. But for Democrats there are a lot of lessons here, and I think it all highlights how important an effective use of new technologies are going be in modern campaign, and the more the technology can bring politics back to the retail politics of old, the more effective they are going to be.

Piling On

Since it is such a good topic I will comment on Matt Bai's article as well. I have two points to make here. First, the Kerry campaign's strategy for volunteering was absolutely a mess. I was running a state Assembly campaign in Onondaga County, New York at the time so I got to have a few run ins with them. They first sucked up 3,000 volunteers and basically locked them into working for Kerry in a state he was going to win in a county he was going to win. To get them to do anything for your campaign you had to submit a request a few weeks in advance. But the real killer was their strategy, which was just to make sure Democratic turnout in every precinct was 70%, that's it. No targeting, just call everyone until you think have 70% of the Democrats in a precinct voting, and that was their idea of running up the score.

My second point deals with something I think the Bush campaign did very well, targeting specific groups; Agriculture Coalition for Bush, Viva Bush, W is for Women. It worked great for them and it's a lesson Democrats should take note of. I've actually been preaching this for a few years now myself. I learned politics in Erie County, the home of Buffalo, where ethnic politics is king. Unlike the fairly homogeneous Republican Party, the Democratic Party is extremely diverse and every group thinks they should be the one running the Party. In 2004, after Congressman Jack Quinn announced he was retiring from the second most Democratic seat held by a Republican at the time, there was sure to be a competitive Democratic primary. Now the 27th is an interesting seat, because it has more union members than any other CD in the country (about twice the average), about 50% of the voters are either of Irish, Italian or Polish decent (a fact few would let you forget), and at approximately 17% it is the most Polish district in the country. Jack Quinn had held the seat for 12 years, and he is of course Irish, and the front runner to fill his seat was then Assemblyman now Congressman Brian Higgins, who is also Irish. Candidates actually got into the race as the Polish candidate; they were running because the next Congressman should be Polish. Fast forward a few months, three State Supreme Court Justices are retiring, two Italians and one African American, and it is certain that who ever is nominated to replace them will need the right last name. Now Erie County may be an extreme example, being as Democratic politics were once referred to as Beirut on the lake, but it shows why the Democrats need to follow Bush's lead. These are all key parts of the Democratic coalition especially in the Northeast, that need to be kept involved and need to be kept happy, and marketing specifically to them is one of the best ways to do that.

When is it too much effort?

I touched upon this topic in my post yesterday about Podcasting, but I have been thinking about it more since. At what point do you spend too much effort on your web campaign that it starts to affect the rest of your campaign. Blogs, Podcasting, E-mail newsletters, volunteer databases, online donations, together this is all a lot of work. At what point does the effort put in exceed the return from that effort? At what campaign size is all this effort begin to go from red to black? How do you judge the online audience, and that audience's receptiveness to all these stuff before you engage in it? It seems to me that just diving in head first with all this stuff could eat up valuable resources and do serious damage to the entire campaign by focusing on the wrong tactics.

Podcasting

The Pennsylvania Senate Republicans announced today that they are going to begin Podcasting. Which does sound like a good idea, but I wonder how effective it can really be. Sure it will rally the troops, but how much? I am not sure how much effort goes into making a Podcast, but I would imagine a state legislative caucus even in a large state like PA doesn't have much of an audience. I am a hardcore Democrat but if the NYS Assembly Democrats were releasing a Podcast, I wouldn't really have much of an interest in listening to it. So I guess my question is when does the effect put into a Podcast become a waste because it isn't that effective?

Building Email Lists

The points one building email lists were very on point. I think they also highlight how critical an ever-expanding email list is to online campaigning. The power to reach so many people with just a touch of a button is invaluable. I think when dealing with campaigns it should go even further and at this point, every contact the campaign has with voters should include an attempt to get the voter to sign up for to the email list. It needs to be both online and offline, at rallies, at fundraisers, door-to-door canvassing, telephone canvassing, even encouragement in direct mail. I have also noticed though, that many campaigns are now using splash pages on their websites so when you first enter you are prompted to sign up for email updates, I am curious to how effective that is, does it get more people to subscribe or does it turn people off from it by being so straight forward?

Newsletters pt 3

I think newsletters and other email based contact are great way for elected officials, through their campaign, to keep their grassroot supporters active even when it isn't campaign time. I have seen some Democrats using stuff like citizen sponsors for legislation, and I think it is perfect for keeping people involved. I haven't seen it yet, but I think something like citizen lobbyists would be a good idea, have supporters mobilize and make lots of phone calls or something of the like. Also use the newsletter to campaign for other candidates who may be up for election then. I think the Internet provides an excellent opportunity to cultivate a much stronger grassroots base during the off season. It will allow savvy campaigns to be miles ahead of opponents when it comes to organizing.

Newsletters pt. 2

Following up my post from yesterday, I figured I would explain why I feel that the candidates choose to use negative or positive messages in their emails the way they did. At the core of the last presidential campaign, it was all about Bush, Bush's supporters loved him and Kerry's supporters hated him. Bush supporters were most motivated by seeing Bush re-elected, so a positive message about him and his agenda was what was going to get them motivated the most. On the other side, Kerry supporters were going to be most motivated by a negative message about Bush and his agenda. I don't think it speaks to campaign tone, only to campaign strategy.

Newsletters

There have been lots of posts recently about the Bush and Kerry email newsletters. Without talking about the actual effectiveness of the methods chosen, I think there is a reason why they chose the method they did. Bush had two reasons for focusing on asking recipients for action. First, the Bush campaign was never at a shortage for money, they had met their goals early in the campaign and never had to worry about primary opponents. Second, the Bush campaign had built an extremely strong grassroots operation and had plans and goals for them to accomplish and the ability to easily activate them. Kerry on the other hand, had trouble in both of these areas. While Kerry was able to raise money easily, he had a long way to catch up with Bush, and constantly needed money, hence all the emails raising money. Second, the Kerry campaign had an extremely poorly put together grassroots operation, instead the 527's and the DNC had taken over that aspect of the campaign. The Kerry campaign was then never had a real plan for them, nor did they want to step on the toes of the groups they couldn't legally coordinate with.

Buddy Icon Campaigning

I just happened to be going through the next Senator from Pennsylvania's website http://www.bobcaseyforpa.com/ and it seems like they have focused on some very smart web ideas. One is tagline for emails, a good way of viral marketing. The second one was the most interesting, buddy icons for instant messenger. http://ga4.org/senate2006/actioncenter.html#buddyicon I'm not sure if any other campaigns have used it, but it is definitely a great viral marketing idea and really good use of a new technology that has increasing penetration.

Keeping the Media Honest

I would first like to call attention to my incredible use of html here. Second, I would like to talk about how interesting these poll numbers are. Reading books like Out of Order and Breaking the News for another class, reporters coming off as infinitely cynical and above criticism by anyone who is not a journalist. This surprises me at the general level of support that journalists give to blogs in keep them honest. I think it speaks very well on the staying power of blogs as well as the overall effectiveness of them.

I stole this poll from Hotline and here is the vital info for anyone who missed it. The following is a comparison between two polls, both conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates Int'l. The general public survey was conducted 3/3-4/5; surveyed 1,500 adults; margin of error +/- 3% (release, 6/13). Press survey: conducted 3/7-5/2; surveyed 673 journalists; margin of error +/- 4%

Asked of the media only             
Blogger's Impact On Quality Of
News The Public Receives 
Positive Impact           45%    
Negative Impact           38    

Blogs Made Journalists More/Less
Accountable?              Pub Med
More accountable          43% 51%
No difference             46  44
Less accountable           5   3

Online Advertising

Working in polling I have developed an interesting in targeting and have been closely watching the potential of the Internet lately. I was very interested to read the chapter on Online Advertising in the The Political Consultants' Online Fundraising Primer. I was disappointed however that there was no data to confirm the persuasiveness of Internet advertising. It does say that other consumer data confirms that even people who don't click through can be influenced. I think that the Internet provides a good place to extend a targeted campaign to supplement advertising by using similar styled ads. Even if people don't click through, it provides a good opportunity to reinforce your message.

The Ideavirus and Blogging

In Seth Godin's article on the Ideavirus makes an excellent point to why blogging can be so effective in politics. "In the new economy, consumers have built up antibodies that resist traditional marketing. That's why we need to stop marketing at people, and start creating an environment where consumers can market to one another." This is what makes blogging so effective, its not people being marketed to by politicians, its people talking to other people about politics. The politicians who are successful at using it are because of the two-way exchange it offers. This is really something campaigns will need to keep in mind when using blogs, it can't be top down, its needs to be a two-way conversation and not just between the politician and supporters but between other supporters as well.

The weakness of the leader

For another class I am reading James Fallows' Breaking the News. In the book Fallows is extremely critical of the media for only focusing on politics in the horse race sense and glossing over policy to look at how it will affect the politics behind it. Granted the blogs do focus a lot on the horse race aspect, because their audience consists of political junkies, but they also seem to spend a lot more time talking about the issues in detail. Blogs of course need to drop some of the stupidity like the Kos/Darr stuff, but their different approach to policy may be exactly the way to grow, by focusing on the market leader's weakness.

Website Integration

I think the point about online contributions going up when offline publicity does is an important reason there needs to be complete integration of the website into the campaign. The other day I posted about how the Internet gave people a place to donate when before they might not have know how to, but its critical that they know of the website so that ability is there. In the last campaign I was involved with we made sure that the web address was on everything that came out of the campaign. We ended up doing much better than the incumbent in web traffic, even though we lost.

Raising Money online

When the Winning Campaigns Online book was written blogs weren't yet around, but in the chapter on secrets of raising money online, it seems almost custom made for a blog. It talks about, keep in touch with your team, celebrate your success, and thank your donors, all of which are perfect to do with a campaign blog. Which leads me to a bigger point, I think that having and properly using a blog would be perfect for helping a campaign raise money. It adds that connectivity that creates the relationship needed to keep donors interested.

Online Fundraising

It has certainly proved effective over this last campaign. I think the one reason for that is because it giving to a campaign so much easier, I suspect there were great deal out there who wanted to give to a high level candidate, but they just didn't know where to go to give. Dean and later Kerry were able to take advantage of this. Dean's constituency in the primary ended up being quiet tech savvy so it was a natural progression. In Kerry's case, after he secured the nomination, he did have a tech savvy constituency that wanted nothing more than to beat Bush, but he also used highly targeted banner ads to raise money in small sums. I don't know the actual numbers but I would guess that the ads were quite effective, people who supported Kerry and wanted to support him financially but didn't know how to, suddenly had ads in front of them directing them right to it.

Online Press Kits

I think this is a good idea, and as the internet progresses can be of big help in the future. At this point it is still probably best to use actual press kits and have an internet one to support it. But in the future, sending out all sorts of press kits to media outlets could essentially be eliminated and by done solely through the website. Then it would be accessible in a few seconds on media outlets would never have to worry about losing them. It could even save some cash strapped campaigns money. In the future there could probably even be password protected areas for the press that could contain different things, like a place where reporters could schedule interviews or submit questions to the campaign.

Heroin

In Flanders's Web Pages That Suck he mentions a common mistake of not having the heroin content, or content that forces viewers to keep coming back repeatedly. Blogs definitely seem to be heroin to a lot of people, but the question is why. I feel there are two main reasons, first it is a different look at the news, without the mainstream media filter or from a particular ideological slant, or just dealing with news the reader cares about that isn't being reported elsewhere. For example, look at dailykos and the popularity of the Downing Street Memo and Impeachment. And the second reason, I think is the ability to interact, to be able to discuss the day’s news and other issues with lots of other people and often even the people who are reporting it.

Volunteer Incentives

I think the volunteer incentive idea put forth in chapter 12 on recruiting volunteers online is a great Idea. I do however have one concern, is it only viable in higher level campaigns. Is this something that would translate as well into, for instance, a State Senate campaign? Will people be excited enough to put forth the effort for a local candidate? If not is there a way to do it differently for the local level?

The Web Police

One of the real things the Internet has achieved is in politics is forcing more honesty from political campaigns and the media. In the last election the whole Rathergate scandal made big news because of the Internet and bloggers. Though it made a smaller splash, bloggers also caught the Bush campaign altering a picture of Bush and some troops. Now Bret Schundler, a candidate for Governor in New Jersey, had his campaign caught using altered photos on his website yesterday at http://www.politicsnj.com/schundlergear2005.htm. Ironically he was caught using an altered photo of Howard Dean and his supporters, which probably won't play well in a Republican primary. The larger point is that with the new means of rapid communication over the Internet, some one is watching, actually a lot of people are watching and very closely. It should serve as a lesson to all campaigns that cheap tricks that they have gotten away with in the past are going to be scrutinized now. Ultimately, I think this will help lead to cleaner campaigns.

Is partisanship bad for democracy?

While I agree with Sunstein that the Internet does allow one to filter news, I disagree that it’s a bad thing. In fact, I think it is a good thing for our democracy. Education has a strong correlation with propensity to vote, but it also has a strong correlation with strength of partisanship. There is fairly low turnout in this country, but there was a big spike in turnout in the last election. It was because people felt the election mattered; they felt that the outcome would ultimately have a tangible effect on them, their family, their friends and their country. People who are more partisan, are going to vote because the outcome matters to them. People who are all mushy in the middle aren't as motivated to vote, because the stakes aren't as high for them. If the Internet makes people more polarized or partisan, I don't think that such a bad thing. I think it will increase turnout (what could be better for democracy?) and make people more aware of the issues because they will start to matter.

Reciprocity Study

I am be the only one, but I really have no idea what the actual point of the study was. What does it really show us about the Internet as a persuasive tool. The study was based on the idea that that if someone helps you out, then you will be obligated to reciprocate. Well, it seems to me that in the case of a campaign for example, if their website is particularly easy to use, you would be obligated to return the favor to the campaign, not the computer or the website. So it seems like this was all done where a study not involving a computer would have been just as effective in proving the point.

Web Credibility

This post deals with Fogg's research on web credibility. An interesting piece I noticed when reading the chapter, was almost every variable that Fogg had had moved closer to zero, so the positive aspects were less positive and the negative aspects were less negative. I think the reason for this is two fold, first, having become more experienced consumers, people had a greater expectation of websites and little gimmicks weren't adding in credibility and second, web sites become more professional over time so people were consistantly seeing this type of stuff or not seeing the negatives because there was a higher standard. There were also a few areas that where the negatives had infact become more potent, pop ups, long download time, and paid subscription. I really think that these are by products of what I mentioned aboved, more or less. Pop up ads became a more prevelant nuisance over time, as modem speed increased a long download time became unacceptable and a paid site, especially after being free just wasn't what the internet was about. But all three are a result of the increased use.