YouCampaign

» NYT Mag: The Web Users' Campaign (Matt Bai)

Another great update by Matt Bai on the ever-changing nature of political campaigns. To a large degree, it fleshes out my notion that the campaigns that benefit and make the most use of user-centric methods are those campaigns that need to do so out of necessity. Bai extends the examples in the Ron Paul campaign, but I think it warrants some attention as to how the Fred Thompson campaign has utterly flopped despite an early reliance on a variety of internet tools. Likewise, I think the same argument can be made for the Edwards campaign. To be sure, neither should be viewed as a flop because of their use of the internet. But I think both failed to grasp ways to harness it to their own campaign circumstances.

Thompson's method (and to a certain extent, McCain) seemed to be to go after some top-shelf products to demonstrate their campaigns as being state-of-the-art. In Fred's case, it was really a substitute for the laziness that just seems to permeate that campaign. McCain, you can write your own conclusions on.

Edwards just seemed to throw everything in - including the kitchen sink, so long as it came with a web app. There never seemed to be any direction in aligning their web campaign to the actual infrastructure they've had. I haven't followed his recent campaigning as closely as I'd like, but when was the last time anyone saw some significant mention of his volunteer concept as it pertains to his campaign?

The one major drawback to Bai's article is that it seems to suggest the campaigns will be moved by things like "Obama Girl" videos and Guy Fawkes Day fundraisers. Surely, those type of things will get attention and cause a ripple here and there. But there's still a lot more days in the calendar where more traditional tools are hard at work, both off- and on-line. It may not be quite as entertaining, but there's a far more productive story to report on how that gets used.