OBAMASPACE AND THE FUTURE OF ONLINE CAMPAIGNS - November 19, 2008

The Obama campaign successfully built the most sophisticated, disciplined and technologically savvy internet infrastructure in the history of presidential politics. Other gubernatorial campaigns have tried and failed to tap the internet in innovative ways – Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential bid and this year’s bid by Ron Paul for the Republican nomination to name two.  The difference is Obama’s campaign recognized early on (February 2007 to be specific) the importance of web presence and the psychology behind it.

The model used by Obama’s internet campaign was borrowed from a Harvard research study conducted on behalf of the Sierra Club in 2005. In it, Marshall Ganz, a public policy lecturer at Harvard,and psychologist Ruth Wageman discovered that the volunteers attracted to the Sierra Club were “lone ranger” types who focused on accomplishing goals individually rather than working as a team. Ganz explains that the danger with this approach is that individuals burn out easily. Instead, the Ganz-Wageman model adopted by the Obama camp focuses on developing relationships between team members and uses personal storytelling as a means of motivation and to recruit others to action.

President-elect Obama first tested the Ganz-Wageman model during the primaries in both Iowa and South Carolina with great success; whereas in New Hampshire where he ran a more conventional get-out-the-vote campaign he lost.  So how does the psychology of the system work? According to Wired.com which recently interviewed Ganz, the model works by “channeling the enthusiasm of voters who are emotionally inspired by orators such as Obama. This appeal to the right brain contrasts with most of the recent Democratic political campaigns, which have appealed to voters' logic by selling concepts and policies” (Obama’s Secret Weapons: Internet, Databases and Psychology, by Sarah Lai Stirland, October 29, 2008).

On the social networking site my.BarackObama.com volunteers were able to access a Neighbor-to-Neighbor tool to identify the most active person within their town, sign-up for weekend training sessions called “Camp Obama,” and connect with upcoming events such as phone-banking and sign-holding. The site empowered users by allowing them to input voter information directly into a national database that was utilized daily by both campaign leaders and ground volunteers. This database included email addresses and phone numbers that the campaign blast messaged on election day, and critical voter information on who was still undecided.

In contrast, the McCain campaign initially relied on existing sites such as Facebook and MySpace, but found that their numbers on these public communities were small in direct comparison to Obama’s.  In August, McCain had 226,000 supporters on Facebook compared to 1.4 million for Obama. On Myspace the figures were hardly better with McCain’s 66,665 friends compared to 467,814 for Obama. Hence, the McCain campaign launched its own private sites – McCainSpace and McCainNation – to attempt to mimic Obama’s web success, but their late start combined with the site’s lack of charisma failed to generate the digital crowd the campaign so eagerly sought. 

Volunteers for McCain were not as connected by his networking sites, having neither the ability to input into a database system nor directly organize with local supporters. According to Erick Schonfeld from TechCrunch.com, “the McCainSpace design was functional enough, giving McCain supporters a central place to discuss issues via blogs, forums, videos, and photos.” In short, McCain employed a strategy directly opposite of Obama’s Ganz-Wageman model – choosing to use the social internet site as an issue forum instead of a networking tool.

In 2008 these internet users translated into real money that shattered existing rules for raising campaign cash. Comparing the tactics exercised by Obama and Clinton in the primary, for example, demonstrate the stark differences between the old and new fundraising approaches.  Obama’s campaign focused on pop-up ads on political websites that redirected users to blogs and pages where they were encouraged to sign up for invitations to local campaign events. The tone was friendly – an unhurried approach to building an online relationship with users that, in turn, generated financial support.

Contrast this approach with an email sent from former president Bill Clinton in February: "Any donation, even as little as $5, can make a difference in this campaign. If you haven't given online yet, now is the time" (washingtonpost.com, Matthew Mosk, March 28, 2008). The tone is aggressive and treats the potential supporter as a virtual ATM card. Obama’s web strategy successfully took in $614 million during the election via online contributions – most of them small donations of $25. In the final days of the campaign this meant the President-elect could afford major media messaging through television, radio, and the web that allowed him to define McCain – who couldn’t afford to fight back.

How will this internet savvy President-elect utilize his web presence within his new Administration? The Obama transition team has signed on two Web 2.0 savvy social media-experts Macon Phillips who ran the campaign’s general election media shop, and Jesse Lee, a leading Web operative who handled Rahm Emanuel’s DCCC internet outreach operation during the 2006 take-back of Congress.  This team has erected a new website called “Office of the President-Elect” at change.gov to allow visitors to share their ideas for running the country and apply for jobs within the new Administration. After his inauguration it is anticipated that the site will be re-worked to define issues, sway voters, and shape his public image in a manner unparalleled.

So for the moment, Americans and the world are in love with Barrack Obama’s message. Who can say if this affection will last the test of time? The internet has allowed Americans to embrace the President-Elect in an unprecedented way – giving each of us a connection to and emotional involvement with Obama. From a positive perspective, this lends towards a more connected populace with clear objectives. However, in times of trouble this connectivity can quickly lapse into a realm of individualized media networks in which we are all free to expound our own opinions – to the detriment of the truth.  The internet has proven to be a weapon Obama has been able control; whether it becomes a mutinous enemy in the future is hard to say – time will be the judge.

Stephanie Kimball

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Author of the article holds B.A. degree in Political Science from the University of California Davis. For the last 9 years she has been working as a Legislative Director for several Republican Assembly members in the State of California.
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