The New Face of Campaigning
Three ways that the 2008 Election will shape future races for the presidency
John-Clark Levin
Last Updated: 12/6/08 Section: Opinion
"This is the most important election of our time." Which candidate in the 2008 presidential election said those words? Actually, at least four of them did, and most of the rest said the same thing slightly differently. Nevertheless, the jury won't return with a verdict on how important this election was in American history for another fifteen years at least. I am, however, prepared to accept that this election cycle has already shaped future election cycles profoundly. Three principal changes will mark the ways in which the lessons learned in this campaign will be applied in the future. Although Obama's victory will be studied most closely, McCain's campaign will also have a not insignificant impact on those which come after it.
This first change has been commented upon so many times in so many publications that even mentioning it here risks sounding passé. But it's so important that I have to - all in the service of a larger point, of course. The New Media, as everyone and their pet goldfish have been quick to point out, radically transformed the way citizens interacted with election culture. The past year saw the spread of a viral video "remix" of Reverend Wright beatboxing, Wolf Blitzer conversing with a correspondent "holographically beamed" into the CNN studio à la Star Wars, and comic Sarah Silverman launching a campaign to encourage young American Jews to flock to Florida in hopes of persuading their conservative grandparents to vote Obama.
The trouble is, in the final analysis, none of that made any substantive difference in the election. Ditto for the YouTube debates. Ultimately, those who were dubious about Obama's associations didn't feel any better to hear the good reverend laying down a few beats, and the alte kokker set proved not to have been instrumental in Florida's turning blue.
Yet a different aspect of Web 2.0 actually did prove to be a game-changer. Every presidential campaign - and a great many lesser campaigns - will try to adopt the advances in fundraising and political mobilization that were seen in this election. Largely through the internet, Barack Obama was able to create and sustain a political machine that simply overwhelmed John McCain.
Despite being registered as a Republican, I received half a dozen calls from live volunteers making the case for Obama. Having signed up for emails from both campaigns, I soon found that practically every other name in my inbox was David Plouffe (Obama's campaign manager). The McCain camp sent me a grand total of four.
The week before the election I got an Obama text message reminding me to go out and vote. Although I had already voted and found myself miffed at the interruption, evidently millions of other Americans weren't at all put off. On November 4, Plouffe's team managed to convert the widespread enthusiasm for Obama into votes at a rate that far exceeded that which could have been expected in any other election. Such a level of field organization and saturation campaigning was made possible largely by the new ways in which Obama reached out to voters - and then asked them for money.
Although the latest numbers reveal that quite a bit more of Obama's final total was raised from large donors than first appeared, it is hard to deny the advantage afforded by a sturdy base of millions of small internet-connected donors. Donors contributing less than $200 are estimated to have accounted for about a quarter of Obama's financial haul, but may have constituted up to half of his total donors. The effect was much more than financial: those who can be persuaded to donate even a few dollars have been shown to be much more likely to vote on election day. This new fundraising model, combined with the controversial choice not to accept public financing, opened to the Democrats options that simply couldn't have been considered a year before.
The second change in campaigning is that of rhetoric. A term that up until last year had become a smear has once more acquired a positive connotation. Oratory and skilled argumentation were more decisive in this election than any in decades - and we'll see both sides, especially Republicans, put a great deal of emphasis on crafting compelling rhetoric that can steer the discourse of elections in favorable directions.
We'll also see a continuation of the shift in rhetoric from third-party surrogates and PACs to the mouths of candidates themselves. From set-piece perorations like Obama's to the more informal conversations in which McCain shined, future candidates will try to get as much exposure speaking in their own words as possible. Even those who are not exactly known as Byanesque speechmakers will still look to do so as much as possible. For John McCain, the objective simply was not to wow audiences with tear-jerking flights of oratory. Rather, he rightly judged that making his own case while directly addressing voters projected sincerity and integrity. Perhaps this is why he consistently polled even to Democrats as trustworthy.
That's not to say that Obama won't inspire countless rhetorical imitators from across the political spectrum. Expect to see many bad (and a few good) attempts at the formal speeches like those that allowed candidates to frame critical issues. Obama's speech on race restored his campaign's momentum as it faltered amidst a stormy spat over that issue, and Romney's speech on religion assuaged the doubts many Americans held about his personal faith.
The third change constitutes a deep reframing of the messages candidates will try to send. In past elections, care was taken to cast office-seekers as dignified, orthodox, and presidential. When candidates were forced to choose between appealing to their reliable bases and making risky plays for moderate voters, they usually did the former. Yet the partisan rancor that characterized the 2004 election shifted this electorate back into the hands of the political center.
For this reason, each candidate tried to position himself as a truth-teller, a maverick, and an agent of change. Throughout the race, momentum always remained with he who did so most convincingly. Although Obama and McCain each framed this in a different way - the former as an early critic of the war and hope-bringer and the latter as a political individualist willing to take risks for his beliefs - each was fundamentally sending the same message. It all boiled down to: "I am here to tell America the truths that the other guy doesn't want you to see."
National polling data eerily reflect the shifts in momentum brought about by on-message truth-telling. During the ugliest weeks of the Obama-Clinton shootout, polling showed McCain surge in projected matchups with both candidates as he was able to spend time making his own case while America saw the two leading Democrats bickering in ways that reminded people of "politics as usual." After securing the Democratic nomination and retaking his lead in the polls, Obama lost it again in June when widely criticized for avoiding the town hall debates proposed by McCain. Obama pulled back ahead over the summer, but following McCain's straightforward performance at Saddleback Church's Civil Forum on the Presidency, the Arizona senator managed to break back into a statistical heat. In early September, he got an almost violent bounce following a well-executed convention that made a strong and sober argument for what he would do better than Obama would as president.
Just as many were proclaiming the Obama candidacy on the brink of burning out, America was struck by economic crisis. While the Democratic ticket rolled out an economic recovery plan, McCain "went negative," airing a series of attack ads that even earned criticism from Karl Rove. Obama surged back ahead and never looked back.
I believe that the evidence from this election may have actually convinced both Republicans and Democrats that it really does pay to stay on message. Of course, a stinging defeat means that the Republicans will be far more likely to remember the lesson and apply it in the years ahead. Even though the 2012 presidential election cycle will surely be very different from this one, the power of political truth-telling will bring it to the center of our political language for some time to come.
John-Clark Levin is a freshman at CMC and a staff writer for the CI.
This first change has been commented upon so many times in so many publications that even mentioning it here risks sounding passé. But it's so important that I have to - all in the service of a larger point, of course. The New Media, as everyone and their pet goldfish have been quick to point out, radically transformed the way citizens interacted with election culture. The past year saw the spread of a viral video "remix" of Reverend Wright beatboxing, Wolf Blitzer conversing with a correspondent "holographically beamed" into the CNN studio à la Star Wars, and comic Sarah Silverman launching a campaign to encourage young American Jews to flock to Florida in hopes of persuading their conservative grandparents to vote Obama.
The trouble is, in the final analysis, none of that made any substantive difference in the election. Ditto for the YouTube debates. Ultimately, those who were dubious about Obama's associations didn't feel any better to hear the good reverend laying down a few beats, and the alte kokker set proved not to have been instrumental in Florida's turning blue.
Yet a different aspect of Web 2.0 actually did prove to be a game-changer. Every presidential campaign - and a great many lesser campaigns - will try to adopt the advances in fundraising and political mobilization that were seen in this election. Largely through the internet, Barack Obama was able to create and sustain a political machine that simply overwhelmed John McCain.
Despite being registered as a Republican, I received half a dozen calls from live volunteers making the case for Obama. Having signed up for emails from both campaigns, I soon found that practically every other name in my inbox was David Plouffe (Obama's campaign manager). The McCain camp sent me a grand total of four.
The week before the election I got an Obama text message reminding me to go out and vote. Although I had already voted and found myself miffed at the interruption, evidently millions of other Americans weren't at all put off. On November 4, Plouffe's team managed to convert the widespread enthusiasm for Obama into votes at a rate that far exceeded that which could have been expected in any other election. Such a level of field organization and saturation campaigning was made possible largely by the new ways in which Obama reached out to voters - and then asked them for money.
Although the latest numbers reveal that quite a bit more of Obama's final total was raised from large donors than first appeared, it is hard to deny the advantage afforded by a sturdy base of millions of small internet-connected donors. Donors contributing less than $200 are estimated to have accounted for about a quarter of Obama's financial haul, but may have constituted up to half of his total donors. The effect was much more than financial: those who can be persuaded to donate even a few dollars have been shown to be much more likely to vote on election day. This new fundraising model, combined with the controversial choice not to accept public financing, opened to the Democrats options that simply couldn't have been considered a year before.
The second change in campaigning is that of rhetoric. A term that up until last year had become a smear has once more acquired a positive connotation. Oratory and skilled argumentation were more decisive in this election than any in decades - and we'll see both sides, especially Republicans, put a great deal of emphasis on crafting compelling rhetoric that can steer the discourse of elections in favorable directions.
We'll also see a continuation of the shift in rhetoric from third-party surrogates and PACs to the mouths of candidates themselves. From set-piece perorations like Obama's to the more informal conversations in which McCain shined, future candidates will try to get as much exposure speaking in their own words as possible. Even those who are not exactly known as Byanesque speechmakers will still look to do so as much as possible. For John McCain, the objective simply was not to wow audiences with tear-jerking flights of oratory. Rather, he rightly judged that making his own case while directly addressing voters projected sincerity and integrity. Perhaps this is why he consistently polled even to Democrats as trustworthy.
That's not to say that Obama won't inspire countless rhetorical imitators from across the political spectrum. Expect to see many bad (and a few good) attempts at the formal speeches like those that allowed candidates to frame critical issues. Obama's speech on race restored his campaign's momentum as it faltered amidst a stormy spat over that issue, and Romney's speech on religion assuaged the doubts many Americans held about his personal faith.
The third change constitutes a deep reframing of the messages candidates will try to send. In past elections, care was taken to cast office-seekers as dignified, orthodox, and presidential. When candidates were forced to choose between appealing to their reliable bases and making risky plays for moderate voters, they usually did the former. Yet the partisan rancor that characterized the 2004 election shifted this electorate back into the hands of the political center.
For this reason, each candidate tried to position himself as a truth-teller, a maverick, and an agent of change. Throughout the race, momentum always remained with he who did so most convincingly. Although Obama and McCain each framed this in a different way - the former as an early critic of the war and hope-bringer and the latter as a political individualist willing to take risks for his beliefs - each was fundamentally sending the same message. It all boiled down to: "I am here to tell America the truths that the other guy doesn't want you to see."
National polling data eerily reflect the shifts in momentum brought about by on-message truth-telling. During the ugliest weeks of the Obama-Clinton shootout, polling showed McCain surge in projected matchups with both candidates as he was able to spend time making his own case while America saw the two leading Democrats bickering in ways that reminded people of "politics as usual." After securing the Democratic nomination and retaking his lead in the polls, Obama lost it again in June when widely criticized for avoiding the town hall debates proposed by McCain. Obama pulled back ahead over the summer, but following McCain's straightforward performance at Saddleback Church's Civil Forum on the Presidency, the Arizona senator managed to break back into a statistical heat. In early September, he got an almost violent bounce following a well-executed convention that made a strong and sober argument for what he would do better than Obama would as president.
Just as many were proclaiming the Obama candidacy on the brink of burning out, America was struck by economic crisis. While the Democratic ticket rolled out an economic recovery plan, McCain "went negative," airing a series of attack ads that even earned criticism from Karl Rove. Obama surged back ahead and never looked back.
I believe that the evidence from this election may have actually convinced both Republicans and Democrats that it really does pay to stay on message. Of course, a stinging defeat means that the Republicans will be far more likely to remember the lesson and apply it in the years ahead. Even though the 2012 presidential election cycle will surely be very different from this one, the power of political truth-telling will bring it to the center of our political language for some time to come.
John-Clark Levin is a freshman at CMC and a staff writer for the CI.
Be the first to comment on this story