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How Presidential Candidates Are Using the 'Net

by Terrence O'Brien on July 23, 2007 at 04:13 PM



Mitt Romney

On his campaign Web site, Mitt Romney is also smart enough to proudly place buttons linking to his Facebook, YouTube and MySpace pages. Other than fund-raising features, Romney provides no tools on his Web site, but he does have an interesting blog called The Five Brothers Blog, which is written jointly by himself, his wife, and his five sons. Romney manages to effectively use the social aspect of the Web to bring focus on the family unit and the family values that he has made the centerpiece of his campaign.

Unfortunately for Romney's campaign, the tech savvy ends there. The candidate's MySpace page contains no personal info (like McCain's), and serves as little else than a place for him to rack up "friends" (29,560 and counting). His Facebook profile, on the other hand, contains so much information that it is simply overwhelming. Instead of a list of interests, the page offers a long winded paragraph that begins with "Besides my family..." Oh please. His "about me" section reads like an outline for his autobiography.

His YouTube channel, like most others, misses the point completely by simply welcoming visitors with a campaign ad in which Romney talks about the cesspool of contemporary American culture over a montage of crashing waves. The focus on social media and user-generated content sites is the user (it's in the title), but most candidates don't seem to understand this. Romney treats YouTube like like it's a television station.

Online Politics 101 We do feel it necessary to talk briefly about dark horse candidate Ron Paul, a Republican who is building quite a buzz through the Internet. He has an informative MySpace page, spelling out his policies and record, and links to his YouTube channel, his Flickr channel, his Facebook profile, and MeetUp.com, the site that helped spark and organize the Dean revolution. He has the foundation of a strong insurgent candidacy, with more MySpace friends than McCain (48,000+). He is also the only candidate who comes even close to being as demanded on Eventful as Barack Obama.

One concern with this new digital age of campaigning is the so called "Digital Divide." According to PEW, 32 percent of American adults do not go online. This is partially due to a fear or a lack of understanding of the technology, but also due to a lack of access. Many worry that these 65 million Americans will be left out of the political process, and it's not completely unfounded. Campaigns have not given up on the tried and true methods of old just yet, but the speed, ease and cost of digital campaigning makes it much more attractive than traditional outlets such as television. Bridging this divide will be the primary challenge of the new connected political era.

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