A Pilgrim’s Digression

Though I have written little about the upcoming election in ‘08, I am as much a political junkie as ever. I follow politics mostly by reading mainstream news stories online, or listening to podcasts of the Newshour with Jim Lehrer and Washington Week. I don’t watch much cable news, though I listen to Fox News on XM in the car. And of course I still occasionally tune in to Limbaugh, Hannity, and the rest of the afternoon gang on AM radio.

What I find interesting is how little my own habits of following politics have changed over the past five years, despite supposed rapid change around me. I’ve never really developed a taste for blogs as a way of learning about political candidates or issues, for example.

Then I read in a story in the Washington Post today, Obama Tries New Tactics to Get Out the Vote, that “[Obama staffers] have posted more than 350 videos on his YouTube channel, twice as many as Clinton, and his videos have been viewed nearly twice as often as hers. Obama has more MySpace friends than any other Democratic candidate, and he lists more Facebook supporters than all other Democrats combined.”

Am I missing out on something here by being so “old media” in my tastes?

I’m not sure…

I’ve looked at Obama’s Facebook page. I even added him to my own Facebook page, declaring my support. But I am not sure any of that means anything, any more than the number of Youtube videos his staff posts means anything. Looking at his supporters on Facebook, the vast majority seem to be quite young, mostly college age young adults, the one group of “likely voters” that never fails to disappoint candidates.

I admit I am a newcomer to Facebook and am still unsure of what it is supposed to be or what I am supposed to “do” with it. As for Yotube, if I want to see campaign advertisements all I have to do is turn on the TV when the date for the Virginia primary draws near. Again, I don’t understand the importance.

What I understand is that candidates have to appear to understand the fleeting fads of the Internet. What pundits and candidates alike should recall, though, is that four years ago there was another candidate, Howard Dean, who supposedly struck political gold on the Internet. It did him bloody little good.

Apparently others have reminded Obama of what happened to Dean. “Obama’s campaign flatly rejects that comparison, arguing that today’s Web is vastly different, that Iowa is much more wired, that they have learned that electronic touches are only part of the picture.”

Personally, I don’t think there is a “vast” difference between today’s Internet and the Internet of 2004. But again, maybe I am missing something.

The lesson to be learned from the bursting of the Howard Dean bubble in 2004 is that the Internet is far more likely to break a candidate than make a candidate. The Dean scream, endlessly replayed online, was what really put the bullet in the heart of his campaign. George Allen also knows something about how the Internet can destroy a candidate based on a single gaffe.

I suppose every political season, we have to play this game, though, of who has the bigger Internet presence…even though it probably won’t make a bit of difference. Our whole electoral system is horribly unfair to candidates, and undemocratic in terms of how candidates are selected. Pundits routinely oppine that Iowa and New Hampshire are the “make or break” states for candidates, and that a candidate cannot go forward without a strong showing in either one.

Yet as John Fund points out in today’s Wall Street Journal op-ed, voter turnout for the Iowa caucus stands at only about 6%. These 6% of registered Iowa voters essentially get to choose our Republican and Democrat candidates because, after Iowa and New Hampshire, the media writes off any losing candidates as dead. What is Democratic about that?

And after reading about how the Iowa caucuses are conducted, does anyone believe those thousands of young Facebook supporters of Obama are going to be among the caucus goers?

Considering we live in an age when everything from automobile registrations and electric bills can be paid or taken care of online, there seems something horribly nineteenth century about our whole electoral process. What are we doing allowing two states to choose our party candidates? Is that really any better than the smoke-filled back rooms of yore?

The Internet has the potential to be an equalizer on the political field, but I don’t think we’re there yet. Maybe one day the Internet will be secure enough for people to vote online, thus shifting power from political junkies who actually bother to vote in primaries, to ordinary people, who will take ten minutes in the morning on election day to check email and vote in the election. But to some extent there are more powerful forces at work to retain the old ways and prevent Democracy from spreading to the “remote villages” of Virginia and Montana and other states that hold their primary elections after Iowa and New Hampshire.

Until the old is officially out, I will stick with my Washington Post online edition and leave Facebook and Youtube to the kiddies.