The Broadband Election

Some of us are old enough to remember (or at least to have read about) the 1960 election. The Kennedy/Nixon debates that year seemed to usher in a new era where television, not radio or newspapers, became the dominant medium for reaching prospective voters.

2008 may not turn out to be the Watershed year for the transformation from television to the Web as the principle means for reaching voters, but it sure feels that way from where I sit.  Increasingly, I'm turning on my laptop - not my TV - when seeking political news (or when candidates seek to reach me).  It seems to me, broadband is causing what was a trend to become the accepted rule.  If you want to reach voters you will find them online.

Exactly a week ago, a group of musicians, actor and celebrities produced a video based on Barack Obama's "Yes I Can" speech after the New Hampshire primary.  By Super Tuesday, just four days later, more than two million people had been sent the video or had seen the video online.  The video became a must see for the Obama crowd and drove a media frenzy.  More than a dozen people, including my Mother, born back before the invention of television, sent me the video.  (Glad to know my Mom is hip, online and politically aware...)

Not to be outdone, the Clinton campaign simulcast a national town hall meeting on its Web site and on the Hallmark channel.  Apparently hundreds of thousands of women across the country watched the town hall meeting Monday night and were energized enough to help the Senator win eight states on Super Tuesday.

The use of the web to distribute political videos is in its infancy.  As broadband becomes more ubiquitous, use of the Web for political purposes will become more elaborate and more innovative.  We are not just talking about Obama Girl or MySpace or Jib Jab's parodies or Facebook.  Check out Voto Latino.org and see how they are using a takeoff of telenovelas in a series of videos featuring Rosario Dawson and Wilmer Valderama to increase voting by Hispanic voters.  It is funny and apparently effective since Latino voting rates were up in almost every Super Tuesday state.  Now I am not saying that Voto Latino deserves all the credit for the increase in voting rates, but it seems it definitely contributed to the increase...

By the time the election rolls around, we all may see Super Tuesday as the Watershed moment for when the Web became the "it" political vehicle.