St. Petersburg Web Design Blog

While Howard Dean is the example of how to do an internet campaign right, and Tom Delay new internet venture is an example of how to do an internet presence really poorly (he just need to go hide, not solicit comments from the public and then insult them when they do). Most candidates are finding that the internet is nothing but a positive when comes to a campaign tool.

Republicans have mastered e-mail as the new form of direct-mail campaigns, raising money and pushing a GOP message. Democrats have excelled at raising cash through small-scale donations and making the Net their version of talk radio.

“You have an inexpensive way to have a conversation with people with the propensity to turn out and vote,” said Rick Davis, a McCain adviser who managed the Arizona Republican’s 2000 presidential campaign. In that race, McCain predicted that “in the next few years the Internet will completely turn political campaigns upside down.”

Lesson learned, potential 2008 campaigns say.

Former Democratic Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, the first major candidate to do podcasts when he was running for president in 2004, has recruited Dean’s Internet communications director. New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who leads the Democratic pack of prospective candidates, hired a pair of online writers for her successful Senate re-election campaign this year and has amassed an e-mailing list. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., is quickly building his own mailing list and using others’ lists to raise campaign cash. He raised $800,000 for Sen. Robert Byrd (news, bio, voting record), D-W.Va., this year using a MoveOn.org list.

Major advantages of using the internet to campaign:

• You get to communicate the message you want to voters, not a 30 second version on the radio, or the 4 second clip the news station picked out of your message.
• The Press knows where to look for your comments
• The voters know where to look for your comments
• Detailed explanation of your stand on the issues and your opponents
• The creation of your own mailing list, which is the first step in . . . Well if your reading this your a politician and you know how important contact info is.
• The ability to react to news and opponents quickly
• Being able to reach so many people for so little money
• When people read a news story, and your site is mentioned, they can go right to it and you can get the message you want to them, when they see a TV news spot and they want more info, they just have to kinda wonder. All they hear is the 4 second clip the news station picked out of your message.

Mike Connell, who ran
President Bush’s Web strategy in 2000 and 2004, said campaigns still do not spend enough on online efforts despite the obvious returns.

“Too many dollars are being wasted on traditional broadcast advertising,” he said. “It used to be three major broadcast networks … Now we’ve got an entirely fragmented market, people spread across the entire spectrum of content.”

Campaigns are eager to substitute online video for a broadcast version.

“Clearly online video is rapidly chewing away at traditional TV time,” said Nikko Mele, Dean’s campaign webmaster from 2004. “We are taking time usually spent watching television and watching the Web. It’s not clear how campaigns are going to take advantage of that.”

Why aren’t some of the local candidates here in Central to Southwest region converting their web sites into votes?

• It’s not enough to just set up a web site and be done with it

• Although that’s a good start and in a lot of smaller races a web site alone or a better site than your opponents will give you the advantage

• I have a simple and effective method for that

Gee all I need now is a candidate to work for . . . Anyone interested?

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