Media Mix: Poli Tech
in politics, a little tech goes a long way
2008-02-20
By Eric Easter
On Super Tuesday, the e-mails started coming in fast and furious.
“Eric – results will be coming in until late tonight, but we did just learn one piece of great news. Thanks to you, were projected to win in Illinois. I’ll be in touch again later tonight when we have results in more states. --- Barack "
Eric? Barack? Were we on a first name basis? I met the brother once, but…
On the rapidly growing, but still relatively obscure bisonroundup.com, a Facebook-style social networking site for Howard University alumni, a user-generated “Bison for Obama” fundraising ad occupies the largest space on the site’s entry page, right next to an Obama ’08 ad.
Far more than any other candidate, including Howard Dean in 2004, Barack Obama is using technology in ways never thought possible. With relatively simple tools, modern presidential candidates can virtually be in many places at once and keep people in various states connected and engaged.
It wasn’t always so, of course. The difference from a mere 20 years ago is stunning by comparison and the web is only a small part of the change. In 1988, we weren’t just talking pre-web, we’re talking pre-fiber optics, pre-cellphone, pre-laptop, pre-camcorder, pre- iPod – practically prehistoric to anyone born during that time.
Campaigns are for all intents and purposes, short term businesses. In that regard, technology has had the same impact on campaigns that it has had on American business in general. Except the demands of a campaign to succeed in a very short amount of time makes them a business start-up on steroids with unusual needs that now only technology has solved
Here’s a look at some of the ways even the smallest tech developments have made major changes in how campaigns do business.
SMALLER JETS , SMALLER TV CAMERAS
One of the dirty little secrets of 1980’s campaigns is the tidy profit they used to make from charging major networks and newspapers for seats on the chartered campaign plane – often two times the cost of first class for a coach seat and a bucket of KFC if you were lucky.
For a network traveling with 80’s style technology, that arrangement meant eating the cost of a producer, reporter, camera person and sound technician.
Technology eventually did the networks a favor by coming out with much smaller cameras that had built-in sound and lighting. That was a huge blow for campaigns who were stuck in long term deals for expensive charters.
The proliferation of smaller jets and the booming rental market for charter planes have brought that problem back under control for the campaigns. At a moment’s notice, charter configured to carry as few or as many passengers as a campaign requires can be ordered to accommodate the need.
In theory, in the same day you can travel with 30 passengers on one leg of a trip and 10 on the next leg on a different plane without a hiccup, saving tens of thousands of dollars in charter fees and jet fuel.
FILING STORIES VIA E-MAIL
In 1988, a campaign lost several hours per day in valuable outreach time because of the need to schedule time for newspaper reporters to write and file their stories to meet deadline.
Reporters used to have to file those stories by linking their KayPro 2 early-version laptops to a telephone by unscrewing the mouthpiece of the phone, connecting alligator clips and transmitting the story by copper in a setup that resembled a scene from The Wire.
Coordinating all that not only was a drain on time, but it also could determine in which venue an event was held. If a meeting hall did not have enough phones to accommodate traveling press, it could also mean arranging with the local phone company to install phones (and phone lines) for filing purposes – an extraordinarily costly endeavor.
It was even harder for TV types, who needed time built into the schedule to meet up with couriers who were responsible for the overnight mailing of videotape to network headquarters or getting it to a local affiliate who could upload the video by satellite.
For campaigns that usually meant scheduling non-press fundraisers in the middle of the filing time or putting in downtime for the staff to buy fresh underwear and deodorant.
Now, of course, writers can write (if necessary) a draft on a Blackberry and transmit at anytime during the day. As for TV, broadcast and web quality digital video can now be sent at the touch of a button.
That means hundreds of hours won back by the campaigns to get to the business of talking to voters.
THE PRESS RELEASE SHUFFLE
In 1988, getting out a two-page press release meant vying for time with everyone else in the campaign office who needed to send or receive a fax.
Assuming you got the go-ahead, sending out individual releases to a press list could take the better part of a day. Broadcast faxing was available, but God forbid one of your contacts had a busy signal, which would stop the entire process.
The alternative was dictating the full contents of a press release to AP, UPI and Reuters, hoping that the rest of your list would pull your release from the print-out.
Enter e-mail and the ability to send information to thousands of newspapers, networks, radio stations and blogs at once.
One side benefit of the old way, however: The phone call you had to make to be certain someone received a fax almost guaranteed that your release got read. Today, your press release is only a delete button away.
SCHEDULING
People who travel frequently often joke about not knowing what town they’re in from day to day. In the presidential campaigns of the 80’s, this was not a joke at all. In fact, it was a fairly common problem.
For myriad reasons, the most closely held information in any presidential campaign is the candidate’s schedule. Not because of security or secrecy, but because depending on the politics of the moment, the schedule is subject to change at any given moment. Distributing a schedule means committing to what’s on it.
That kind of last minute decision-making plays havoc with the press and the Secret Service. Not to mention the traveling staff who are equally as worried about laundry as they are politics.
Until the mid 90s, there was no realistic way to manage schedules other than on paper and in the mind of the scheduler. Outside of the rarified circle of the scheduling office, there was only rumor and speculation about where you might end up next.
As you might imagine, this uncertainty could be the cause of a fair amount of animosity and resentment among a press corps unsure of the next time they might be able to check in with spouses, children and significant others.
In 2008, getting a schedule out of campaign is still like pulling teeth, but software like Outlook and a slew of custom scheduling software that can be automatically synced to PDAs and other devices to make the process a lot more manageable.
CELL PHONES
It probably goes without saying that cellphones have been a huge change in campaigns, but how is not always as obvious.
More than any other business, presidential campaigns have extremely centralized decision-making processes. That’s because the importance of keeping messages focused and consistent is paramount if a candidate is to be successful. When you have a press corps traveling with you, it can be very embarrassing to answer questions about decisions made at the headquarters that you know nothing about.
In 1988, this was a problem of major proportions. Any major or minor decision, from whether to commit to a TV interview to confirming an appearance to how much to spend on an advertisement could be help up for hours because of the inability to reach senior staff and candidates while they were traveling.
It was not unusual for a campaign to send very private messages to the candidate through trusted reporters who traveled with the campaign and were a lot more disciplined about checking between trips. Of course that required a kind of symbiotic relationship between press and campaign staff that would be considered impossible today
Given Barack Obama’s success with the web and e-mail in 2008, one can only imagine what developments 2012 will bring. Individualized candidate cable channels? Video speeches on demand? Targeted issue ads based on your web usage? The future is wide open.
Eric Easter is Chief of Digital Strategy for Johnson Publishing. He writes about politics, culture and technology for Ebonyjet.com