When Hillary Clinton officially launched her campaign for president via Twitter it set off a media spark. For decades, the consensus was that running a successful presidential campaign meant speaking at town hall meetings and organising a vigorous ground game. Staffers and volunteers would hustle door-to-door to ingratiate voters. They would also hand out flyers at storefronts and meritoriously tout their candidate of choice.
Nowadays, the Internet and social media are the prominent political ground games. Television is still an effective venue to present salient talking points, but now voters, especially the younger crowd, receive most of their political information on the Web. In addition, the data received from online viewers greatly helps steer the candidates’ efforts. Twitter and Facebook are the most popular sites for presidential hopefuls. However, there are countless other sites such Pinterest, Linkedin, and Google Plus. Where television ads are quite expensive, the Internet is vastly cost-free. Candidates will still appear at town hall meetings to express their punctilious views on the issues, and then they can use the footage of the interaction on social sites.
Karl Rove, former George W. Bush Senior Advisor to both of his presidential campaigns, introduced micro-targeting leading up to the 2004 election. Politicians in California have used a similar practice since the early nineties. At that time, the Web was not nearly what it is today. The Internet is now in nearly every home in the country. George Bush won his first election in 2000 essentially by 537 votes in Florida. He also had 500,000 less national votes than his opponent did – former Vice President Al Gore. Mr. Rove realised that in the reelection effort for 2004, his strategies would have to change.
His next opponent was then Senator John Kerry. Karl Rove’s blueprint raised a record high $367 million. John Kerry raised an impressive $328 million, but it was not enough to topple the Rove machine. The Republican turnout was far greater than most of the poles had predicted. Rove’s micro-targeting is the Genesis of tactics used today. Included are targeted emails, texts, Robo-calls, Web advertising, video, radio, and even direct mailing. The main objective is to bring the candidates message into the voters’ home. The talking points are then tailored to targeted audiences in hopes of motivating them to go out and vote on Election Day.
The world of political pundits took notice and the game of politicking was monumentally changed. In 2008, David Axelrod guided a near-perfect campaign for then Senator Barack Obama. A name few knew was destined for the White House because of the targeted campaigning and social media. Obama’s former opponent, Senator John McCain, used the same tactics but not nearly to the level of Axelrod. Non-profit online political groups popped up all over the country and they pounded McCain with negative ads. The Senator chose not to counter those ads with equal negativity. He was an Internet anachronism and he lost handily in the election. After Obama’s big win, the Editor in Chief of The Huffington Post stated this, “Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be president. Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not have been the nominee.” In this day and age, the issues seem less important than the messenger does.
The next challenge for America’s 44th president was Governor Mitt Romney in 2012. Like McCain’s staff, Mitt’s team did not use social sites to their fullest potential. Although President Obama raised more money than the Romney campaign, he actually spent $7 million less. Using social media to get his message out, he won his reelection by grabbing 53% of the vote. Team Obama posted four-times as much content on the net than team Romney. Barack Obama also utilised twice the number of social platforms than Mitt’s effort. Mr. Obama also received twice the likes, shares, views, and comments. This inspired the young voters to get out and cast their vote.
In the 2012 election, David Axelrod took his campaign to an even higher level. The consensus had been messaging to the country via social media. This time around, he localized the messaging in a state-by-state forum. Specific states would see their local issues addressed as opposed to one larger blanketed message. Obama posted on the Internet at a ratio of 6 to 1 compared to Romney. On Twitter, pro-Obama messages appeared more than Mitt’s by an astounding 29 tweets for every one tweet from Romney. Obama also blogged twice as much as his opponent and achieved the same on YouTube.
The 2016 election is sure to be the most exposed election of them all. The candidates will appear on any device with a screen, and several times per day. The presidential hopefuls will have to endure 24-hour scrutiny and every word they have said publicly in the past can be brought back to life via the Internet. Whosoever wins the media game, will most likely be America’s 45th president.
