I really like to do interviews and answer questions by e-mail. When I see it in print, I can go back, look at what I said, and answer the question, “Did I really say that?” Case in point, Jose Antonio Vargas’ article in the Washington Post this morning. The other upside to the e-mail method is it almost guarantees accurate quotes because all you have to do is cut and paste.
The downside, as with any interview, is you often lose the context of a single remark in a larger context. As a result, I’d like to share that context by sharing the exchange we had.
Jose: On our very first face-to-face interview, at a Starbucks
more than a year ago, you told me: “A lot of Republicans still think of the
Web as a very expensive brochure — like a slick direct mail. Here’s my own
paragraph of text that explains who I am as a candidate. It’s very
one-dimensional, almost very simplistic, purely a send-receive model.”
Looking at www.johnmccain.com right now, today, would you say the same thing of this site?
Me: In some ways, yes. In some ways, no.
His site is definitely an extension of the broadcast or send/receive model. The overwhelming majority of space on his home page is all about McCain, and not about how real people can get involved. It’s brand marketing, not word of mouth marketing. What little opportunity there is for community interaction or participation is buried in a small box below the scroll.
That said, they’re trying to move the yardstick a bit. They’ve opened up comments on the site (not sure if they’re moderated or not). They still have their McCainSpace social network and an action center. They’re just really playing those down.
As I said, the quote is accurate, but the context of my whole point about the difference between word of mouth and generic brand marketing was lost.
The advantage of an open community is it creates that word of mouth component to your otherwise traditional marketing efforts. TV, radio, print, and even web advertising serve a specific goal. They put your brand in front of people.
Empowering believers to extend that brand – to become your champions and carry your message on a personal level – is a key part of what Jose was discussing in the article. Had he been writing for AdAge, I’m guessing he would have kept more of that and less of the criticism of McCain’s otherwise uninviting presence.
People are trying to help McCain. The problem is McCain needs to take a cue from Jerry Maguire. Remember the scene with Cruise and Gooding in the locker room? Remember Jerry’s impassioned plea to Rod Tidwell? It applies to McCain.
Help us, help you!
Open your community. Invite us to be a part of your campaign, not just through scripted conference calls with bloggers, but through an active vibrant community that is – hold your breath – visible to the world. If you build it, they will come.
The Washington Post today has a (far too) long piece about Meghan McCain and her blog. The piece is fairly unremarkable in its writing, and the blog, from what I’ve seen is fairly unremarkable with the exception of the angle.
There is, however, one passage that jumped out at me as I was reading.
There’s a genius, too, to Meghan McCain’s style of saying so much without divulging anything truly intimate — a balancing act perfected by her dad on his Straight Talk Express. The more you talk, the more people start to feel as if they know you. The more you talk, the more you minimize the reverberations of any one thing you say.
The disdain the reporter has for McCain (both Meghan and her dad) is barely masked. Lines like the first one above are an example, as is the piece’s title – a take off on Credence Clearwater Revival’s famous song Fortunate Son. Given John McCain’s staunchly pro-war position, it’s obvious the writer is mocking Meghan’s similarity to the child in the song.
Some folks are born made to wave the flag,
Ooh, they’re red, white and blue.
And when the band plays hail to the chief,
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, lord,
It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no senator’s son, son.
It ain’t me, it ain’t me; I ain’t no fortunate one, no,
Ignoring the subtle digs at her and her dad, the reporter did, in that brief passage above, capture one fascinating aspect of the Internet. It’s the piece that most politicians and corporate clients don’t get and it bears repeating.
The more you talk, the more people start to feel as if they know you. The more you talk, the more you minimize the reverberations of any one thing you say.
Communications types who do not spend a lot of time online fail to get this. They assume that every word you say is going to be twisted, distorted, and manipulated. They worry that some random blog post will send stock prices or poll standings plummeting downward.
Yet that statement is the essence of this new era of Internet communications. Allowing people to see you, and to understand you, actually protects you from the random out of context quote. As your comfort with exposure increases, and you open your dialog more and more, you will guard against the misstatement. Your allies will have more ammunition to protect your back and your enemies will have less of a vacuum to fill with an errant remark.
For anyone interested in communications, I would suggest you read the McCain article for two reasons. First, it’s a perfect example of the veiled hostility visited upon anyone Republican by the mainstream media. Second, it does illustrate someone taking the right approach to their online brand – be who you are and accept the fact that not everyone is going to like you.
Still, reprimanding him may cause future McCain operatives to think twice before doing their job. Is McCain recommending a sort of “limited war” in which the enemy can shoot at us, but we can’t shoot back?
Standing on principle is a good value, but so is supporting your subordinates and so is loyalty. It takes political courage to stand up for your team — even if it may cost you politically. Is McCain too concerned about wanting to come across as a nice guy?
The bigger point, and one I think that’s been lost in this, is that Soren was using his personal accounts in a personal communication. Unlike the Amanda Marcotte dust up, Soren was not hired as a spokesperson for the campaign and simultaneously promoting himself and his personal ideological agenda.
He didn’t use a campaign e-mail address to send the link to the video. He didn’t even use a McCain sponsored twitter account. He used his own personal accounts to share a thought with people he felt were friends about online politics – a field he happens to have both expertise in and familiarity with.
This was not like the Samantha Power incident where an adviser (albeit an unpaid one) was speaking with a reporter. This isn’t closer to the cases of Linda Olsen and Judy Rose who were fired for forwarding the “Obama is a Muslim” e-mail. While it was never clear to me whether the women in that case used official campaign addresses or their personal accounts, the material they sent was untrue and potentially slanderous.
Soren’s incident has none of that. The material in the video was predominantly Obama, his wife, and his pastor. Granted the video contains footage of Olympic athletes and Malcolm X that it should not have. The statements of Michelle Obama and Jeremiah Wright are more damaging without all that.
But again, Soren did not create the video. The message was not sent from the campaign systems. It was a personal note. He was not a spokesman, he was a private citizen working on a public campaign and using a personal address.
One thing about this incident sends a chill down my spine. Many people are afraid to run for public office because they fear the rectal probe that is our electoral process. They fear the media scrutiny and the potential that some past indiscretion – no matter how small – will make them a public spectacle.
Do political operatives now have to fear that their private communication will become tomorrow’s news story? Do the people that give selflessly in political campaigns have to dread every workday wondering if they will be the campaign’s latest black eye?
How many e-mails did you send today that, taken out of context and publicized on the news, could be an embarrassment to you or your employer? How many of your personal notes contain jokes about the office, your company’s competitors or some other matter best kept private?
If we have rewritten the political rules so every piece of personal communication sent by campaign staff is now fodder for political advantage, we will further degrade our political process.
Someone sent me a link to the YouTube video below and suggested I take a look at about the 35-36 minute mark. I admit, my curiosity got the better of me and I tried to skip ahead, but the gremlins at YouTube would not allow it. I ended up watching the whole thing. I was surprised to hear my name mentioned at about the suggested frame. This is apparently part of the Authors@Google series in which book authors chat with Google employees. Garrett Graff was discussing online politics.
The question in which I was mentioned had to do with this Washington Post article in which I said most online campaigns really aren’t moving the ball forward. The question was whether Garrett agreed with my assertion. I’ll let you watch for yourself the discussion and his answer. It’s good, so I recommend you do.
Let me, however, elaborate on the original question I was asked and the reply. I did not mean to imply that campaigns weren’t doing interesting things. Mindy Finn with Romney’s campaign did some really good work on the “create your own ad” effort. Obama’s people have done an amazing job of fundraising online. There are some novel online efforts being undertaken.
What I meant, more specifically, was there does not appear to be any effort to convert that excitement and energy into actual votes. Most of the GOTV work being done is still being done offline. Take for instance this note I got from Hillary’s people.
I’m writing to you because Hillary needs you now more than ever. As I write this email, Team Hillary volunteers here at headquarters are on the phones talking to voters. Can you pitch in for Hillary and join us at the phone bank for at least two get-out-the-vote shifts between now and March 4th? Reply to this email to let me know when you can do your part.
Every night this week a senior advisor to Hillary, including Harold Ickes, Terry McAuliffe, Guy Cecil and campaign manager Maggie Williams, will join our volunteers for strategy discussion of the path to victory. Which night will you volunteer this week?
We need help every day. Our shifts are:
10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
2 p.m. – 6 p.m.
6 p.m. – 10 p.m.
Reply to this email to let me know when you can pitch in for Hillary.
We also have a critical need for volunteers this weekend. Can you pitch in this Saturday or Sunday? Please reply to me and let me know when you can help out!
Obama, Thompson, and Romney all gave me tools that allowed me to make such calls any time it was convenient for me. The technology really isn’t very difficult to create or manage. You allow your user to log in, get a script and numbers, make calls and complete a survey form, and report back the same data they would report back if they were sitting in your HQ.
The Hillary model, which looks like the same model Bill used in 1992, assume I have four uninterrupted hours to spend in your office. It also assumes I want to drive there, find parking, arrange for a sitter, etc. etc. It doesn’t allow for me to participate on my terms on my schedule.
This was something we understood in 2004 and was the reason we pioneered online call tools with the Bush campaign. We made a half-million contacts using our online tools. That was over and above the millions made in the traditional way.
Had Clinton’s campaign spent some time building such a tool instead of figuring out how many Drudge clones they could make (ahem, ahem) they could have empowered their supporters to get involved when and how it was convenient for them.
That was the point that I was trying to make in the Post piece. It’s not that campaigns aren’t doing anything jazzy with technology, it’s the fact that very little of it is meant to empower voters. Romney’s create your own ad effort was a great example. Give people stock footage, audio, video, images, etc, and let them be part of your creative team. Give them walk lists, call sheets, and other tools to mobilize voters and let them do it.
Where the campaigns this year have fallen short is they gave us tools without showing me the best way to use it. If I hand you a hammer, nails and a saw, you could eventually figure out that you could cut down a tree and make something. If I gave you the same tools with a guide to woodworking from raw materials, you’d be much better off.
My vision of campaign 2008 in December of 2004 was dramatically different from what has been. While it still may come to fruition, I’m not seeing much evidence that it will. It should, by nature, have been Obama, Paul or Thompson who pulled this off. I’ll explain what I had hoped to see.
Imagine a completely different campaign. Imagine a campaign that invested heavily in both the mobilization tactics and the microtargeting acumen of the Bush campaign, with the grassroots groundswell of the Dean campaign. Imagine taking a national database of registered voters and creating a sense of ownership among your online activists to reach low-propensity or non-voters. Here’s how it would work.
A campaign invests in microtargeting to determine what their typical supporter looks like as a function of consumer behavior, issue preferences, etc. The campaign buys consumer data for every citizen of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, etc that matches their model. Not just voters, mind you, but every single citizen that fits the mold.
Online activists are given tools like online phone banks, walk tools and handouts to go door-to-door reaching out to other voters who support their guy. More importantly, though, they match the consumer data for unregistered voters against their voter data to determine who is NOT registered to vote. An intensive campaign is run among online activists to reach them.
When activists are engaged, but nobody else is (say January through October of 2007) the campaign has their people working to register those people. The activists are brought in at the ground level to begin building what will be a long-term relationship with these folks. Geotargeting will allow the activist to find people located very near them, and reach out to them not just as a campaign volunteer, but as a neighbor – as someone who shops at the same grocery store, whose kids go to the same school.
The campaign would ask those volunteers to “adopt” those non-voters and urge them to a) drop off registration forms, b) follow up to make sure they get registered – which the campaign would verify by tracking voter registration additions against it’s internal database of targeted non-voters, c) deliver news and information about the campaign, and d) get them to vote in the primaries/caucuses/general.
We had, with the Bush campaign, developed tools along two separate lines. We called them all “Virtual Precinct”, but they were comprised of either your friends and family (to whom you could e-mail info) or targeted voters living near you (to whom you could walk, call, etc). This year, I had expected to see the two merge as campaigns used microtargeting, geotargeting, and online activism in synchronicity.
You have given your activists incredibly powerful tools to build the campaign. By explaining the goal, building a community, empowering them to be involved, and fostering a sense of ownership in the outcome, you have given them the instruction manual and a way to judge their success.
In addition, you could have volunteers in states with late primaries reaching out to those with early primaries – not in the way Howard Dean attempted with outsiders identified by their neon hats tromping through town, but via phone, e-mail and mail. Personal messages of support for a candidate delivered with passion by a voter in the comfort of their surroundings, are more effective that any stale script repeated over and over by an underfed, underappreciated volunteer jammed into a tight space with 85 other people on phones two feet away.
Think of it as the difference between telecommuting and working in a sweatshop.
That’s what I had expected to see and that’s where I think campaigns are still missing what’s possible. Campaigns in 2008 are, for the most part, still stuck in the mold of the 1980s and 1990s.
We can buy groceries from home and never have to go to the store. We can buy any product we want from Amazon, Buy.com or others and have it the next day without ever leaving the couch. We can play video games with friends we have never met a half a world away. We can engage in whatever pursuits we choose with others who share our hobbies regardless of where we all reside.
But despite all of that, campaigns stil force us to go to their office, to use their phone, to drink their old, cold coffee and eat their leftover doughnuts. Campaigns are still about me doing what they want, when they want me to do it. They miss the simple fact that there is no better spokesperson for the campaign than a single dedicated supporter talking to their friends, neighbors, and family in comfortable surroundings.
Update: Apparently the Clinton campaign actually does have an online phone bank tool. That actually makes the plea for me to appear in person even more confusing. I have not, at any time, received an e-mail asking me to make calls using that tool. I, as a would-be volunteer, was sitting here untapped. I could have made countless calls into states that voted earlier, and states that vote after Virginia. The campaign, however, never mobilized me to use the tool they built. Instead, they waited until after my primary, and until it was almost too late. to ask me to make calls at all.
I made a point earlier this week about the GOP Valentine card missing the mark on trying to reach the GOP base. In watching them closely over the last few days, I am starting to see a larger theme emerging, and it makes me very nervous about our chances in November if Barack is the candidate.
This is indicative of the larger problem the GOP has with Obama. This is a young, dynamic, charismatic guy who hits a chord with people and really connects. In response, the GOP has picked a candidate beacuse “it was his turn”. We’ll dust off the every-four-year playbook and count on it to bring us to victory one more time.
The trouble is, Hillary has been working from our playbook. Everything she has thrown at Obama is right from “Republican Campaigns for Dummies” – he’s not experienced, he’s unelectable, he’ll take all your money, he’s black (I’m being facetious, but they did try it). Yet no matter how many of our plays she calls, she can’t seal the deal.
Do we honestly think that we’re so much better at running these plays that we’ll have a dramatically different outcome? Newt Gingrich doesn’t seem to think so. On Fox News last night he pointed out the strength of Obama’s appeal and commented that the GOP may be in trouble if it tries to run the same old campaign.
I think he’s right. If the RNC’s grand plan to beat Obama is to dust off the greatest hits of the last 40 years of campaigning, they’re going to be in trouble. This guy is running a different kind of campaign, and the old models aren’t going to win it.
That said, if Hillary’s the candidate, I think that model works fine. You’ll have two people who are re-running the same campaign we saw in 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004. It’ll be just like old times. For that reason, I hope I’m wrong and Hillary gets the nod. We know our tactics work on that battlefield.
Obama, however, is playing by a different set of rules. If he’s the guy, we need to step up our game.
I made a point earlier this week about