As this seemingly endless election nears its final days, I’ve been talking nearly endlessly about the themes of “The First Campaign” and especially about young voters. I’ve given something like a dozen speeches in the last two weeks of this election, including at George Washington, the University of Florida, and Harvard Business School just yesterday.
The subject of new media seems particularly of interest to foreign political groups visiting the U.S.; I’ve spoken recently to groups from Sweden, Denmark, Norway, France, Germany, and a whole host of Latin American countries.
Here are some of the articles that I’ve been quoted in recently:
Garrett Graff, author of The First Campaign: Globalization, the Web, and the Race for the White House, believes young voters — especially the first-timers — are savvier and more committed than they’re getting credit for.
Graff pointed to the Iowa caucuses: “Four times as many under-30 voters participated in the Iowa caucuses this year as in 2004. In Missouri we saw three times as many, and in Tennessee three times as many.”
Graff believes that outreach to younger voters using technology familiar to that age group — text messaging and social websites such as Facebook — will keep them engaged through Election Day.
I was also a guest on The Guardian‘s weekly tech podcast: “Garrett Graff of the Washingtonian told me more than a month ago that if Barack Obama won the election it would be because of his innovative use of the mobile phones. Mobile phones were part of an overall digital strategy that turned millions of supporters into an army of volunteers and donors. Even before the general election, Obama’s internet strategy had already proven decisive, Garrett said. He had already defeated the most powerful machine in the Democratic Party: The Clintons.”
The Boston Phoenix: “McCain is actually no Luddite…. But you wouldnít know that from the way the McCain campaign has seemed to distance itself from technology. Though the Republican candidateís Web site does have the nowadays-requisite Flash videos and a blog thatís updated a few times a day, ‘the McCain campaign seems like itís going out of its way to avoid using modern technology,’ says Garrett M. Graff, author of The First Campaign: Globalization, the Web, and the Race for the White House. ‘There is no documented proof that the McCain campaign has sent out a text message. I have never heard of it [a McCain text message], and I know of no one who has.'”
Now, just for the record, the McCain campaign did, after this article came out, send a single text message to voters the day before the election. One text message. Once.
Continuing my unofficial international speaking tour, I’m off to Duke next weekend for a panel and then on to the University of Missouri, Westminster College, and then, of all places, Spain to speak at the 2008 NewsXchange conference.
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