The Online Race for the White House

The US elections are just a month away and we have had some interesting uses of the internet and new technologies in the campaigning process.

As ever - due to the number of innovative high-tech companies in the US, the scale of the campaigns, and the amount of money spent – US politicians and parties are leading the way in the use of online tools.

A recent blog posting by the UK MP Ian Taylor (https://corpblog.nextfifteen.com/2008/internet-politics.aspx) praised Barack Obama’s raising of 36 million dollars in funding online when campaigning for his party’s nomination, compared with Hillary Clinton’s 6 million dollars. Taylor also noted that Obama now has a million supporters on Facebook compared with McCain’s 150,000.

It is interesting that Ian Taylor is the MP pointing out these facts, since he is a Conservative – not a natural supporter of Obama. But he is a rare techno-savvy MP in the UK Parliament, and on the council of the Parliamentary IT Committee PITCOM.

Another recent development is the launch by Obama’s camp of an iPhone application making it easy for people to call their friends and bring them into the campaign – see for example the BBC story on this at:
https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7649753.stm

Ultimately, however, the proof of whether online campaigning can really make the difference will be in the election result. In the past there have been other candidates – Howard Dean is the obvious one who springs to mind – who have gathered huge momentum through online grassroots campaigns, only to lose through making gaffes on the traditional medium of TV.

Will Obama become the first US President who can claim the internet as an of the most important contributors to his election?

We will know in a month. And I can’t resist a mention - we will be dissecting the online race a week after its conclusion at a special workshop at the London e-democracy conference:
https://www.headstar-events.com/edemocracy08/