2009 Online Advocacy Review
Here’s a decent review from ClickZ of how online media were used for political and issue campaigning in 2009.
The comment I found most interesting is the "gap" one expert noted between Obama presidential campaign’s pathbreaking online campaigning in 2008 and the feeble use of this army to support Administration initiatives in 2009.
One wonders if this is a matter of key personnel moving on (reminding us that really shrewd, innovative issue campaigners are hard to find, whatever their medium of choice); passion leaking from the balloon; or, related, most of the folks who climb aboard the train during the excitement of a campaign just not having the sophistication to realize that it doesn’t end, it just begins, on election day.
I’ve always believed that issue advocates and campaigners have a far more difficult job (including the related task of fundraising) than political campaigners. The former must deal with the supreme challenge of maintaining momentum, commitment, and loyalty through all the twists and turns of the policy-making process … a process that can be incredibly arcane, full of mid-course defeats, and years long.
Tom
One response to “2009 Online Advocacy Review”
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Good stuff. As you point out, the “physics” of political campaigning are fundamentally (not superficially!) different from issue/advocacy campaigning.
What issue campaign has a billion dollar budget, a clear end date known years in advance, a binary win/lose outcome, guaranteed lead story in the news for 18 months, and (in the case of Obama), a spokesman with once-in-a-generation charisma?