Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column. We’ve gathered a group of visionaries and veterans in the mobile industry to give their insights into the marketplace.
Sixteen months ago, George Washington University convened Web strategists from leading Presidential campaigns and social networking sites to discuss how technology was revolutionizing political campaigning. Enthusiasm, expertise and vision came from all quarters, and no one seemed to stand out markedly from the pack.
But Barack Obama’s innovative tech strategies emerged as a decisive factor in helping him defeat all rivals by Election Day – with huge implications for effective problem-solving in the Obama Administration that begins in January. Among his novel strategies was an Internet-enabled get-out-the-vote drive that micro-targeted likely supporters. With its major parts confidential until Election Day, it helped boost the Democratic vote 10% from 2004 levels – and win such longtime Republican states as Virginia, North Carolina and Indiana, as well as the major battlegrounds of Ohio and Florida.
This was cutting-edge, easy-to-use technology implemented by legions of capable volunteers. It was far different from the vague promises of many candidates. Looking ahead, the plausible prediction is that Obama will similarly implement his pledge to use “science and technology to solve the country’s most pressing problems.” In this, wireless will have great importance, as previewed by RCR Wireless in its Q&A published Oct. 24, by my previous RCR Wireless Reality Check column Oct. 7, and by such advisors as former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, who recently described Obama’s technology goals at a forum. This is further confirmed by a Washington Post article entitled “Under Obama, Web Would Be the Way: Unprecedented Online Outreach Expected.”
For perspective, no organizational effort in business or government is so rapid, massive and utterly without preexisting infrastructure as a major party U.S. Presidential campaign. A campaign begins with about a dozen or so close supporters. If successful it requires organizing millions of workers by Election Day. Then it promptly shrinks to a tiny core of bill-payers and other care-takers, with the winning team reassembling separately in transition to an Administration.
This column summarizes tech-enabled clues from the Obama campaign. Obama emphasized technology themes right from the start, beginning with his candidacy announcement on Feb. 10, 2007. “Let us be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age,” he said. “Let’s make college more affordable, and let’s invest in scientific research, and let’s lay down broadband lines through the heart of inner cities and rural towns all across America.”
A first major Washington, D.C., fund-raiser for Obama was in March 2007 at the home of President Clinton’s FCC Chairman Hundt, with attendance by former FCC Chairman Bill Kennard as co-host and a high proportion of other Democratic technorati. It was so crowded that only a few of the 200 donors (most “maxed-out” in their contributions even for that early event) could chat with the candidate.
Building on that, the Obama campaign Web site became not just a compilation of tech speeches and policy statements, but a uniquely interactive, collaborative tool far beyond anything previously created by a major candidate. Even the most Internet-friendly of his rivals tended to communicate top-down.
Close attention to such matters was one of my priorities as president of the Washington, D.C.-based Wireless Communications Association (WCA) until mid-August of this year. Visualizing the increasing importance of broadband in the U.S. economy in the spring of 2007, WCA launched a unique interactive website called the Broadband Thought Leaders Forum to compare the tech policies of 17 major party contenders. Full editorial control was by WCA’s programs coordinator Meredith Cicerchia, who created a politically neutral site to educate the tech community, political opinion leaders and ultimately voters.
Each of campaigns tended to place more priority on using technology than in debating it. Fund-raising, issuing campaign statements and organizing volunteers are of course most vital during the brutal competition weeding out the candidate field.
But the finalists from both major parties also developed specific policy statements based on their relevant expertise. Republican Sen. John McCain had served as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee with jurisdiction over the FCC during a period of historic growth during the late 1990s, and some argued that he staked out impressive independence by his vote against the 1996 Telecom Act. Sen. Hillary Clinton announced in-depth policy proposals on such matters as broadband, helping foster her early momentum. The Sen. John Edwards campaign was managed by Joe Trippi, who now describes his pioneering Internet strategy work in 2004 for Howard Dean’s campaign as “like the Wright Brothers” airplane compared to Obama’s “Apollo 11” manned mooncraft.
The result? “More than any previous presidential campaign, Obama’s effort is transforming politics with its use of technology,” according to a Boston Globe summary last February. “The astounding fund-raising figures are well documented – the campaign keeps a running tally on its Web site as it closes in on 1 million donors. But Obama’s team has taken the use of the Internet to another level by allowing masses of volunteers to self-organize over the past year and communicate through their own social networking site, my.barackobama.com.
The Senator’s greatest innovation was in persuading people to enter personal information directly onto his campaign’s Web site, according to a Bloomberg news report last April entitled “Why Obama Is Racking Up Superdelegates, ” It quoted Republican marketing executive Bill McIntyre as saying that O
bama’s 800,000 names by then might be worth $200 million – with the list now reportedly at 3.1 million donors and 10 million supporters. “While in the past, campaigns have cross-referenced lists of registered voters against other records such as credit-card purchases or magazine subscriptions to find potential supporters, Obama’s information is more accurate and precise because it relies on data that donors provide themselves.”
Obama’s campaign benefitted also from early vigorous support from senior members of the tech community in policy groups collaborating on massive policy studies vital to the campaign and to a new Administration. Internet pioneer and Google Senior VP Dr. Vinton Cerf recently mentioned at a forum how the policy site’s interactivity greatly increased efficiency for him and other policy volunteers.
Even more important was the campaign’s creative use of electronic social-networks to recruit and coordinate massive numbers of volunteers. The New York Times summarized such efforts in an August profile about Obama staffer Chris Hughes, age 24, entitled, “The Facebooker Who Friended Obama.” On Nov. 3, the Obama campaign announced in a press release, “Just to give you a sense of the scale of our operation, take a look at what we’re doing in Pennsylvania alone: This weekend, volunteers knocked on more than 1.8 million doors and made 1.2 million phone calls – in Pennsylvania alone.” Similarly, the campaign had a huge, tech-enabled success in assigning some 4,000 volunteer lawyers for voter protection at the 2,000 polls throughout Virginia. When a phone system temporarily crashed the back-up Web system provided even quicker communications between the field and local offices.
Innovative technology also helped Obama supporters respond to attacks generated by late in the campaign by opponents’ emails and robocalls, which seem to be yesteryear’s tool. Surveys found that Obama’s favorability ratings increased during the final weeks of the campaign, even as attacks upon him became more harsh. “Thanks to YouTube – and blogging and instant fact-checking and viral emails,” says Huffington Post creator Arianna Huffington, “it is getting harder and harder to get away with repeating brazen lies without paying a price, or to run under-the-radar smear campaigns without being caught.”
In a parallel development, she noted also the astonishing array of new media tools drawing the attention of political junkies away from the traditional media. Google provided an election homepage for voters to find polling places. Fueling volunteer enthusiasm for all candidates were such Web-based sites as FiveThirtyEight (with its amazingly accurate final predictions), Pollster.com, TechPresident.com, as well as vast numbers of other bloggers and interactive features.
Interactivity can also create big problems, as the Obama campaign saw this summer. Obama’s support for a Senate bill providing for immunity for telecoms that assisted government surveillance generated a huge protest from his supporters, whose complaints were posted on his own website. All organizations experience this phenomenon. But not everyone seeks to turn a controversy to its advantage, as Obama did with his Web site reply to his critics.
At a post-election think tank forum on Nov. 6, New America Foundation Senior Fellow Steve Clemons warned of dire challenges ahead for the next Administration despite the enthusiasm of Obama’s supporters. “We’ve come from the Housing Bubble to the Obama Bubble,” Clemons said. “Something or someone is going to pop that bubble. Until the world begins to see priorities defined and actions taken, the world is not going to believe it.”
But co-panelist and New Democratic Network President Simon Rosenberg offered a different view in foreseeing that Obama’s tech innovations have paved the way for “a completely different relationship between the President and the public.” Presidential “Fireside Chats” by radio initiated during the 1930s Depression will be out in this scenario. They would be supplanted by an entire array of interactive and citizen-empowering communications tools already tested during the campaign that convinced 55+ million voters to be Obama supporters. Pipedream or prediction? We’ll all soon see.
Andrew Kreig, former president of the Wireless Communications Association (WCA), is managing director at Eagle View Capital Strategies, a Washington, DC-based consultancy, and is research affiliate at the Information Economy Project at George Mason University’s School of Law. As WCA president from 1997 to this summer, he led the association’s regulatory and business evolution from fixed wireless to advanced mobile applications. He was a donor and volunteer on behalf of President-elect Barack Obama during the recent campaign, but this column is based on personal opinions and publicly-available news reports, with no official status.
Comments or questions? You may contact Andrew at Andrew@EagleViewDC.com. You may contact RCR Wireless News at rcrwebhelp@crain.com.
