Saturday, January 05, 2008

Why Huckabee and Obama are running the best campaigns.

Now personally, I have been following the Huckabee campaign much more closely than the Obama campaign. However, I think that their strengths are likely similar and a sign of the times if you will. This election cycle is proving to be very unconventional for reasons I will list below:
The Internet
Youtube
TiVo
Character
and finally, Wisdom or luck.

Now the first three are technology based, and we'll start with them.
The Internet.
who now can imagine life without the internet? Its birth and maturity have been fairly short however. Internet was esentially 'brand new' to homes in just 1998 the people most getting used to the internet then? kids. 8 year olds. how old are they now? 18. old enought to vote. This may be the first election cycle where a very young voter turn out is high and i believe that that has to to with the availability of information on the internet. Word of mouth is now 'viral' on the net. And word of mouth is the best way to influence somebody.
Youtube
while other campaigns spend millions on tv ads (which I will address next) Huckabee made the best use of of Youtube, which is totally free. He also made good use of Chuck Norris. Nobody fast forwards through youtube... they do fastforward through tv ads if they have...
TiVO or some other DVR
My Iowan friend told me that in Iowa before the caucuses, EVERY ad on tv was a political ad. People of today have the means to skip your stupid ad while they watch Leno, or Letterman... which incidentally, Huckabee was recently on. (Leno, and Letterman tonight).
Character
Now, none of this free exposure does you any good unless you have a message that resonates with people. A Huckabee must rely on his wits and likeability when he subjects himself to media grilling, or even a talkshow. Any major gaffes will lead to a Deanesque departure from popular public opinion.
Wisdom or luck
I think that it was Huckabee's lack of money at first that forced him to use these unconventional approaches that have been so integral to his campaign. This would be 'luck'-- I might call it providence. I'd probably be scared of anyone who knew ahead of time that all these characters would play together to woo public interest, but huckabee himself nods to providence.

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