Securing the orange vote

Australia's Liberal Prime Minister is widely believed to have a matter of days left in office as he is predicted to lose to Labour's Kevin Rudd. His campaign has been fraught with problems, with many viewing it as the campaign of a team that know they are beaten. In particular Youtube users have remorselessly attacked him using a range of mash-ups; the incredible farting PM certainly undermining his credibility.

His last foray on Youtube is clearly attempting to position Howard as a nice guy, caring about disabled children, the environment and who listens. But the reaction is perhaps not the one he wanted.

Comments on Youtube suggest his video may have won over the orangutans (the orange vote), or that it promotes Daniel Clark more than Howard. Daniel is the young disabled boy who wrote to Howard to ask him to intervene on behalf of the apes. Watch it, it makes many political video advertisements seem quite engaging.

Why the Republicans may win the US Presidency

The front runners for Democratic candidate have always been Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama; third place man John Edwards, despite innovative campaigning methods and experiments in second life, barely gets a look in. The reason his wife Elizabeth happily states is "We can't make John black. We can't make him a woman... Those things get you a lot of press." But now the race is coming to the most important point, Edwards is campaigning 'on the stump' telling Democrat voters that there is unlikely to be a Democrat president if Clinton or Obama get in. Taylor Marsh, hinting that such claims are racist and sexist, though acknowledging Edwards is neither argues:

"what he's saying on the stump is meant to convince primary voters that he can appeal to Bubba; someone who isn't going to vote for a woman or a black man, but might cast a vote for Edwards. Let's face it, Bubba could never handle a woman with her finger on the nuclear trigger; as for a black man, forget it. It's a strategy to convince primary voters that Edwards can capture votes Clinton and Obama can't, which will lead him to the White House"

Whether this kind of dog-whistle campaigning, sending out a message that those who need to hear will hear the loudest, may well be failing given that his opponents and most of the politically aware in the US know about it. But there is the question of whether this could win him the nomination.

In many ways it is a good thing that the race and gender question is public and not hidden by a spiral of political correctness that suppresses such issues. It is a real question in US politics whether 'Bubba' will elect anyone but a white male, and I imagine that question would also rise in UK politics and politics across northern Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Perhaps the gender issue is not as great, there are many precedents of female leaders, but race remains a tricky and unpredictable issue in the US and elsewhere.

Edwards meanwhile is walking a fine line. On the one hand he states on mass media that "Anybody who's considering not voting for Sen. Obama because he's black or for Sen. Clinton because she's a woman, I don't want their vote," and "I think the most-electable candidate is the one with the best ideas" but some subliminal and less widely mediated messages are suggesting, as one African-American Democrat camapigner argues, "that when Democrats make a selection, they realize that the world is not perfect and they have to consider the long haul."

It adds a very different dimension to the campaign and readings of the outcome, and raises a new debate that could obscure the politics of the campaign. These factors, and the real truth that Bubba may decide the election, could give Republicans the political agenda - so they can talk policies while Democrats tiptoe around race and gender - and the Presidency as Bubba looks for the guy that looks like him.

The new television

Hidden away on Family Security Matters [The National Security Resource for American Families] is a fascinating article by Walter Anderson on the role of the Internet for the 2008 US Presidential Election. It starts with the premise that "The Internet IS the new television as far as 21st century campaigning is concerned". The statement is underpinned by the fact that, while television is still a core toll of nomination hopeful's campaigns, the Internet is being used to a far greater extent and introducing a range of novel communication devices that would be impossible via other media.

Raising funds seems to be the key role of Internet communication. One example sited is from John Edwards' campaign, one that has exploited perhaps every device the Internet can offer. "His campaign sent out a request purporting to be from his Mother Bobbie asking for a $6.10 donation before his birthday (his birthday was June 10th) to raise $610,000.00 for the campaign. In turn, Bobbie would send her recipe for pecan pie as a reward to each donor."

The reason for the shift towards e-political communication is the fact that the Internet offers a low-cost communication solution. Using free outlets campaign communication can be posted, communities can be formed around a candidate and a momentum can be created around a campaign.

For Anderson, email is the killer application that can "get information and ideas passed to thousands and potentially millions of voters", though he accepts that it may be social networking tools that might have a more significant long-term impact, but he accepts them as a requiring email to pull voters towards other aspects of the campaign. If we accept that a momentum is forming around the contest generally, and that the Internet is acting as a tool of mobilising potential voters to engage cognitively with the campaign then he is perhaps right in his concluding claim that "we [voters] can look to the Internet for additional assistance with understanding campaign issues and deciding upon candidates between now and November 2008.

There is a slight query here, yes voters can look to the Internet to help with the voter choices, but will they? The elaboration likelihood model (above) talks of two routes for information processing, peripheral and central. Does an email act as a reminder that an individual is standing, or does receipt make the receiver want to go and find out more about that candidate? If the latter, and this equates to real engagement, will those who follow links to websites, or friend a candidate on Facebook, find that positive attitudes become stronger and negative associations weaken so achieving some form of behavioural change. Perhaps currently we can measure that in donations, but these will be existing supporters simply mobilised by e-political communication. Can these tools reach floating voters, weak supporters or supporters of opponents? That will be the test and, if it can be measured and quantitatively proven that the Internet has some impact on voter engagement and voter choice making, we will see political communication increasingly moving online. This could solve the current conundrum for political campaigners, now to communicate directly to voters without the noise of mediation. But will it? Is this a bandwagon that is creating its own momentum or is it the start of a revolution in political communication?