Obama vs. McCain: an Online Duel

The Obama and McCain duel is also spreading online. The candidates use this very reactive and fast medium to gather their fans, destructively criticize each other and to a lesser extent collect funds. But net surfers represent a very changeable community and US politicians have just come to realize this danger.

Since the last presidential election in the U.S.-–Bush vs. Kerry-–the Internet has become an essential tool for any candidate for the presidency. While politicians would let their fans confront one another through funny video clips and pranks in 2004, McCain’s, Obama’s and-–till May 2008-–Clinton’s teams took control of the biased video battle. They may not be able to control their fans, but the advisors to the potential presidential candidates can give them some pieces of advice, though. So far, the Democratic candidate has been ahead of McCain. On barackobama.com, his website that is higher ranked on search engines because of his less common last name, McCain’s program is utterly criticized.

“Meet the candidate” is the least viewed page of the whole site while the “fight the smears” rubric is a real success. Net surfers can ask their questions about the rumors against Obama. Users’ comments are so well-argued that the candidate even happens to use them in his speeches. The website is much more than a participative democracy; its surfers obviously see Obama as a star. As proof of the efficiency of the concept, an information website launched its “Encyclopaedia Baracktannica” (made on the pattern of the venerable Encyclopaedia Britannica), thus enabling net surfers to create their “Obamaisms”, neologisms with their off-beat definitions.

McCain far behind

The Republican candidate has fallen behind in his e-campaign. His first video game, Pork Invaders, was only launched on Facebook on June 21. The message is clear; you have to help the brave Republican candidate fight “pork” (which could also means “cutting waste”). He directly criticizes Obama’s over-expensive program. Despite the energetic video clips of the McCain girls, the Republican candidate’s electorate remains quite old while Obama enjoys a young community that is very active in chat rooms and on the main partner websites. As a result, this week’s most viewed video clip on Dailymotion US criticizes McCain – because of his warlike words, the Republican candidate might have made a supporter as mad and uncontrollable as the Hulk…

For the candidates, there is another goal behind the sarcastic video clips: calling for online donations. Needless to say, it’s a gold mine for the presidential candidates. Most of the time, small donors give an average of $30 to their favorite candidate. Though these contributions for Obama and McCain are modest, they reached the sum of $9.1 million in January and February 2008…

A considerable impact

As a scene of large-scale communications, the Internet mostly remains the fastest way to express your political ideas. Significant speeches and other “short sentences” are spread and commented on at the speed of light. This reactivity is very useful for the campaign teams since they can change strategies in real time. Behind the Internet tool, one question still remains to be answered: Is this medium really influential? Only a few statistical surveys tell us about the impact of the Internet. According to the Pew research center, an estimated 24% of Americans, most of whom are aged 18-29, acknowledged “they had learned things about the current campaign” thanks to the web.

Nonetheless, the assets of the medium – speed and reactivity – are an open door allowing any excess. The countless fraudulent emails that presented Obama as a Muslim candidate had a harmful effect on the campaign. For two weeks, despite the quick reaction of the Democratic team, a large minority of Americans believed that the Christian candidate was actually Muslim. Those false rumors are effective, though. But they don’t reach McCain as much as Obama, since the former hasn’t put a lot into his online campaign. U.S. politicians came to realize these dangers a bit too late. From now on, they will have to be cautious with this almost uncontrollable medium.