Campaign by Web cast

Yesterday I attended a relatively new type of campaign rally and information session. Packed into the Democratic Party Headquarters in Oak Park, Illinois, about 75 people sat silently through a 75-minute question and answer session with Barack Obama. Obama wasn't in the room, yet he was. Broadcast live through his Web site, the Web cast was streamed live. In the tiny town of Onawa, Iowa, (it only has two stop lights) the presidential candidate took questions from a crowd gathered in the community library. This is a unique way to hold a town hall meeting all over the country simultaneously. His campaign said 5,000 similar events were being held in all 50 states to view the Web cast. I could have watched the Web cast at home, but part of the excitement was the atmosphere and seeing how people reacted to certain remarks. I compare it to being in the basement of some church or house leading up to the Revolution, plotting secretly and building excitement for the cause.

I was excited to hear him speak on the issues, yet walking away from the session, I feel as if I know no more about his stance on the issues than previously. He wants every American to have health care by the end of his first term, he is tired of outsourcing jobs to other countries, he thinks "No Child Left Behind" is not working and he wants to end our reliance on oil for gasoline. Don't we all, but how?! Obama did lay out his plan for phased redeployment and withdrawl from Iraq.

The downfall, as with any form is technology, is reliance on it working. For about the first 10 minutes as people logged onto the site to watch, there were intermittent delays or breaks between words. Throughout the Web cast, there were times when there were words but no picture. And 75 people sitting around a computer screen is a bit difficult. This speaks to the age group and demographics of Obama supporters, however.

I doubt an event of this nature would attract those who are unsure who they support or sway the vote of someone who is currently backing another candidate, but I think the primary objective in this instance was to excite and energize his loyal supporters and get them pumped to help him campaign, spread the word and thereby attract others to support Obama. I did come home and hang an Obama sign in my window for others to see as they passby, so I guess it kinda worked in that I'm spreading the word, maybe just not as actively as the Obama campaign would've liked.

The Washington Post story linked to this post talks about this specific problem and points out that while Howard Dean had 650,000 online registered supporters, they were unable to mobilize that online support into real offline support. The Obama campaign is optimistic they will be able to succeed where Dean failed. I think we'll just have to watch and see how it plays out as to whether these new mediums for campaigning are in fact making an impact.