A Preview of Election 08 - Podcasting Politicians

Video Blogger writes "The LA Times predicts that the 2008 election will feature the rise of Podcasting Politicians, as strategists from both parties try to ride the latest trends to secure a victory in 2008. 'You'll not only be able to text people with messages, you'll be able to raise money, deliver video, audio, create viral organizing -- where one person sees something really interesting and it gets passed on and on,' says Donnie Fowler, a Democratic strategist."

Comments

I hereby predict...

[eurleif]

I hereby predict that podcasts will cease to be cool by January '09.

How about using text instead?

[KDR_11k]

You know, there's nothing more pointless than using a complicated and large file type for something that could have been expressed perfectly well in text. Text can be read as fast or slow as you like, you can skip text passages without having to search for a sentence to start, you can search it, you can quote it easily and you can reread parts you want to read again much faster than having to skip to a point in a sound file.

But then again pointless seems to describe many endeavours undertaken by politicians.

Seems like more NetRoots Campaigning to me

[monarda7216]

There is a site launched recently targeted towards Politicians of any faction to use as a resource for NetRoots Campaigning. It is not surprising really to consider the web as the next frontier for vote gathering. NetRootCampaigning.com does a great job of explaining why online campaigning will play such a pivotal role in upcoming elections, through the use of blogs, pod casts and audio distribution of speeches. The idea that you can get to know the candidates better makes sense, and the web is a great forum for accomplishing this. Each candidate that creates a strong web presence should be commended, we may for once be able to see that it is they are all about.

Re:Why podcast?

[ScentCone]

The entire notion of a ballot, with a very limited number of people to choose from, was created by nearly ancient corrupt, cheating polititians, who after winning the cheating contest that we call elections, made new laws to ensure that they and their team could stay in office and accept large quantities of money in the form of bribes.

So... you'd rather we didn't have some way of narrowing down national elections, and insteady just had a giant free-for-all where the guy with the most votes wins, but is elected by only a few percent of the voters? It's divisive enough when only something like half of the voters weigh on towards a winning candidate - but when you have a party in power that only got, say, 10% of the vote, they're essentially unable to get anything done.

As for "bribery"... do you have a conteporary example of politician becoming personally wealthy in direct exchange for particular voting in a certain way, etc? I can certainly point to politicians from both main political camps who are in, or are headed to jail for that sort of thing. And people who have spent years as, say, president are pretty much guaranteed to make a killing afterwards as authors, public speakers, and consultants... but I think you're confusing the flow of cash into party campaign coffers with the flow of cash into individuals' pockets. These people live under a microscope that none of us could tolerate. Doesn't mean I like most of them as humans, and I sure wouldn't want to have to live under that scrutiby myself - but frankly, I think you're skewing a little towards the tinfoil, here.

Who in their right mind ...

[LaughingCoder]

is going to willingly download political podcasts which are basically campaign ads, other than someone who is already fanatically committed to the particular candidate. Seriously, I simply can't imagine going to all that trouble to hear a campaign ad. Now I suppose if I have autofeeds set up and they find a way to jam their infomercials into my PodPlayer, I might accidentally hear one or two, but frankly, to me that would be like audio spam, and I would hold that against the candidate -- it would certainly not convince me to vote for him/her.

I'm sure there will be a large number of people listening to podcasts of their favorite politicians, but I am equally sure it will have no bearing on the outcome of the election.

Oh My Gawd, it's so true!

[pieterh]

Yes, the Democrats have realised, just as Rheinhold predicted all those years ago, that lots of people will have mobile phones in 2008!

It's stunning, and I expect the use of mobile phones will dramatically change the future of elections! For example, to raise money, people won't call fixed lines any more, but - get this! - call donors on their mobile phone!!

The opportunities are limitless... you could actually send people text messages to remind them to vote. You could... like... get them to download your ads, if you called them something cool like "podcasts"...

This kind of amazing insight is why the Democrats will definitely win the next elections, unless of course the Republicans simply start a new war, deport some gay abortion doctors to Guantanamo Bay for immigration violations, and install yet more unverifiable voting machines in all the swing states.

Democrats, please! If you want to win in 2008, listen to your young, radical wing. Impeach Bush. Reform Congress, starting by kicking out the corrupt Democrat congressmen who have sold out their constituents. Get people tuned into the real problems in the country... the failed war on drugs, the corruption of the ruling elite, the systematic theft of the nation's wealth by the military-industrial complex, the acts of aggression on foreign states, the institution of a spy state, the use of torture on people held without trial or representation.

Get a million people into the streets, and do this using text messages, of course, like people's revolutions have done all over the world for the last ten years. Get organised using wikis, email lists, and real grass roots movements. Forget the hype, and please, please, please don't read any more Rheinhold.

But, since you Democrat leaders seem to be part of the same machine that elected Bush, I guess I'm spitting into the wind by saying this.

Re:Oh My Gawd, it's so true!

[Otto-Marrakech]

As much as I'd want to see Bush impeached, overhaul the legislative and executive branch to increase transparency and accountability, introduce a sensible drug policy of legalization and regulation, reverse the unprecedented growth of surveillance and 'counter-terrorism' measures and reduce the insane spending on military research, I've come to the conclusion that people are inherently -though many not practically- afraid of change.

In fact conservatives have made a political dynasty out of this very principal, when Bush's approval rating shot to eighty-something percent following 9/11, people wanted their world to stay the same and any new legislation -no matter the ramifications- which kept people safe to heat microwave dinners and ride the subway like they did last week was accepted. Of course ostensibly life remains the same, it's just the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are swept into the dustbin of Room 101, so that in the future, when your children are delayed at their municipal checkpoint, the slow erosion of freedoms so subtle, they wonder; "was it always this bad?"

I don't care if you're a liberal or a conservative, the adimistration in the white house is not conservative, they add this paradoxical prefix 'neo', new-conservative, it's a contradiction in terms, and you shouldn't be accepting of what is probably the most radical administration in our lifetimes, simply because they simultaneously support 'traditional values). Historical Repetition; Augustus essentially subverted the power of the Roman Senate over decades by slow consolidation of senate-approved honors and titles untill he effectively established an inheritable autocracy (to appease this disparity of conservatism, he made divorces harder to percure and disallowed foreigners to marry citizens).

My condemnation would be the same if this were a democratic administration in place of a republican one and partisanship should be irrelevant given the train of userpations of basic ethics, international laws and human rights. Though returning to my original point, if suddenly we were forced to see the logical conclusions of what this... oh really? 1984 you say... erm, well. As long as that's far of in the distance, and well... we're all safe and secure and the same as we'd always been on the surface... why change horses in mid-stream? When does the stream end? Uh... when the War on Terror ends of course.

Re:Oh My Gawd, it's so true!

[audiorevolution]

The thing is that all these problems are systematic and can be found in every other "first-world" capitalist nation. They existed in the US at the time of WWI, at the Vietnam War, and through today. As long as people put hope in the system that creates these flaws, that necessitates a ruling elite who are socially and, more importantly, economically above the rest of a country, none of these problems are going to disappear. It does not fucking matter whether the Republicans, the Democrats, or an independent party are at the helm -- all politicians are crooks, and the if we all don't embrace "anti-"politics and reject the system and its overlords, all this partisan political masturbation is simply spitting in the wind.

He says this like it's a GOOD thing...

[ScentCone]

where one person sees something really interesting and it gets passed on and on

That closed-loop, forward-to-your-friends behavior is already an echo chamber ringing loudly with nonsensical, tin-foil lined inanities (across the idealogical spectrum) and apocryphal pablum. We already see enough "I don't usually forward this sort of thing, but this is really spooky!" crap from people that we still pretend are our friends.

Political-camp-driven psuedo-factoid-chain-letter type behavior is going to continue to amplify the already tunnel-vision madness that typifies the current election cycle for people in both parties. None of it persuades anyone to change their mind about anything because the simple act of receiving it in your inbox subjects it to already well-armored biases (well founded or otherwise) that result in the same instantly applied judgement that's used to throw out V1@gr4 spam. This sort of stuff may help a candidate keep her already-loyal base stoked up, but is there any question about those votes anyway?

Just make sure to VOTE this time please

[192939495969798999]

We really got socked last time because the religious right will all go out and vote, and for some reason, as passionately as our generation feels about things, not enough of us made our voice heard at the final hour. Please, please put down the iPod for 2 seconds and go out and vote this time!

Re:Just make sure to VOTE this time please

[Zaphod2016]

I didn't vote in '04, and not because I was busy with an iPod.

And no, I didn't boycott the election because Kerry and Bush were both Skull and Bones members, thus proving the Illumanti conspiracy true once and for all (although I did find it odd).

I didn't vote because I felt both men were bad for America.

This isn't Pepsi v. Coke, Microsoft v. Apple; this is the future of the free world at stake! I don't buy the "lesser of two evils" argument for one second.

Re:Just make sure to VOTE this time please

[_xeno_]

I agree, both Kerry and Bush were bad for America. Which is why, when I voted, I didn't vote for either of them, I voted for a third party.

Which got something like a fraction of a percent of the total vote, but still... If enough people who disagree with both main-party canidates vote for third parties, eventually it might have a very small difference.

It beats not saying anything.

Re:I really don't care

[standbypowerguy]

"you can vote for people and hopefully get them into all sort of positions that will give his administration a tough time"

Independents generally don't troll Democratic. Your attitude is precisely why, even though I dislike where the Republican party is going (religious idiocy, hawkishness, inept foreign policy, restriction of domestic freedoms, prioritizing commercial interests above public interests, etc), I won't consider registering Democratic or voting for most Democrats. If the Democratic party would propose and deliver a coherent, workable agenda, instead of attempting to cripple our government through obstructionism and presenting themselves simply as the "we're not Bush" party, I'm sure there are a lot of Republican moderates like myself that would switch.

Embracing centrist views is the only way Democrats will garner enough votes to get elected in force. Bill and Hillary and a handul of others understand this, why don't the rest of you? I'm not pleased with where this country is going, but I simply don't see anyone offering viable alternatives.

please don't drink the kool aid

[BitterAndDrunk]

The idea that Dems have no coherent agenda is laughable. . . it's like saying there's no in-fighting in the Republican party (another idea popularized on right wing radio). Both are simply untrue.

The major difference, however, is where the leadership is coming from. Repubs are primarily driven by a few think tanks and the Karl Rove brigade, which was able to whip people into shape up until this year. We've seen just in recent weeks Bill Frist (and many other Repubs) break away from the "Party Agenda" to ideas favoring what they think their constituencies desire. Which is natural; the current administration (some argue the entire Republican party) has fallen into deep disfavor among the people and Repubs are scrambling for damage control.

Dems are going through a different transition, driven by the "Vast Left Wing Conspiracy" characterized by MoveOn. There's in-fighting right now, because many of the Democratic leaders aren't leading us in a direction we're willing to go. Asserting Lieberman or Hillary are centrist is laughable; they're Right.

Many people feel that the one thing is needed at this point is obstructionism. Bush and cronies have gotten us nowhere good with a rubber stamp congress, and requires someone(s) to stop him. Bush is not nor will ever be a coalition builder. His dirty political master Rove has ensured that none of the current Republican flock will be effectual in building a coalition, with few exceptions. (Those exceptions being centrist republicans that have tended to vote against the R groupthink in the first place)

The democratic party is developing a coherent agenda for 2006. The messages are getting out to those who actually care to listen. And a coup is developing in the Dem party, driven by grass-roots efforts to make politicians accountable to the wishes of their party, not their lobbyists.

And 'Net neutrality?

[mariox19]

This podcasting politicians thing makes me think that if Congress allows ISP's to play favorites with what files get priority treatment, you can bet your last US dollar that there will be a law mandating that priority treatment be given to all use of the Internet by politicians spouting campaign propaganda, at no additional cost to the politicians. While we wait for Google to load, Senator so-and-so's daily video podcast will come flying onto our desktops.