DES MOINES – Advances in technology and social media have the
2012 presidential race churning at 140 characters per tweet, but
Iowa political experts say a hybrid mix of networking old and new
will be key in mobilizing the foot soldiers that candidates will
need to perform well in the Jan. 3 GOP caucuses and beyond.
Cutting-edge tools like smart phones, electronic tablets,
laptops, Twitter, blogs, YouTube and Facebook used to communicate
campaign messages, raise money, deliver mass-blast emails, deploy
damage control, and conduct organizational operations in the
trenches are dramatically reshaping the way «real time» political
races are being run in Iowa and leveling the playing field for
candidates with limited financial resources.
«It’s completely rewriting the playbook,» said Steve Grubbs, a
Davenport political consultant who managed Republican Herman Cain’s
presidential campaign in Iowa up until the Georgia businessman
suspended his 2012 bid Saturday afternoon. «I would say that a
combination of the social media world and the debates have changed
the way voters choose their candidates. «
Anyone who signs up as a Facebook friend with a political campaign
is likely to receive three or four messages a day, said West Des
Moines Republican Mary Kramer, a former Iowa Senate president and
U.S. ambassador to Barbados who is backing Mitt Romney’s 2012
presidential bid.
«Suffice to say we can stipulate that social media has become an
absolutely essential part of many campaigns,» said Butch Ward of
the Poynter Institute, who cited data that 132 million Americans
will use Facebook this year, an average of 190 million daily
«tweets» were shipped on Twitter last May, and Pew Project for the
States research found that 35 percent of social networking platform
users (21 percent of online adults used the sites for political
reasons in 2010.
While the organizational power of social networking in targeting a
message and raising campaign money became painfully evident to Iowa
Republicans during Barack Obama’s successful 2008 presidential bid,
they also saw the value of going old school during Mike Huckabee’s
ascent in the state’s lead-off precinct caucuses four years ago – a
come-from-nowhere victory that was fueled by little-noticed
networks of church Bible groups, home-schooling parents,
anti-abortion and single-issue activists, constitutionalists, and
evangelical conservatives who united under his presidential
banner.
«The Huckabee people – it was all networking and it wasn’t
necessarily social networking,» said Tim Albrecht, a GOP activist
currently serving as Gov. Terry Branstad’s press secretary who
worked for Romney’s Iowa campaign four years ago. «Romney ran the
traditional campaign with the phone banking and the ads and the
mailers, but ultimately it was the networking of the Huckabee
supporters that proved successful on caucus night. They organized
themselves.
«They are work horses. Home-school groups helped propel George W.
Bush in 2004. They packed phone banks to help get him elected. They
did the same thing on behalf of Mike Huckabee, really kind of
organically and on their own,» Albrecht added. «Like-minded people
tend to flock together and they all got behind Mike Huckabee.
Without those networks, the nation would never have been introduced
to Mike Huckabee. «
Those are the networks – along with Tea Party activists – that GOP
candidates like Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and, to
some degree, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich hope to tap, but so far
Iowa conservatives in the Republican camp have not unified behind
one candidate with one month remaining until they travel to their
1,784 local precincts to start the process of selecting their 2012
presidential nominee to face Obama.
«There are so many of us, and I include myself in that, there are
so many of us who are still authentically undecided,» said Bob
Vander Plaats, a three-time gubernatorial candidate who led
Huckabee’s 2008 Iowa campaign and now serves as chief of the
Pleasant Hill-based Family Leader organization. «If those of us who
live and breathe this every day are still authentically undecided
amongst what I would consider four really good candidates, maybe
more, I’ve got to believe 80-plus percent of Iowans are still
fluid. This is very, very unusual. «
Eric Woolson, who currently manages Bachmann’s Iowa campaign and
held a similar post for Huckabee four years ago, said he believes
Iowans won’t make their final choices until the final week leading
up to the caucuses. The closing month includes televised debates in
Des Moines on Saturday and Sioux City on Dec. 15.
«We’ve seen more up and down moves in the polls this year I think
than any year that I can remember and I think it’s going to be a
case where we’re going to see four or five more twists and turns
between now and Jan. 3,» he said.
Vander Plaats said the other «networking» that has and will
continue to influence the political process this election cycle is
the network-televised candidate debates and the role that Fox News
network in particular has played in covering presidential
candidates. Those forums have aided Gingrich, Romney and Bachmann,
while hurting Perry and others who have stumbled in the camera’s
glare. Public-opinion polls have captured snapshots of the race,
but often the picture is blurred and several candidates have
suffered from over-exposure as media, bloggers and others drill
down into their positions and pasts.
Given the interactive nature of campaigning, real-time tweeting
during live debates and the volume of information moving in the
«blogosphere,» political candidates have technology advisors and
social media coordinators to constantly monitor the Internet to
identify and correct whatever negative or misinformation
emerges.
«It’s gotten to the point where campaigns have multiple people
monitoring the situation so they can quickly correct it,» Albrecht
said. «It’s not enough to just put up a web site any more because
you’re engaging in hand-to-hand combat in real time now via Twitter
and Facebook. Whereas 20, 30 years ago, you had a 24-hour news
cycle, but now it’s a 140-character news cycle and you’d better be
ready and you’d better have your people on Twitter sharing the
views that you need to get out there.
«But, ultimately, nothing beats a good candidate,» he added. «You
can have all the networks in the world, but if you’re not a good
candidate, then it’s not going to matter on caucus night. «
Also, Albrecht said the most effective campaign tool remains
personal contact, noting that he got involved in politics due to
the impression he got as an elementary school student when
candidates like presidential Pat Robertson, Bob Dole and Vice
President George Bush visited his western Iowa hometown of Ida
Grove during the 1988 caucus race.
«I still get that thrill when a candidate comes through,» he said.
«When you have that kind of exposure in a tiny town of 2,400, you
don’t forget that. «
Woolson agreed that a personal appearance by a candidate or having
someone you know from your church, a social or civic organization,
a friend or a relative at a holiday event make a pitch for support
trumps social media messaging.
«That’s what closes the deal,» he said. «Not a lot of voters are
going to say 'I’m going to support candidate A or candidate B
because I received a mass-blast email from them. ‘ «
Albrecht said campaigning in Iowa is still about the traditional
network of phone banks, mailers, paid media advertising and having
precinct captains selling their candidate to other caucus
participants on Jan. 3, and the test of the new evolving social
media and electronic tools is scored by the campaigns that utilize
them most effectively.
«A lot of the social media is talked about and it’s kind of the
shiny new toy in the room,» he said. «However, if you have a shiny,
brand new car but it doesn’t have a good engine underneath the
hood, all you have is a good-looking car but it doesn’t do you much
good.
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