Campaigns & Elections - August 2007 - (Page 68)

tech bytes nection to upload damaging videos or post anonymous charges. But it isn’t only new content that gets attention. Existing footage, shot years ago, can be paired with new footage in a digital “mash-up” comparing a candidate’s past and present stands. The dilemma is how to respond in an era when the mud can fly from any direction. At the same time, campaigns must decide quickly, Darr said. One Republican Internet strategist, David All, suggests campaigns pre-record videos reacting to attacks they suspect might come. That way, candidates can quickly post their reactions. “I think that’s a great idea,” said Darr. “They’ve all got to be prepared for that because they don’t control their campaigns like they used to. They don’t control the message.” While technology may rob campaigns of control, it also offers useful tools for fighting back. One is the ability to communicate directly with voters. “The Internet is, in a sense, a mass personal medium,” said Gerald Baron, president of Baron & Company, a public relations firm in Bellingham, Wash. People now expect to be addressed directly online, particularly if they have donated money or volunteered time, said Baron, who has managed state-level campaigns and written a crisis-communications guide. That personal touch is new for traditional communicators used to turning first to mainstream media. But it helps in a crisis, when campaigns can post everything online and let people decide how much they want to dig beyond an initial statement, he said. “Essentially, you want to provide the level of depth that the most intensely interested audience wants.” Technology also can address a major obstacle to rapid response: The scattered location of people responsible for developing the crisis plan. Baron’s company developed a Webbased system to share documents and information among people no matter where they are. The system was created after a pipeline explosion in Washington in 1999. In politics, technology is changing the terrain for national campaigns more than for state and local races, said Dan Fee, president of the Echo Group, a Philadelphia-based strategic and crisis-communications firm. The biggest impact has been the need to monitor the expanding world of information outlets, said Fee. He was a communications staffer on the campaigns of Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell in 2002 and in 2006. In 2006, the Rendell campaign had one person dedicated to reading blogs every morning so staffers could decide the appropriate response, Fee said. “We didn’t want to be caught flat-footed and we didn’t want to have something mushroom out of control.” The danger for state and local races, however, is that regional and local media seem more likely to report on charges posted online, said Michael D. Smith of MDSA Strategic Communications, a Republican consulting firm in Baton Rouge, La. In 2006, Smith convinced a television station not to report an anonymous attack from a Web site, he said, declining to describe the situation in greater detail. “I think that’s perhaps what is most troublesome to folks like me in this industry,” Smith said. “There’s no accountability in the online world. If you place a radio ad, a newspaper ad, there has to be some semblance of the truth. In the online world, that level of governance just doesn’t exist.” C&E How to Do Tougher, Quicker Crisis Management Online By Joel Berg Someday, voters may forgive political candidates for the unguarded moments that derail a campaign. But, that day won’t come soon, said Carol Darr, director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. “We’re still kind of in the ‘gotcha’ mode,” said Darr. And there are plenty of ways to get ’em. All it takes is an Internet con- SHARON DOMINICK (iSTOCK) 68 CAMPAIGNS & ELECTIONS 08.07

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Campaigns & Elections - August 2007

Cover Contents Editor’s Note Ames Straw Poll Cavalcade; Last Candidate Standing; The New Dollar-A-Year Guy; Web Videos That Can Change the Election Across State Lines: Campaign News from Around the Country People and Organizations Movers and Shakers: Ten Questions for Matthew Taylor and Philip de Vellis Campaign Consultant Sign-Ups Reel Time Cover Story: Building Blocks From Madison Avenue to K Street Money Can’t Buy Votes Dick Cheney: Roll Model for Millions Ames: Still Weird, Still Important How to Do Tougher, Quicker Crisis Management Online Cause-Based SocNets Lure Issue Voters The Great Exaggeration Why Primetime TV is Alive and Well, Politically Speaking Buyer’s Guide Tips for Toeing the Fine Line Between Employment, Friendship Managing Your Friend’s Campaign? Think ‘Consigliore’ Off The Record

Campaigns & Elections - August 2007

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