Sacramento Bee, USA
12-27-07
Race for '08: Electronic blizzard
Iowa candidates make appeals to young voters
By Dave Helling - McClatchy Newspapers
DES MOINES – Iowa lies in the middle of a raging storm this winter.
There's been plenty of snow, but this storm is electronic: a blizzard of e-mails,
text messages, instant messages, videos, talking heads, audio clips, social
networks and urgent demands for your money, your help, your attendance and
support, all on your phone, in your computer, on your TV screen.
Presidential candidates are generating this binary whiteout, determined to use
21st-century technology to gain an edge, particularly with young voters, in the
Jan. 3 caucuses.
Is it working? Irl, idk. :/ Sry.
(Translation for those over 30: In real life, I don't know. Uneasy face. Sorry.)
"I think it'll have some effect," said Democratic candidate Sen. Joe Biden, who's
listed on his MySpace page as "Male. 65 years old. Wilmington, Delaware."
"But," Biden adds, "the answer is, I don't know."
"We're in uncharted territory," said Jen Psaki, who helps coordinate alternative
media for the Barack Obama campaign. "We won't probably know until this is all
said and done."
That uncertainty hasn't stopped the Obama campaign, or all the others, from at
least trying every new technology available. Web sites, with video, are a given. In
addition, campaigns have pages on social networking sites such as MySpace
and Facebook; they send blast e-mails directly to cell phones and other devices;
and they use various Web addresses to set up house parties, meet-ups and
mash-ups, and most of all, to raise money.
The young voters who are the target of all this say thx, but plz, ur working 2 hard.
"I talk about the campaign with my friends, but it's mostly just when we get
together, talking face-to-face," said John Yost, a 21-year old student at Iowa
State University who likes Republican candidate Mike Huckabee. "It's not so
much texting or things like that."
"I don't get any of that (text messages), other than random e-mails from all these
candidates," said ISU student Chris Dencklau, a Biden man.
Younger voters emphasize that phenomena such as text and instant messaging
are peer-to-peer experiences. They may chat with friends about a candidate or
campaign, they say, but they ignore "top down" directives or appeals from
candidates.
"I would say I probably have never received a text message about politics," said
24-year-old John Day of Fort Dodge. "Unless I was at an event, and someone
else was at that event and texting me."
But campaigns say that getting like-minded students together, through texting or
instant messaging, is worth the effort.
"It has been a way for people to connect, at colleges and universities, by saying,
'I like Barack Obama, you like Barack Obama – when's your next meeting?' "
Psaki said.
And, campaigns point out, Web sites and text-messaging programs are much
cheaper than TV ads, which still dominate local television.
Young voters in Iowa see those commercials, but they say – almost to a person –
that they no longer rely on traditional media such as local television or
newspapers as their sole source of political news.
Instead, they watch political videos on the Web. They try to catch an occasional
cable news show or debate. And all lament the disappearance of new episodes
of topical, late-night satire shows.
"Up until the writers' strike, 'The Daily Show' and Stephen Colbert were doing a
pretty good job keeping us informed," Day said.
"I think a lot of them are looking at YouTube," said 18-year old Carrie Dencklau.
"They (students) get their information from TV but not from the networks," said
Tim McDaniel, a professor at Buena Vista University near Storm Lake, Iowa.
But the networks and other so-called mainstream media haven't gone away. Like
campaigns, they're using electronics to communicate: The Des Moines Register's
Web site, for example, includes videos, campaign schedules, candidate profiles,
breaking news updates and other caucus information.
The electronic revolution sweeping campaigns has swept the media, too. Twenty
years ago, cell phones were unheard of, and the Iowa caucuses operated on a
news cycle of statement and response that played out over a day.
Now, producers, writers and reporters trailing candidates are armed with video
cameras, BlackBerrys, and wireless laptops to distribute quotes almost as soon
as a candidate utters one, leading to a sometimes bizarre hourly running
dialogue between candidates who are separated by hundreds of miles.
But much of the information generated by mainstream reporters still ends up in
mainstream publications, which are still read by many Iowans, particularly those
most likely to caucus.
That means people older than 30, haha, lol (laugh out loud).
"It's always hard, in a general election, let alone a caucus, to get younger people
engaged," Biden said. "Up to now, the average age of the caucus-goer, I'm told,
is something like 60, 61. … We'll see."