Politicians Abandoning the Social Web

I recently wrote about my hopes that political candidates would carry their newfound appreciation for the social web from into office as elements of a “collaborative governance” strategy. Here’s another danger in candidates that use the social web as much as possible in the context of a campaign, only to drop those tools like a bad habit as soon as they’re elected…or drop out of the race: resentment from internet communities. Stowe Boyd writes an open complaint to John Edwards (emphasis mine):

So, you opt to try to exploit the edglings by signing up to Twitter, and writing a blog, and all that newfangled web stuff, trying to mine the potential there with ersatz involvement and cheesy, inauthentic participation: cramming old one:many messaging into a conversationally rich environment.

Then, you drop out. And proof that it is totally bogus, you just stop. Bam. No ‘thanks for the memories’, no ’see you in the funny papers’, and certainly no ongoing involvement, since after all, there really was no involvement involved.

Proof of old politics wolf in new politics sheep’s clothing: they assume the ways of the new social web revolution as a means to come into contact with us, but when they lose (and maybe when they win, as well?) they drop the pretense of involvement, and go back to whatever they really believe in. Which is clearly not this new emerging whatever-the-hell-it-is on the web.

They will try to exploit web culture for their own purposes, but they aren’t really engaged here.

Harsh, but largely justified. I expect these types of complaints to multiply until politicians truly embrace the social web as something other than a tool to be used in the context of elections. These campaigns are developing impressive, dedicated, engaged communities online. But online activists are not going to flock to a campaign that refuses to appreciate them.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like:

- "Facebook Chat: Social Networking Comes Home", posted by Jarred on April 15, 2008

- "More on Web Politics", posted by Jarred on January 11, 2008

- "Transparent and Responsive Governance", posted by Taylor on July 28, 2008

- "Invisibility: A Violation of the Social (Networking) Contract?", posted by Jarred on February 25, 2008

- "iGoogle Goes Social: The Birth of Scaled Automation", posted by Jarred on April 24, 2008

Taylor

So I think your points are largely fair, but I'd push back on a couple fronts:

1. Just because Edwards' Web 2.0 strategy didn't translate into as many votes as he would have hoped, Obama certainly credits the web for a great deal of his momentum (particularly on the fundraising side). From the same speech where he made the "bitter" comments, <a href="http://www.techpresident.com/blog/entry/24583/beyond_bittergate_barack_yields_success_to_his_supporters
">here's what the news didn't cover:

"I want to make a point about fund raising because I think it is illustrative of what else is going on. We raised 55 million dollars last month. ... I'm sorry. We raised 55 million in February; we raised 40 million that last month. Now, these are gaudy numbers. But, what's interesting is not the amount raised. 90% of what we raised came over the Internet. 50% were for $50 or less. Our average donation is less than $100.

Now, essentially what we've done is we've created a parallel public financing system. That using the Internet and mobilizing people all across the country - over 1.3 million donors - we've created a system where ordinary people can actually finance, can fuel, a campaign at the highest levels.

Why is that? Essentially, groups formed themselves using technology. We have an Open Source system. For people to just grab onto good ideas. They start organizing their neighbors, organizing their friends. And, next thing you knew, we'd built the best political organization in the country. And that's what we have. I mean, we have the best national political organization that anybody has seen in a generation."

Sure, fundraising success might not make Boyd or others feel as warm and fuzzy, but you could argue that it's the best way (short of eventual vote counts) to measure reactions to online appeals. For what it's worth, I'm a Second Life doubter myself...but it's clear that these strategies can have an impact. Just maybe not without some momentum from elsewhere.

2. To be fair to Boyd (who admittedly goes pretty far over the top in this post), he's not asking for continued web engagement on the same level that the Edwards campaign managed with an army of college interns. But just as Edwards would NEVER have ended his campaign without an announcement speech, plugging health care and poverty as he bows out, he shouldn't have simply stepped away from the keyboard without some kind of similar "I hope you'll follow these sites," "I'll be posting when I can on this blog," or even just "thank you, internet denizens, for all the love" post. I think that's a fair--if perhaps shallow--expectation from folks who really felt that this online engagement was genuine.

3. I think ultimately the important argument here is not that Edwards should feel bad for hurting Steve Boyd's feelings, but that he's wasted an opportunity to maintain relevance and connection with his supporters by walking away from a web infrastructure that could be sustained--without much or any staff--in an abbreviated or less regular fashion.

Chris

Wah wah wah, John Edwards never txts me anymore. Maybe this is just my knee-jerk reaction to any authenticity complaints against my boy John Edwards, but Stowe Boyd's post really bugged me. I mean, "The Exploitation of Web Culture"? That's a bit much, I think. What about the exploitation of trial lawyers, who also put a lot of resources into the Edwards campaign only to see it fizzle. What about the exploitation of push-cards, thrown in the wastebasket after nobly and succinctly introducing candidates to voters.

Boyd's self-laudatory whining glosses over one pretty important fact: despite having the most plugged-in campaign with (I suspect) the most support in progressive "web culture", John Edwards' campaign never gained any traction. His Campaign 2.0 strategy, for all its success at wooing bloggers, failed at the vote-getting part of the election. Combine that with the proliferation of horrible nonsense on the web (Strongbad, Hannah Montana semi-topless, Second Life [call me a curmudgeon but I see no point now or in the future of this Second Life thing], etc.) and it's pretty obvious why a politician might shy away from "web culture" in favor of the "old politics wolf" that, you know, actually works.

(This should be obvious but I'll point out anyway that it costs money to have a staff cover all your web bases. After you drop out you become more concerned with paying off your debts and disassembling your campaign than with continuing your campaign. And the staffers themselves I'm sure are more interested in scoring a paycheck with the Obama campaign than with sending encouraging texts to Stowe Boyd.)

Boyd loses his last shred of credibility with this line: "Or a friend who moves away for a new career in a distant city, and then never, ever calls." Silly blogger, no one calls their friends anymore; they write on each others' walls.

Taylor

Don't worry, I was the first person in line for tickets to the Greensboro show. I'll be there.

Ashish

This really isn't directly related to your post (or is it?), but it looks like the Arcade Fire and Superchunk will be rockin' for Obama in North Carolina.

http://www.mergerecords.com/news.php?month=Apr%...

Keep the campaign bus running!