Guleed

Minor Candidates, The American Political Landscape and the Internet

Brief Overview.

Ever since the American independence, the presidency went to the major candidates of the two parties. The domination of the two major parties in American politics dates back to at the time of independence. Then, these parties may have not known as the modern names of “the democrats and republicans”, but certainly their political philosophy has consisted of the same. Therefore, if neither of these parties endorsed you as the candidates of their choice for the presidency, then the possibility of succeeding has been nothing but a zero. The odds of not been able to win an election if you were a minor candidates had to do with multiple factors. Factors like name recogniztion, fundraising, political currency and party power behind them. However, the biggest factor that the major candidates have always had the upper hand has been the means of delivering their message to the public and connections to big businesses and well-known people. In the late 19^th century, radio was the deciding factor for major candidates to reach the greater public in order to persuade with their message, because minor candidate did not have the financial means to compete. And in the mid to late 20^th century television has furthered the mere domination of the major candidates.

However, the rise of the internet in the 21^st century has at least narrowed the gap between major and minor candidates when it comes to competing for the presidency. The short-lived internet has helped minor candidates in more ways than any other media forms of media has ever helped them. According to the Social Science Computer Review, “The Internet offers political candidates a new way to campaign. Part of the Internet’s novelty comes from technological options not available in most other media” (1). Through the internet, unknown and under financed candidates have become house hold names. The internet has yet to help minor candidates break the gridlock of winning an election, but at least minor candidates are able to have the same access to reaching out to the public as their major counterpart do.

In this blog, I will look into how recent election like the 2008 presidential campaign helped minor candidates become competitors when it comes to access to money, means of communicating with voters, and gaining coverage from the mainstream media through the internet.

Campaigning Online writes, “In this year’s…election, the Internet has proven to be the necessary tool for campaigning on all levels. Campaigns have developed sophisticated Internet tools to enhance their campaigns, targeting young and web-savvy voters. Americans have embraced the Internet to connect to the political process. Online campaigning has revolutionized political communication, grassroots activism, supporter outreach, and fundraising” (2). This quote absolutely summarizes both what the inteernet has become for political campaigns and what we will be talking about in this site.

To start our journey of finding how and why the internet has become extremely important in the past few elections, including the past two presidential election, we should look no further than this video. The video basically summarizes how 2008 presidential campaigns minor and major candidates have used the internet as a platform to launch their campaigns. The video includes both the republican and democrats hopeful primary presidential candiates.

The Internet: Access to Money for Minor Candidates.

In the past one hurdle of many hurdles minor candidates had to overcome has been showing that they can raise money in order to stay in the race long enough to make any inroads. The pre-internet era, money has single-handedly penalized minor candidates to be out of the race. Samantha Abernethy of Meddil Reports of Chicago writes, “{Minor} candidates have always faced an uphill battle to be heard by voters, but those candidates contend that the role of the Internet as a potent force in politics has helped to level the playing field in recent years” (3). This shows that the internet gives equal opportunity to unknown minor candidates.

In the old days, rasing money has been done through the mail where a supporters write a check and after weeks in the mail, that check eventually got to the candidates, where it had not impact at alll, becuase some times, the candidates felt far behind or were out of the race. but today and the internte age, all candidates, specially minor candidates hava the ability to ask money to millions of their fallowers and see the impact of the money immidiaately.

pre-internet political fudraising has been something of an a candidate asking money to people where only that candiates new where exactly the money would be spent. but the last election has shown that the internet can and has played a big role in making transparent easy and immidiate. This added feature of the internet enabled candidates to say to their supporters that, donate money to me and I will show you penny by penny where your money will be spent.

So, How and Why are Minor Candidates Raising so much Money?

Much has been said of Ron Paul’s record breaking sigle-day fundraiser. Many people in politics pundits including the media have forget to ask themselves what makes the internet a deciding factor for many minor candidates. The internet is not a delivering the money itself to the candiates, but instead average citizens come to realized that they can make a difference by supporting the minor candidates. Fredreka Schouten of USA TODAY Newspaper writes, “Lyman, a Miami Beach online music promoter, is guiding an Internet fundraising drive that he says could well push Paul past his $12 million fourth-quarter fundraising goal by the weekend — a full month ahead of schedule”(4)What is amazing about this is that the music producer is not in any ways related to the campaign. Because of the internet, average citizens are able to raise millions for candidates that they believe are worth electing. Much of the money raised by Ron Paul has to do with average supporters deciding that they can make a difference in his campaign throught the internet. Chouten continues to say, “Lyman, 37, has never voted, much less donated to a politician before this year. He said he was drawn to Paul because of the congressman’s anti-war stance” (4). Its amazing how much the internet is impowering everyday citizens who have never before been politically active. without the internet, Paul supporters would have not been able to even think of raising millions of dollars.

After raising millions in one day, Ron Paul made big time news. Here is how MSNBC covered “Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, aided by an extraordinary outpouring of Internet support Monday, hauled in more than $4.2 million in nearly 24 hours” (5). Never before was a candiate able to raise so much money in a single day, and even less likely that candidate would be a one which is a minor candidate.

MSNBC and other media networks looked into the Ron Paul campaign as an example of how much the internet has come to help minor candidates. It is facinating to see the power of the internet and how minor candidates are taking advantage of it. read this article of how a minor candidates who the mainstream media has left out of the race has made shocking news after he raised unprecedented money through the internet. MSNBC, like all the other main stream media, the idea of the internet helping minor candidates compete has been nothing but a shock in the system. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21646939/

Within 24-hours his magical money machine, Ron Paul has become a household name in the mainstream media thanks to the extraodinary outpouring money to his campaign. Before November 5, 2007, the mentioning of Ron Paul name in the mainstream media like USA Today and other networks had to do with negativity and crisis in his campaigns, but after raising in a single day, He became their hero of the day.

See this video of FOX News after Ron Paul raised the 4.3 million. Before this, FOX News portrayed Ron Paul as some mad man who is not either a republican nor a democrat, because he did nto fit in thier profile of either party.

In this video, Ron Paul, a minor candidate in the Republican side has shown his supporters every dime they donate and here that money is going to be spent. One of the reasons why so many people were motivated to donate to his campaign had to do the fact that Paul was showing them how much money was getting donated and where it was going to be spented. This added feature of Openess appealed to thousands of people who got tired big-time supported Washinton candidates.

Means of Communicating with Supporters

The internet has empowered minor candidates to quickly and conviniently communicate with prospective voters and suppoters. In the old fashion, where a candidate used to send a flier or brocher to a voter, minor candidates were greatly disadvantaged, becuase they did not had the financial means of sending large number of mail to voters. However, the internte has greatly closed the advantage gap of powerfull candidates. Today, any candidates with couple technology experts can greatly make nose on the net. Whether or not the presence in the web can translate in to an actual advantage is grealy debated.

The two most powerful ways in which minor candidates have gained advantage of communicating potential voters are the candidates website and the candidates ability to send mass electronic mails (known as email!). an article published in the NYTimes has revealed that email has become one of the deciding fators for candiates to reach voters. here is a quote from the article, “E-mail appears to have taken its place alongside more traditional vote-raising efforts, gathering steam over the last two or three years…this election year, campaigns around the country say e-mail has become into a powerful way to mobilize supporters and, they hope, get them to the polls”(6). Email gave minor candidates the power to reach millions of people without spending dime on them. Email is far more apealing to a minor candidate than the traditional form of sending an mass mail to people who they dont even know may have the chance to read. This is not to say that everyone who recieves email from a politician will read, but it does not cost the politican a dime whether or not that person reads the email. Even beter, the the politican can certainly send as many email as it takes to try to persuade vote for him.

To read more about the NYTimes article about how email is changing the way in which politicans communcate with us, please click the here.

Furthermore, checkout this video, it gives great overview of what the old fashion Journalists think of the internet’s influence of the 2008 election. This inclues ways of using the email to reach people and the candidates personal website and how it has impact on the campaign. The Journalists in this video do good job in recognizing the immidiate imnpact the internet is having in the campaigns.

Journalists have agrued whether or not the internet in the ‘New Frontier’ for the next journalistic front. However, onething they all agreed to ways in which the internet has leved the field for minor candidates to raise and compete in this coporate funded campaigns.

Alternative to mainstream media and Exposure to voters

Before the birth of the internet, the mainstream media has domained the discusion. Not only did they set the agenda, but the media has the ability to frame the capaign issues as major candidates want to see. The fact is that, Major candidates are loyal customers of the coporate-controlled medi and no one offends his biggest customer. For the past 60 or so years, telivision has controled the political landscape. The only way one could succeedd was if he spended millions on telivision advertisments. In this case, TV has dissadvantaged minor candidates who were not as well financed as their counterpart.

It was not till 1960, the media has begin to give candidates a free of charge televised debates, in which the whole country has was able to see the candidates. However, this did not apply to everyone and the media certainly did not just give equal oppurtunity to all candidates. The media has always excluded any candidates they categorized as ‘minor’ candidate. Not only did the media denied those candiates to participate in the debates, but they also limited the coverage in which they gave to candidates.

However, that all changed with the rise of the internet. 2008 presidential campign proved that if the media excluded you from the debates, the internet has forced to cover them. Jonny Krammer of lewrockwell site writes, “Ron got more attention in the fourth quarter, after he raised $5 million in the third quarter, than he had previously – and the attention accelerated after his two huge fundraising days later in the fourth quarter”(7). This coverage was generated by Ron Paul’s internet fundraising.

Before Paul raised million of dollars, the media has not mentioned his name more than few times. Lee Rogers of Prison Plannet site writes, “The mainstream media which already had zero credibility now has less than zero credibility following their…coverage of the GOP debate”(8). Lee is refering to a poll taken right after the debate in which showed, Ron Paul as the winner of the debate, intead the the media decided to ignored it. One reason why the media did not give match coverage to Paul had to do with his minor status. Lee writes, “…the mainstream media refers to Ron Paul as a minor candidate…” which means that he is not worth their coverage (8).

Checkou this video of Fox news coverage of Ron Paul. As you may be able to guess, the coverage is all about his virall money fundraiser. In no where do they mention who Ron Paul is, what he stands for and how he got to where he is. Judge it for yourself!

So, One may believe that now Paul has raised million in just days and has out raised his opponent, therefore, the media should able to give him fair coverage. Well, not so fast though. This is a great video that absolutely takes about why Paul will not be able to break the sealing glass the media put him arround.

Conclusion

The internet has shown to be a powerful tool for minor candidates who have struggled in the past to make political gains. All the evidence that we have seen through this blog and in many other sites, the internet has helped minor candidates and third parties candidates compete competatively. Like all candidates, minor candidates have found ways in which they got the advantages by developing tactics that many other candidates did not picked up quickly. The internet has helped minor candiates compete campetatively the areas of communication, fundraising and media attention. Without the internet, minor candiates would have been disadvantaged. All in all, I found that the internet has made minor candiates job of been a competative candidates alittle easier.