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Sports and Politics: How the Candidates are Playing the Game

A recent New York Times article profiled Obama’s relationship with basketball throughout this youth and into candidacy.

“He didn’t know who he was until he found basketball. It was the first time he really met black people,” said Craig Robinson, Obama’s brother in law, referring to mostly white educational environment.

The candidate has little time for his beloved hoops, but the campaign has capitalized on his abilities to help paint the picture of Obama as a man’s-man, a regular guy.

Obama’s press aids have  drawn parallels  between Obama’s skill on the court and his leadership skills in the political arena.

New Hampshire field operatives have organized a four-city basketball tournament to mobilize new voters, called “Hoops. Action. Change.”

The other candidates have also chosen teams and frequently seized opportunities to portray themselves as avid sports fans, delighted by the idea of spending an afternoon rooting for their home team.

For Hillary, the “home team” concept has been a little difficult to grasp. Her motivations drew skepticism in 2000 when, during her New York race for the U.S. Senate, she wore a Yankees cap to demonstrate her supposed allegiance.

“Everyone knew she [originally] was from Chicago and a fan” of the National League’s Chicago Cubs, “but [Clinton] said the Yankees” of the American League were also “her team," said NYT sportswriter Murray Chass, “Few people seemed to believe her”.

Obama has been more clear. Leading up to last year’s Super Bowl, the candidate wasn’t shy of talking a little trash, "I'm happy for New Orleans, I think it's a wonderful city, but this fairy tale ends when they come to Chicago next week".

The interview got a lot of publicity, and showed Obama as a real enthusiast, one that wasn’t likely to flip-flop when it came to the sports. 

A love for sports can add a much-needed personality definer to the polished candidates. From John F. Kennedy’s sailing to Bill Clinton’s golfing, candidates have used sports to humanize their public personas.

The candidates must tread lightly to assure that their allegiance to their team or love of sports in general doesn’t seem phony. And even if their passions are accepted by sports fans everywhere, the presidential hopefuls will have to be careful not to choose sides too exclusively and risk alienating other supporters.

Sources: NYT, USINFO

Glamocracy

Glamour Magazine recently announced a new section for its online magazine, Glamocracy.

“Glamour has invited all the presidential candidates to guest-blog on Glamocracy; their postings will appear between now and Super Tuesday, February 5. Candidates have been given the option of either being interviewed by Glamocracy bloggers or writing blog entries.”

Clinton’s post is chalk full of empowering sentiments. But little girls around the country are not apt to print off and post the article in their bedrooms any time soon. Clinton chooses her words wisely, not to offend or alienate more traditionally minded women, and most men.

Clinton writes strongly about her unique position, but is quick to follow with slight modifications not to alienate.

“This campaign is about making history. But I am not running for president because I am a woman, I am running because I want to be the president who will prioritize the policies that matter most to women, who will stand up and fight, who knows the power of a woman’s voice.”

The gender language has been softened as of lately, after Clinton was criticized for arguing for her strong leadership and simultaneously  complaining that the boys are beating up on her.

Beyond Clinton

While it is expected that Clinton would reach out to young women, it will be interesting to see what the other, male candidates have to say to the young women of America.

Historically, the political sphere embraces candidates who are aggressive leaders. Clinton has had to continually adjust her position to appear overtly aggressive.

When it comes to Glamocracy however, maybe there’s a better approach.

I urge the other presidential hopefuls to not only tout their own policies towards women, but to give real consideration and respect to their audience. Write to connect. Stray away from self-aggrandizement and aggressive sentiments; show women that you can, at least on some level, simply relate to, not just “help” them, and you will impress us all.

Political Advertising to Reach 3 Billion

The cost to try to influence the 2008 election could exceed $3 billion, according to TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group, CNN's consultant on political television advertising.

Television ads on health care alone total $60 million. CMAG estimates more than $3 million of the $270 million spent to air issue-advocacy ads this year has gone for commercials in states and districts that are likely to have competitive House and Senate races in 2008.

With 17 Democratic and Republican candidates running for president, CMAG predicts that more than $800 million will be spent on TV ads in the battle for the White House.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney leads all candidates in TV spending, having aired his commercials more than 11,000 times this year at a cost of nearly $8.6 million. This is a record for the number of airings at this point in a presidential election cycle

"Chances are, just as what happened in 2006, voters will be numb after watching hundreds and hundreds of ads," said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report. "The sheer number of ads probably dilutes their importance. After a while, the ads just become lots of chatter and an ad will have to be really good to cut through the noise."

Read the full story from CNN.

Clinton Campaign "Responds" with anti-Obama Website

ABC News announced today that the Clinton campaign has bought two new domain names. The domains, Votingpresent.com and Votingpresent.org, which are hosted by the same IP address as other Clinton sites, will be used to launch a negative Obama site.

The sites will paint Obama as cowardly.

Clinton's criticism is based of Obama’s voting “present” on key issues - including a bill that would allow children as young as 15 who had committed crimes with firearms on or near school property to be prosecuted as adults.

"Among the thousands of votes he cast in the Illinois Senate, he used the present vote on occasions when he believed bills were drafted in an unconstitutional manner. On other occasions, he voted present as part of legislative strategies, such as ones crafted by pro-choice forces in Illinois to thwart maneuvering by the opponents of a woman's right to choose." Said Obama spokesperson Bill Burton.

These are not, by a long shot, the first smear sites being launched by the candidates.

The Clinton campaign has been complaining about an Obama site called HillaryAttacks.BarackObama.com. As well as the HillaryAttacks.com which is not affiliated with the Obama campaign.

Clinton has also introduced Attacktimeline.com, which Clinton officials say chronicles the ways Obama and Edwards were publicly criticizing her long before she began lashing back.

Read the full story from abcnews

Mixxing with the Candidates

While all the candidates, and most tech-savvy campaigns have jumped onto Digg, there lies newer, cooler frontier. It’s called Mixx.

To start with, the interface is vastly cleaner than Digg. You can also tag stories in multiple categories and subcategories – something drastically needed at Digg.

What is most compelling however, is that it hasn’t been completely corrupted – yet. Which means a user can garner a significant amount of ‘Karma’ points (a measure of value within the platform) in very little time, and gain leverage in their promotional sphere.

At first, I was hesitant to publish this – knowing I would be one more spam-encouraging voice. But those looking to use these platforms will find them regardless of my little voice, so with that, allow me to offer a piece of strategic advice for those about to click over to Mixx and being “promoting”:

Users of these mediums are becoming increasingly sophisticated. They can catch garbage at first glance. Be refreshing, promote intelligently. Instead of  “friending” everyone and submitting all your content, be appropriate and specific.

Having hundreds of ”friends” and submitting all your content does not directly translate into exposure, at least not positive exposure. So whether you’re interning for a presidential hopeful or for a hot new marketing firm, understand that users are becoming increasingly aware (and frustrated) with mundane content. This game is shifting. Adapt.

Show Me What You Digg, Hillary!

Digg recently announced it would follow the likes of Myspace and create a separate area dedicated solely to the presidential hopefuls.

The “Digg the Candidates” page offers links to all the participating candidates profiles. (At first, Hillary didn’t bother registering, and received significant criticism—she now boasts 834 friends, lagging behind rival Barack, who’s got 7,835).

Once on a candidate’s page, the Digger has a smorgasbord of options: they can friend the candidate, join them on Myspace, Facebook and LinkedIn, get free bumper stickers, and view their YouTube and Flickr pages.

And of course, their pages are full of Dugg stories promoting their campaign. Such a move is expected, and boring. It would have been interesting to see what politically-unrelated articles the candidates would choose to Digg. I’m dying to know what Giuliani’s Digging.

Displaying true interests through the process of Digging would be unusually revealing.

Still, candidate participation in social sites is quite new, especially for Digg.com, which joined the political game just this past November. We can only hope that candidates learn to use such mediums more originally, that they step away from stacking their Digg page with predictable articles, and use this opportunity to reveal some of their true interests to the public .

Candidates Fail to Take Myspace Seriously

My previous article offered an overview of some choices by the candidates in selecting their Myspace “top-friends”. While I was researching this, I sent out a little note about improving some awful choices in this category. I sent messages to Obama, Clinton and Giuliani.

Here is what was sent to Clinton, with slight variations for the others:

A quick tip, with the utmost respect:

Choose Hillary's 'top friends' more strategically. it looks too official/conceited to have all her top friends be that strategically placed.

Think of bands, famous people, intellectuals - influencers that have trusted opinions. As a young person, I'm less apt to be convinced by sponsoring pages than a trusted/admired voice.

Keep up the good work.

It’s been a couple days, and only Obama’s people have replied. This is what they sent:

Hi,

Thanks for getting in touch and sharing your support! I help the Senator handle the very large volume of messages that he receives on his MySpace. The support and energy of people like you fuel this movement, so thank you for being integral to the amazing strength of this grassroots campaign--let's keep it up!

Please visit my.barackobama.com to find other supporters and events near you.

Thanks,
Francesca @ Obama HQ

While I understand Obama, like the other candidates, are receiving large amounts of messages from users, sending back template messages is a faulty strategy. I would have appreciated even a sentence about the suggestion, rather than an automated response. Still, the other two candidates have yet to respond, automated or not.

Much critique is given to platforms such as Myspace and Facebook on their effectiveness from more traditional campaigners. The argument goes, in short, that these digital communications aren't serious enough to garner real support,  that "friends" don’t matter, and will not translate into votes.

But how are users expected to take the candidates seriously if they themselves ignore communication?

Hype about reconnecting the disenchanted through these platforms is also rampant – that a dialog can be rekindled and enthusiasm reinvigorated. But such a dialog, by definition, is participatory, and it becomes difficult to engage candidates that either ignore you or have a machine respond.

Candidates' "Top Friends"

While having a Myspace page has become standard practice in the ’08 presidential race, designing them correctly seems to be another hurtle altogether.

Rather than offer an inclusive comparison of all the features from the candidates’ Myspace pages, I will focus only on the “top friends” feature.

I understand that something like “top friends” may not seem crucial to the overall campaign, but it does speak to both the candidates’ understanding of the medium and their effort invested in connecting with young voters. 

The largest flub the candidates have committed is choosing only politically-sponsored  groups to be their top friends. The primary offenders of this are: Edwards, Giuliani, Obama and McCain.

There are also several candidates that appear to not have put much energy into their pages, especially the ‘top friends’ consideration. (Tancredo and Biden show exceptional laziness in this category)

Notables

• Mike Huckabee’s top friends include a little boy with a bible titled “Pray for Mike”, and an image of three large-breasted woman  with small tees titled “Fair Tax” – it seems not even the candidates can resist from adding a hot mama or two to their friends.

• Duncan Hunter's top friends include the small of a women’s tattooed back titled “Cash Baq” and Myspace founder "Tom", who automatically appears unless the effort is taken to remove him.

• Bill Richardson snagged John Stewart, who arguably holds more weight than any other endorser.

• Chriss Dodd boasts singer actress Christy Romano as one of his top friends.

• Denis Kucinich has Willie Nelson, Ani Difranco and Writers Guild of America as his top friends.

• Mike Gravel seems to have taken his top friends more seriously. His list includes independent news broadcast “Democracy Now!”, intellectual Noam Chomsky and a “Green Energy Now!”profile.

The ‘top friends’ area is a clear way to display the influencer's—politicians, intellectuals, singers, actors—who support your campaigns. The sad truth is that in the new American political scene, one can garner votes simply by having the appropriate celebrity endorsement. So why not play the game appropriately? Let the people know who has your vote, and you may get ours.

Myspace Campaigning

Well before Myspace announced its new political section, the Impact Channel, in March of this year, the candidates had set up profiles, uploaded pictures and began networking avidly.

Initially, entering Myspace politics was a safe bet: the site is free, and because it caters mostly to the 18-25 year old audience, it provides a good way to reach out to a historically apathetic demographic at no cost.

In the last few years however, things have gotten serious on Myspace. Well, relatively speaking. With the announcement of the Impact Channel, candidates now have a central hub from where to be found, linked to and networked through. Furthermore, and to the excitement of all candidates, Myspace now offers a one-click template for direct campaign donations!

The intrigue is viral

The hope is that when a user adds a candidate as a friends, hosts their banner or their donation-template, the user’s friends will see it, and follow suit. In this way, after the initial seed is planted, a given candidate’s message will spread throughout the digital world, with hopeful ramifications at the ballot box.

If anything, the platform offers the young, politically-disenchanted a new way to engage.

“MySpace has a method of reaching people who are historically not interested in voting” said Tom Anderson, a Myspace founder. “A MySpace profile could excite their interest in ways they are used to. In the same way they learn about their friends, they could learn about a candidate.”

Candidates Face Facebook

After hearing Obama’s announcement to form a presidential exploratory committee, Farouk Olu Aregbe jumped onto facebook, and created a group: “One Million Strong for Barack”.

In less than five days, the group had 10,000 members. By week three, it boasted 200,000 members. As of now, Dec 12, 2007, the group has 404,136 members. Clinton’s group has similar number.

But it’s not just in the numbers. Howard Dean learned this the hard way. He was an internet fundraising sensation, but all the online buzz and money didn’t materialize into actual votes.

Facebook groups may swell, but to what end?

I’m apt to join many groups, and add many facebook applications, but I physically rally behind few of them. 

Facebook offers an identity for the politically lazy.

We can “support” hundreds of causes by simply joining a group or adding an application. After this initial action however, little is generally done. And while I have participated in a multitude of events promoted through facebook, the desire to ignore any superfluous content seems to be the norm.

In order to utilize these groups to their full potential, the candidates need to reach beyond simply aggregating soft-supporter, and excite the politically lazy into taking some action beyond the constraints of facebook itself.