Anyone who has ever done any blogging at some point gets the question:
"What is a blog?"
Yes, even now, and yes, even from people who should know better. But the reality is that even as sites such as The Huffington Post skyrocket in traffic, many Democrats still don't visit progressive sites or blogs -- perhaps as high as 30-40% of Democrats. Which is why you still get the question is:
"Do blogs matter?"
Of course, even though they are asking about blogs, the question is a broader one about the general online political revolution, a wonderfully messy mix of consistent over-stimulation on issues, candidates and campaigns.
As we rock through the most intense, most passionate, most heavily-turned out Democratic primary in history, the answer to the first question is "turnout" and the answer to the second is "yes."
In 2006 and especially the day immediately after the Congressional midterms, the 3,000,000+ people who make up the progressive community online every day started talking White House. Sometimes, it was all day, every day, with rumors, opinions, thoughts and predictions all interacting and colliding and creating energy.
This energy was certainly a factor, if not the factor, in creating the hyper-early and hyper-strong mainstream awareness of the presidential race in 2006 and 2007, a race where people were in and out, like Mark Warner and Evan Bayh, at a time when in 2004, candidates like John Edwards and Wes Clark weren't even in the race yet.
In this cycle we have sites like Huffington Post pushing 750,000 visitors a day; we have top sites like Daily Kos and MYDD and OpenLeft all providing information and analysis. We have top state blogs like Raising Kaine and BlueOregon and Calitics. All of these sites are providing information and the ability to connect to candidates and issues to millions of readers a day.
Then you have YouTube (another site that didn't exist in the last cycle) and the broad emergence of Social Networks (hell, Facebook -- a non-factor in 2004, sponsored a debate this time around) and you have the campaigns all working to incorporate new media in the mix. But more importantly, you have a massive group of voters who have been only quasi-involved before because of legacy world barriers now more involved than ever because technology turns the difficult (seeing a candidate speak for example, traveling to an event, parking, waiting, waiting and finally seeing) into the instant (click on YouTube.)
How much as the world changed in just one cycle?
On the day of the Iowa Caucuses in 2004, John Kerry's best friend hand, David Thorne, made a sign at Kinko's in Des Moines with the words, johnkerry.com on it for the podium and convinced John Kerry to mention the url in his speech -- the campaign didn't have a sign like that with the url and John Kerry had never mentioned the url before that.
Now, the campaigns are operating in real time, with video, email, text messaging, you name it, the campaigns are integrating it into their plans.
But while many people see these as a technological revolution and figure if their web site has the bells and whistles, they are taking advantage of it, and they are wrong.
This has precious little to do with technology -- and everything to do with people, it's about connecting people with people in the fastest and easiest way possible, it's about expanding the involvement of people in the process.
This is what politics has always been about, people.
But now you can and should knock on doors physically but you can also do it virtually. Even something as simple as inviting people to an event can be done via email and not snail mail, it is easier now to send 1,000 invitations than it was to send 100 before. The more invitations you send, the more responses you get. People that have never given before, are giving. People that never voted before, are voting.
What this all means is more commentary, more money, and most of all, and most clearly, you are seeing the results of people using technology to connect candidate to voter one on one in turnout on the Democratic side.
Why are Democrats turning out more than Republicans? At almost exactly the same ratio that exists in the size of the communities online -- two and a half to one? It answers itself.
The numbers of Democratic voters in the early caucuses are mind-boggling, with literally hundreds of thousands of more Democrats voting this time than last cycle. And while totally primary voters have ebbed up and down, now they are besting old records four and five times over.
Let's think for a moment about the 300,000 voters Barack Obama had in South Carolina.
Were they energized by television spots? Did they react to direct mail? No. They developed a relationship with the candidate through new media, they saw him speak on YouTube when they wanted to watch, not when the TV stations wanted him to see.
Did they read newspaper articles about him? Perhaps.
But they also read online, and got emails and went to his website.
They feel connected, because they are connected. For example, Barack Obama taped a response to Bush's State Of The Union address. Guess what? Here's my friend Ari Melber's take on the 300,000+ people who watched it.
300,000 people actually watched it. Here's one more point. Pushing out paid media creates a passive audience, you're watching the game and a TV spot comes on. People reaching out to actively watch are far more valuable and far more engaged.
The 300,000 active watchers would be the equivalent, I would estimate, of some 3,000,000 passive watchers -- meaning that YouTube piece was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in media to the Obama Campaign.
Why would you do paid media? An increasingly good question. It still has a role but paid broadcast media is an inexpensive, inefficient and ever day, more archaic means of reaching a potential supporter.
Barack's State of the Union speech, Hillary's upcoming Super Tuesday Town Hall, the presidentials are leading they way and all around the country, as people plan races for city council and Senate, for House seats, and Governor's mansions, now is the time to look and study what is going on. Is there a relationship between paid media specifically television and success so far? Precious little. Study the candidate spend on OpenSecrets and see the expenditures by class. How is it possible that a candidate like Chris Dodd spent over $15,000,000 and got nowhere?
Could it be because in the last full filing online -- of the close to $10,000,000 he spent, just $36,000 was internet media? I think so.
This cycle is about new media, new thinking, a new world and new opportunities.
May the old one rest in peace.