The classic campaign model in a digital world

Jon Garfunkel
May 11, 2022

Campaigning in digital media has been actively pursued for almost 3 decades now.  But we still need to ask: how well does it work? Particularly against a "classic" campaign model, in which a campaign follows the elementary democratic practices of presenting issues and discussing them. We discuss here.

the classic campaign model

In a "classic" campaign mode - candidates start by sharing their personal qualifications & positions.
And then, the campaign starts.
Events happen, candidates react with statements, and opponents make statements to their reactions.
Through this all, the public gets involved, not just as partisan supporters, but in coming up with questions, reacting, sharing their experiences.
By election day, voters have enough information, or know where to find it.

That's the classic model, at least.

We do know that, at the national level, campaigns have grown absurd. And this isn't really new; I have on my shelf Daniel Boorstin's The Image in which he coined the word "pseudo-event", the manufactured event which increasingly drives public relations & campaigns. He wrote that in 1961.

But least on the local level, we should be able to cut through the nonsense.
We know the issues and the candidates are willing to engage on them.

So how do we get there?

We saw that with the town board elections last year. I'm surprised we haven't seen that with school board -- especially given that the school budget is 3-6x what the municipal budget is (depending on how the accounting). There's perhaps a bias, I've heard that school board candidates are not "traditional" politicians, and thus lack the appetite (or certainly the time) for actively campaigning.

There's a bias by the incumbents against actively campaigning. They have enough record to run on. But it would be folly for challengers to mimic that practice!

Most candidates have a bias towards "retail" campaigning of meeting people 1-on-1 in public. It's the most pleasurable, and carries the least risk (particularly with no cameras rolling, as they might be on larger campaigns). The downside is that it doesn't at all scale. You can only reach so many people at the train station or the farmer's market. To scale, to reach more people, this is why the printing press and all other forms of mass media were invented. Putting out written statements has been part of American democratic practice since they beginning. The traditional media still plays this role. As does the Internet.

The obvious public platform today is Facebook - particularly for local elections where "retail conversations" can, and do, happen. Civic groups have been established in local communities, and moderators often do a fair part in  ensuring that the participants are in fact members  of the community and well-behaved. While discussions are not without controversy and rancor -- people still learn what the issues are.

And yet, there remain objections. One candidate claimed (in a Facebook comment) Facebook was only fine for sharing pictures of pets and family, and furthermore that Facebook's involvement in national politics has only led to disaster. Another candidate professes the act of "Liking" on Facebook was inherently corrupt; and this ends up promoting content for any manner of reasons. I don't quite think these add up.  A more grounded objection is could be that Facebook often -- just as the old message boards in days of yore -- often suck people into unending debates (which quite regularly get nastier), and most people hate to be chained to their computer or phone trying to defend themselves in real-time. But often this is due to lacks a good moderator who can more aggressively step in and close discussions.  Certainly, Facebook could help by making it easier to downplay and offensive comment short of deleting it (which screws up the historical record and deletes the responding posts; more careful remedies could include making it easier for people to voice offense to comments, and then as a response, the system could lightening up the text, or even disemvoweling the offending comments, and so on)

At the end of the day,  what other media today exists where people can provide direct responses to questions? For those fearing getting sucked into endless discussions, at least find surrogates & supporters who can answer for you. 

So, I invite all -- candidates, surrogates, supporters, and the undecided: read the positions that are out there. Ask questions. Press candidates to address questions with public statements.