Sam Estabrooks POS 368 Presidential Candidate Website Evaluation
During election season, one complaint typically heard from progressives is that it is difficult to overcome barriers to access in order to get their message out through traditional forms of media, such as television, newspapers and radio. With that in mind, it is worth considering the promises that have often been made regarding the capacity of new media forms, such as the internet, to enable grassroots democracy and provide any group, no matter how small or underexposed, with the ability to mobilize support and disseminate their message. In this study, I will be looking at the campaign web pages of the two progressives left in the race: Democrat Mike Gravel, formerly a Senator from Alaska, and Independent Ralph Nader, who has worked for decades to advance numerous progressive causes, despite never having held elected office. Although many of my observations in this study will no doubt apply to all presidential candidates in general, I intend to focus particularly on the ways in which these two progressives employ the internet to overcome the barriers to access that they would be faced with through the traditional media.
One major barrier faced by progressives in running a campaign is ballot access. Where the more well-known candidates are virtually guaranteed a spot on the ballot, lesser-known candidates need to deploy volunteers nationwide in order to collect enough signatures to obtain access. It is thus unsurprising that both Gravel and Nader have devoted portions of their site to mobilizing volunteers to help get these candidates on the ballot. In Gravel�s case, the approach is relatively straightfoward: there is a box on the front page that announces that the campaign needs help in order to get on the ballot. Then, when you click on it, it brings you to this page where there is a list of state directors. Volunteers are then expected to contact the director for their state in order to get involved.
Nader�s approach goes several steps further. On his front page, there is a graphic that announces that the campaign needs volunteers to take a �Road Trip for Ralph� across the country to collect signatures. When you click on the link, it takes you to this page, where you can fill out a form with your basic information, availability, and special skills. Rather than forcing prospective volunteers to contact the state director, as Mike Gravel�s website does, Nader�s campaign can then contact its volunteers to organize petitioning efforts. Furthermore, on the same page, as well as on the site�s volunteer page, you can let the campaign know if you will be able to host one of the traveling volunteers at your house during their trip around the country. Thus, the internet allows the campaign to do something it would not have been able to do before: quickly and effectively mobilize volunteers to travel and them get them in touch with other volunteers across the country in order to provide them with a place to stay.
A second way in which Nader and Gravel have used the internet is to place issues on the agenda which would otherwise be ignored by major media outlets. For instance, Mike Gravel is a strong supporter of both the National Initiative for Democracy and the FairTax. The problem is that neither of these issues are currently on the agenda as set by the frontrunners in the two parties and the major media outlets. In order to counteract this, Gravel has used his website to publish information in support of these two issues. Gravel�s issues page contains a link to a lengthy article that argues for the National Initiative, and his campaign blog features an article by an economics professor on why Democrats should support the FairTax. (Admittedly, this can only be extended so far: being able to self-publish information on issues that important to you is no guarantee that anyone will actually come to the webpage to read it. It is, however, a start.) Nader�s page is much less issue-oriented that Gravel�s, however: his issues page merely shows a chart listing twelve issues, without any explanation, that he would pursue as President but that are off the table for both Clinton and Obama.
One interesting aspect of the campaign pages of these two candidates, which is representative of most candidate websites this election cycle, is that they consist of pages that are hosted on a number of websites across the internet. On Mike Gravel�s front page, for instance, there is a sidebar containing links to his Myspace page, his Facebook page, and his YouTube channel, among many others. Nader�s site has a networks page, linked to on the front page, which contains links to his Myspace page, his Flickr account, and his YouTube channel. The fact that these candidates have a presence on popular social networking sites such as Myspace and Facebook may well end up being crucial in that it will help the candidates reach potential supporters: due to the fact the people who use these sites are constantly sending messages, links, and information back and forth, it is significantly more likely that someone will happen across a candidate�s page on one of these sites than a regular campaign website.
The most important of these sites, however, may turn out to be YouTube, as this is where most of these candidates� multimedia content is hosted. The types of videos hosted on YouTube generally consist of campaign ads, clips of television appearances, and speeches. In addition, Mike Gravel has posted several videos in which he speaks directly to the audience regarding the issues, such as this one, in which he expresses his support for the Theory of Evolution and rails against those who would teach Creationism or Intelligent Design in public schools as �corrupting the youth.� Furthermore, his issues page has taken a decidedly multimedia approach: some of the issues are linked to textual information, some are linked to videos, and some are linked to both. For instance, the section on the FairTax links to this page, where Gravel lays out the reasons why he supports the FairTax, as well as the Wikipedia article on the subject, and this YouTube video, where Gravel speaks about the tax. In addition to allowing candidates to publish this content, it also allows their supporters to do so as well, regardless of how strong their ties with the campaign are. It is notable that, at the time of this writing, only two of the videos on Nader�s YouTube channel are hosted by Nader himself. The rest were added by other users and arranged into playlists on Nader�s channel. Gravel�s site has added a significantly larger number of videos, but he also has a playlist of user added content which the campaign was particularly impressed with.
The benefits of publishing video content through sites like YouTube particularly help lesser-known candidates who have a limited supply of campaign resources. Now, rather than shelling out millions of dollars to run a campaign ad on television, Mike Gravel can tape himself with a video camera in his home, upload it to YouTube for free, and link it to his campaign site. When Ralph Nader gives a campaign speech, he can have someone tape it and upload it to the internet, which will ensure that it is heard by a greater number of people than just those who happen to be in the room at the time. This increased ease in publishing content can only help lesser-known, progressive candidates, who often have difficulty getting coverage from major media outlets and who are frequently either excluded from debates or only given a minimal amount of time to speak. Just how much it helps them, however, remains to be seen.
One last vital function that is served by these candidates� use of the Internet is that it allows them to reply to claims that are made about them major media outlets. For instance, following the Iowa caucus, MSNBC announced that Mike Gravel had dropped out of the race. The very same day, Gravel�s campaign released this video via YouTube in order to inform his supporters that this was not true. Prior to the advent of the Internet, many of Gravel�s supporters in the 49 states that still had yet to vote might well have gone forward with the impression that Gravel had indeed dropped out of the race, given the lack of exposure that he has received from major media outlets this campaign cycle.
In the case of Ralph Nader, the Internet has given him a platform to respond to the characterization of him as a �spoiler� candidate that has been thrown around by many prominent figures, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. In this blog, for instance, Nader responds to remarks made about him by Barack Obama and clarifies the opinions that he held regarding Al Gore during his 2000 bid for the presidency. On his news page, a disproportionate number of the articles linked to defend Ralph�s decision to run and his impact on the campaign season. At the time of this writing, the current articles feature titles such as �A Right to Run,� �Only One Worth Voting For,� and �Dems Should Thank Nader.�
To say which of these candidates is more successful in their approach is not an easy thing. Ralph Nader�s website is more attractive, he has more content on his news page, and his method for bringing volunteers into the campaign effort is more sophisticated and userfriendly. Mike Gravel�s website, on the other hand, has much more information on the issues and makes better use of multimedia. What seems certain, however, is that new technologies associated with the Internet promise to provide progressives with increased ability to reach and mobilize supporters and overcome obstacles to access set by the traditional media. Whether these promises will be fulfilled, of course, remains to be seen.