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An Inconvenient Tube
From the Left of Center
By: Brad Levinson
Go ahead and open a new tab on your browser. Now, head to YouTube, search for “Rudy Giuliani drag,” and enjoy the show. What, you ask? Is that Rudy dressed as a woman, spraying perfume on himself and allowing “The Donald’s” head in between his fake breasts? Of course it is! And how politically inconvenient for a social liberal from New York who has just begun to task himself with winning his party’s nomination. While appreciated in the city, does one really think that “Rudia” will be embraced by the religious right?
This problem doesn’t just exist for Rudy. Type “Hillary national anthem” into the search box and you can hear Hillary’s off-key rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. She even managed to forget a word. Or go ahead and watch a 1994 senate debate between Mitt Romney and Ted Kennedy. See how well this Mitt Romney contradicts today’s Mitt Romney on several key issues, such as women’s choice.
YouTube is going to present an interesting situation for most candidates. Every gaffe, every inconsistency, will not just be reported on, but witnessed as well. In order to be successful in this space, candidates and their campaigns will have to keep several things in mind. The first is the value of immediate response in a medium that challenges the 24-hour news network in speed. The second is for the candidate to embrace the technology, its values, and social norms. The third is for the candidate to understand that they can no longer be viewed as super-human. In order to compensate for this, the candidate will have to will have to understand how to be a real voice in a medium that values authenticity above all else.
As ex-Senator George Allen of Virginia found out the hard way, YouTube can have extremely negative consequences. During the 2006 Election cycle, Allen was speaking at a campaign stop in Breaks, Virginia, right near the Kentucky border. In attendance were local residents, as well as S.R. Sidarth, a 20-year-old volunteer from Democrat challenger Jim Webb’s campaign. Sidarth, who was born in Fairfax County, Virginia and of Indian ancestry, served as a “tracker" for Webb, filming the event.
During Allen’s speech, Allen paused, then began referring to Sidarth:
“This fellow here over here with the yellow shirt, Macaca, or whatever his name is. He's with my opponent. He's following us around everywhere. And it's just great. We're going to places all over Virginia, and he's having it on film and it's great to have you here and you show it to your opponent because he's never been there and probably will never come. [...] Let's give a welcome to Macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia.”
According to Sidarth, he “was the only person of color present among the crowd of 100 or so Republican supporters, some of whom applauded Allen's remarks.” (Washington Post).
Three days later, Webb’s campaign manager Jessica Vanden Berg sent an e-mail to supporters calling the “Macaca” term racist in origin, and invited them to watch the incident on YouTube. Not until 12 days later, after the mainstream media picked the story up, and after several unsatisfactory explanations as to what “macaca” meant, did Allen formally apologize for the event. Allen’s gaffe and lack of response set the gears in motion towards Allen’s eventual narrow defeat. By placing the video on YouTube and soliciting viewership in the “correct” way (by following Internet social norms), Webb’s Internet team and their firm BlueStateDigital were immensely successful. Future campaigns can learn heavily from this. Understanding social media tools and staying on top of the latest concepts and practices are beyond vital.
However, these tactics cannot be forced: the candidate also needs to be seen as someone who embraces the technology. It’s absolutely invaluable for the candidate to be an authentic voice. The candidate cannot be seen as not merely making token gestures. When I received a Facebook birthday wish from Indiana senator and ex-presidential possible Evan Bayh, I was quite aware that Evan Bayh was not sending this message, and that had no idea when my birthday is, or that I am even his “friend.” Instead, Facebook needs to be used as an organizational website, with authentic voices from staff representatives. Similarly, highly scripted events, such as Hillary’s teleprompter-aided video “Hillcasts,” seem out of touch with the current Internet value of true voice.
When YouTube shows every single gaffe, mistake, inconsistency, fluke and parody, exposing weakness and causing probable embarrassment, candidates need to embrace the fact that they’re human. Much credit should be given to John Edwards, who, in a recent interview with WNYC Radio’s Brian Lehrer, said that YouTube was “very good for democracy,” and that “there shouldn’t be, with very rare exceptions, any limit on people’s ability to express those opinions. It’s a marketplace of ideas and a new opportunity for grassroots activism, which is so critical to strengthening democracy.” And when asked about his own incriminating YouTube video (where he fixes his hair for a painful two whole minutes), he embraced it. “Listen, it goes with the territory,” he said. “I’m human like anybody else.” |
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