This year clearly will be the most-digital election cycle yet. For more evidence, look no further than the Missouri AG’s race.
Most of the would-be AGs — Dems, Rep. Margaret Donnelly, Rep. Jeff Harris, Sen. Chris Koster; and Republican Senate President Pro Tem Michael Gibbons — are making forays into the world of video.
- Donnelly has a few clips in a vlog style, using YouTube.
- Gibbons is planning video, though it appears a link is dead/broken.
- Harris just released his half-joke, half serious video.
- Koster has a YouTube clip on the front of his site from a new station and appears to be planning more.
(The fourth Democrat, Molly Williams, who appears to be a political unknown, doesn’t have a Web site as best I can tell.)
There’s no doubt that video the medium du jour to reach the young in particular and the tech savvy in general. YouTube has done more than anything else to fuel that trend.
But I can already think of questions this potential trend raises.
First off, a basic one that still debated: Do these kinds of videos accomplish anything for the average voter? Too rephrase, is democracy more or less informed by such short videos directly from the campaign?
Secondly, and we’ll have to wait and see on this: Will we see so-called “trackers” for one candidate following another around with a camera waiting for a mistake? Is that omnipresent watching a good or bad thing?
(It’s happened elsewhere. In Illinois in 2006, campaign workers for Gov. Rod Blagojevich routinely followed his opponent Judy Baar Topinka to various stops. And we can probably all remember the downfall of Virginia U.S. Sen. George Allen after his “macaca” comment was caught on camera by a worker for Allen’s opponent.)
To the questions, I don’t know. You tell me.