Consider the ways technology has changed presidential elections.
In 1960, the Kennedy-Nixon televised debates helped JFK when Richard Nixon appeared to have a five-o’clock shadow. In 1964, TV ads moved in, with one from Lyndon Johnson suggesting Republican Barry Goldwater would drop a nuclear bomb, stunning viewers.
Fast forward to 2008, when Barack Obama seized on Facebook and friended thousands, followed by his 2012 re-election helped by his millions of Twitter followers.
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And 2016? According to the campaigns and Harvard University’s pollster, it’s fast becoming the Snapchat and Instagram election, driven by millennials and candidate tech teams pushing out photos and video and supplanting the mainstream media.
“It could be the Snapchat election,” said John Della Volpe, director of polling at Harvard’s Institute of Politics, in a reference to the app that displays photos and messages for 10 seconds before disappearing. “What Snapchat is doing is further democratizing the role of the media in terms of not having to wait for the 24-hour news cycle,” he said.
The pollster said that more voters, especially millennials, are getting news on social media and mobile devices instead of TV and print. And they want to tell their friends what they see and feel is important in politics.
“It’s radical,” he said. “Where we were forced to engage in a campaign through a 30-second commercial, now everybody can make a 30-second commercial and what they send to their friends on Snapchat or other platforms is absolutely more trusted than any other form of media.”
Former Republican Party spokesman Doug Heye said that for campaigns to reach younger voters, social media is essential. “The way they are wired, they are mobile,” he said. “Social media and mobile technology are in their DNA.”
Candidates such as Hillary Clinton have gone all-in with the new social media sites, but others have become known for focusing on just a handful. Donald Trump, for example, gets top grades for his use of Twitter and his videos on Instagram, the fastest-growing social media site.
Sen. Ted Cruz has won attention for broadcasting events live on Periscope and using a game app to help supporters organize.
And Sen. Marco Rubio has used the photo sites to provide backstage peeks at how he campaigns and what he’s like.
And don’t discount the influence of traditional websites. Here, again, Trump seems to dominate, according to the analytics firm Soasta.
The firm told the Washington Examiner that Trump’s website has a huge engagement and performance approval rating of 88 percent, followed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Clinton and Dr. Ben Carson.
GANGSTER WHITEY BULGER WANTED ‘HITMAN IN THE WHITE HOUSE’
Notorious Boston mobster Whitey Bulger, recently convicted of murder, believed that military conflicts could be prevented if the nation had a “hitman” as president.
That’s according to a handwritten note the real-life killer penned on the back of a photo of a war memorial he paid for that included the names of his friends.
“Cost of war and reason why we need a hitman in the White House that can negotiate & keep us out of Wars!” he scribbled, in an apparent diss of President Obama.
It is one of several extremely rare and very valuable Bulger artifacts consigned to Maryland-based Alexander Historical Auctions for sale. The items should draw huge attention because Bulger’s story is now immortalized in the current movie “Black Mass.”
The consigner, an ex-cellmate of Bulger, also revealed to Alexander President Bill Panagopulos that the gangster was so angry with the Kennedy clan for attacking his brother, the Massachusetts Senate president, for his opposition to school integration, that he sent a group of black children to Hyannis Port on a bus and forced the family to let them swim in the compound’s pool.
“They notified the press and made sure that the media was there so the Kennedys couldn’t turn them away or look bad,” Panagopulos quoted the ex-con as saying.
BROKE AND BANKRUPT, STATE POLITICAL PARTIES MAY GET HELP
State and local political parties, starved of money and ignored by candidates more focused on super PACs, are finally getting some attention.
A former Obama Justice Department official and a Republican commissioner with the Federal Election Commission are backing a rewrite of rules to let the non-Washington parties raise more money and coordinate spending with candidates.
Spencer Overton, the former Obama aide, wants state and local committees to spend the first $200 of every donation in a coordinated campaign with candidates, now unlawful.
And Lee E. Goodman, of the FEC, wants to raise the amount people can donate to state and local parties and junk FEC spending restrictions.
The problem is real, Goodman said. While super PACs are gobbling up the big dollars, state parties are going bankrupt and are being ignored as a result. “They’ve become more and more irrelevant … cash-strapped or bankrupt,” he said.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
