Metro News Melbourne - Newspaper Online - Victoria au newspaper south eastern Bayside Melbourne

It’s hard to avoid an election campaign at the moment. Wherever you turn, there is the beginnings, the post mortem or the heavy campaigning part of some major political contest.

We’ve had the UK elections of 2005, the Queensland and Victoria state elections of 2006, the US mid-term elections of 2006 and, next year, we will have the NSW state election and the Australian Federal election. All of these have a significant influence on our daily lives and our future policies and outcomes.

Now, more than ever, especially given the enormous dollars spent on campaigning, political parties, individual candidates, special interest groups, big business, trade unions and influential private citizens are desperate for their chosen party to win an election. After all, winning offers them the best chance of getting their agenda accepted where it matters.

What the political gurus, who the major politicians employ as architects of their campaigns, are all increasingly aware of is just how much New Media enhances and destroys political campaigns.

In fact New Media is fast becoming the secret to mounting a campaign and to winning, or causing an opponent to lose an election.

The first time the power of new technology became evident was the 2004 US Presidential election where most polls had George Bush and Democrat nominee John Kerry very close in the lead-up to the vote.

One of the biggest issues at the time was the personal character of the two men and their military record. While John Kerry had served in Vietnam, George Bush was never called up. Many documentaries and promotional videos that highlighted John Kerry’s distinguished record were produced, while another video spread heavily around the internet showed inconsistencies in these claims.

As a result, in a matter of days, all the political capital that Kerry had over Bush and his lack of military service was lost. And in the post-election polls, swinging and independent voters highlighted this issue as one of the top reasons in voting for Bush over Kerry.

Similarly, in the lead-up to that same election, when potential candidates were competing to challenge Bush in the 2004 election, a virtual unknown governor at the time, Howard Dean, became the leading candidate and favourite. And all because of an ingenious method of fundraising.

In the US, sadly, money plays a huge part in determining candidates, and in winning elections. In fact, in 93 per cent of the approximate 450 congressional elections held in November the candidate who spent the most, won the seat. Hilary Clinton spent upwards of US$39 million on her campaign, and she was never in any danger of losing her safe Senate seat.

It is this exclusive access to the political scene and the fact that money talks so much that often robs the US of the best candidate, and also creates fertile ground for corruption.

The aforementioned Howard Dean used the internet and the little donations that he got out of it (this is common on many internet sites) to raise funds. Before you knew it, he was able to financially compete with the more recognisable candidates who had lavish fund-raising galas and high-profile individuals and companies to support them financially. Ironically, it was also the internet that brought his undoing. Many of his foibles on the campaign trail were spread around the internet like wildfire and he eventually lost.

Probably the saddest trend of all, and which has got steadily worse over the last 50 years, particularly in Western democracies, is the candidates’ huge focus on smearing their opponents with whatever they can, and in any manner possible, rather than articulate their vision for a better future.

Now with easy access to video, candidate campaign teams and supporters post them on sites like YouTube with the sole purpose of destroying their opponent. More often than not, these videos are only half true at best, and usually involve issues that are probably either so old or completely off the topic that they are irrelevant to the election at hand.

However, candidates on all sides know that using these tactics on the internet work. We have watched political battles in which Google and YouTube are used as weapons, and have seen that those candidates who play at “who can sling the most mud and make it stick” become the victors.

One disgraceful example is of a candidate in the US who used a video of a playboy call-girl to say, “call me” to his opponent. Sadly, for good taste, the candidate who showed this ad, won.

It’s evident that this New Media and its arsenal of weapons is playing an ever more dominant role in influencing voting and how candidates are perceived. While a lot of these examples focus on the US, you can rest assured the rest of the world will follow soon enough. Australians probably got a taste of things to come with the auto voice call used in the last Federal poll.

But New Media is not the problem. It allows widespread interest in affairs beyond our own, and gives us a medium to express our opinion. It’s our so-called “leaders” resorting to tactics of five year olds, and succeeding, that you have to worry about, and that make you wonder if there really is any hope for us at all.

Chris Jacob is a director of Jive exchange www.jiveexchange.com/metronews