82,000 reasons why Web 2.0 matters at every level

I say it over and over and over again:

The Republican Party lost the Majority in both the House and Senate by a mere 82,000 votes spread out through key races throughout the country. That's it.

Most races in the House were lost by less than 1 percent - Rob Simmons in CT by less than 100 votes. George Allen, a one-time likely Presidential candidate, lost his Senate seat because he failed to grasp the importance of the modern world and faced a swarm of well-coordinated attacks from the Left.

The fact of the matter is that we're no longer talking about millions or even thousands of votes that decide an election - but handfuls. And the only way to tap the "Long Tail" of politics is through Web 2.0.

One of the races I was closely following was the Democratic Primary race for Mayor in Pittsburgh, PA.

In that race, you had the incumbent mayor, Luke Ravenstahl, and at the age of 27 is America's youngest mayor, being challenged by a popular city councilman, Bill Peduto, who is 42 and has been known for some good tech things like helping wire Pittsburgh with free WiFi.

You would think that Ravenstahl, as America's youngest mayor, would be the candidate running a modern campaign. But, you'd be wrong.

Peduto, before dropping out of the race in what was probably some shady power play by the mayor, was the candidate aggressively courting liberal bloggers, YouTubing, and using socnets. Read this post if you're interested in finding out more details.

And he had the movement. This user-generated video, which still only has about 400 views, is one of my favorite campaign videos of all time:

In a post-Primary Election analysis of the May 15 ousting of Dem incumbents by progressive Dems, Peduto said:
Mr. Peduto argued that the results represent "the transformation of Democratic politics" by a new infrastructure of progressive groups, campaign workers and candidates. Two of the ousted incumbents were endorsed by the Democratic Committee and the Allegheny County Labor Council, suggesting traditional power bases can't guarantee victory.

Peduto jumped out of the race, but his message changed the political dynamic in Pittsburgh.

Conclusion
Web 2.0 is important at every single level in political campaigns because Web 2.0 is a growing part of all of our lives.

The most important thing a campaign can do is build a decent website platform and spend a majority of the time focusing on the content of the site instead of the flash and glossiness. I'd stay away from a factory-built approach and I'd ensure that the blog is very "real."

Second, campaigns need to immediately build relationships with local political bloggers throughout the state. And don't just email. Email is easy to ignore. Go to lunch or coffee and be honest and forthcoming about the campaign. If you're not willing to give a blogger - who feeds on inside information - that information, you won't be a valuable asset and they'll simply ignore you. Remember: You need bloggers more than they need you or your candidate.

Third, I'd give precedent to these four Web 2.0 tools and make them a part of any online campaign strategy: YouTube, facebook, myspace, and twitter.

YouTube - communication, video;
Facebook, Myspace - communities where voters spend all their time;
Twitter - communication, reaching early adopters and niche tech-types.

The bottom line is that campaigns, no matter how big or how small need to understand that this is a modern world where the last thing on anyone's mind is their campaign. Their strategy to interrupt us during dinner with phone calls or send us postal mail which we never open is no longer as effective as it used to be.

It's time to get creative. It's time to actually matter in our lives.