Yes we did

Well, the election is over, and this means good things for our country. The election season saw its ups and downs; there were tears and laughter, boring bits, and all of it is documented online. Youtube allowed everyone to see the candidates’ blunders (over and over and over, and send it to all their friends). Blogging allowed even the little guy to have his opinion heard and considered. Wikipedia and others made the candidates’ platforms more accessible, and let more people get educated. Websites have made fundraising easier. All of these factors have made candidates and all politicians be accountable for everything they say. While this is sometimes a good thing, videos can also be edited or skewed, taking words out of context to make the candidate look like a fraud.

Let’s take a look at some great youtube moments. Here is an example of how modern media ensures candidates don’t change their minds or words without everyone knowing. This is an example showing that anyone can post anything, regardless of its ridiculousness. The internet has definitely changed the playing field for presidential election. Even televisions in every home was a big deal for the elections. People being able to see the candidates made charisma and looks much more important. The internet has taken that to a whole new level. Everything can be watched and analyzed in its real format, or in one created by either a proponent or opponent of the candidate. Now everyone can participate in politics.

Voter education has become especially important with growing technology. While the internet has done wonders for elections, it’s scary to think that someone could post complete lies about a candidate or skew the truth and a million people have access to it. But the nice things about non-partisan internet is that there are a million sides to every story and the truth is out there if you look for it. And more truth than a lot of people might want to know. If you’re curious, you can find out anything about someone! Not in a creepy stalker way, but if you really want to research a candidate, internet has made it so easy to find how they’ve voted on issues in the past, everything about their personal life/criminal records, etc. Everything matters now, and the tiniest screw up a politician makes will surely be a video online with thousands of views within days. I haven’t seen any research, but perhaps there’s a correlation between Bush having the lowest ever approval rating and his being the first presidency where internet is accessible to everyone?

The internet helped us find out about the candidates and form opinions about them, but now that the decision making is over, will the internet keep people involved in politics? Obama’s platform got people organized from the grassroots level and promised to represent the people. I think that the internet will keep Obama accountable in office to uphold his campaign promises. Every decision he makes is going to be seen by the nation, and it’s so easy for people to show how they feel online. If he’s not making people happy, those people will have an easy time telling and influencing their friends’ opinions. Another nice thing about the internet is that people all across the country can get organized for issues they care about. Thanks to new technology, politicians have to care about what people think and act on that if they want to keep popular support.

how interested are you?

It’s almost here! Before we know it, election season will be over and we’ll have a new president! I for one, am ready for it to end. According to fivethirtyeight.com ‘Google Traffic Suggests McCain Not Grabbing Voters’ Attention’. The research suggests that the number of people searching Obama on google has increased drastically since mid October, whereas McCain has stayed level and consistently lower than Obama since the beginning of October. But can the results of Google search engine be any kind of predicter in who will win this election?

I find this interesting, especially in accordance with Drew Westen’s The Political Brain analysis of emotions deciding the outcome of the election. His theory is that while voters vote mostly in accordance with party lines, the personality and charisma of the candidate is increasingly important since World War II. The article on fivethirtyeight shows that the public is no longer interested in John McCain, or does not find him interesting enough to research. Especially since the emergence of television in politics, people tend to vote for the more charismatic candidate, the better looking and more passionate candidate. Judging from McCain and Obama’s appearances on tv, it’s easy to see who has the obvious advantage. Obama, a young captivating delivers messages of hope and inspiration. McCain, on the other hand, with his tongue flick, is not as appealing, especially for young voters.

I am led to wonder if people are more likely to vote for a party or a candidate. It seems clear to me that many people do not care about someone’s politics so much as his personality. When Clinton was the democratic candidate, he won, and obviously, he is full of charisma. In the next election, democrats chose Gore, then Kerry, both of whom are older, not as good looking, and generally thought of not to have as much personality and charisma. Did that many democrats change their minds for those elections and abandon their democratic beliefs? Not likely. Much more probably, the large pool of ‘undecided’ voters, decided on a more accessible candidate. If Obama wins this year’s election, I think that’s further proof that voters choose the candidate they find more charismatic and appealing.

Drew Westen and fivethirtyeight.com both fail to mention how big of a roll vice presidential candidates play in this equation. Although meant as a joke, I saw at least ten Sarah Palins this Halloween. I saw zero Obamas, zero McCains, and zero Bidens. It seems that Palin’s charisma tops Obamas, and she has become a celebrity of sorts since her nomination. This is a strange rivalry to me, because Palin’s charisma beats Obama’s, but his role beats hers. While the vice presidential candidate is important for the election of the president, I don’t think that the vp’s charisma is as important as the president’s during the debates and to the public. While the republicans got a lot of attention immediately after the nomination of Sarah Palin, the decline of interest shows that getting fast really good results is not as smart of an idea as getting steady good results.

Hopefully, the fivethirtyeight data about people’s interest in the candidate’s plays out in the election. There’s two days left, and not a lot the candidates can do to change people’s minds at this point (especially with early voting), so I’ll take it as a good sign that people are more interested in Obama than McCain, so let’s hope they all get out there and vote!