Discussion Questions for November 5, 2008

1) Clearly, one facet that sets this election apart is technology. Ray Strother said… “Technology has changed everything…It has improved campaigns in my opinion.” Ray claims that the computer revolution has created an environment were campaigning has gone back to “door to door” and “person to person.” What are your thoughts on the role of technology in this election? What does it mean for future elections? And, what do you think about Ray’s anecdote about 9,000 people making phone calls at rallies? Is this ethical? Is this what modern democracy looks like? Regardless of your feelings about the outcome of this election, technology poses a host of new considerations for political communication. What should we be excited about? What aspects of technology should we be aiming our most critical scholarly lenses at?

Knowing what we do about the results of this election, if you could magically go back in time how would you advise the McCain camp? Is there a strategy that could have defeated a campaign as well run and consistent as the Obama campaign? Presumably, this is the question facing the Republicans in 2012. The Obama re-election campaign will likely be at least as strong and utilize at bear minimum the strategies that worked so well in 2008. To what degree does this election demand an overhaul of the status quo in presidential campaigns as Ray Strother has suggested?

2) Several weeks back Republican pollster Whit Ayers predicted the RNC’s strategy of “Don’t Let the Democrats Have it All” in the last few weeks of the election. At this moment we are still anticipating a recount in Minnesota and a run-off in Georgia, but knowing what we do now or will in the next few days about the make-up of the next Congress, what effect did this message have if any? Secondly, what strategies worked in the last few weeks and what seemed like pure desperation? In the North Carolina senate race between Kay Hagan and Elizabeth Dole the attack on Hagan’s faith seemed both desperate and uncommonly mean, did any one else see ads in their races turn extremely ugly in the final weeks? What if anything could change in the area of “negative ads” as a result of this election cycle?

3) Finally, yesterday, Ray Strother asked “What Happened?” As we look back at this election what were the “Words that Work” from this campaign? What campaign messages were “Made To Stick” and what messaging strategies have we already forgotten from this historic campaign? If you are the McCain camp, were there messaging strategies that could have worked that weren’t used? Could those that were used have worked if they had been more “on message?”

In what ways did we see concepts from “Applebees’ s America” rear their heads in this election? What role did the exurbanites play or not play in electing our new president? Eddie asked yesterday given the outcome of the election “how many people still have a problem with micro-targeting?” Personally, I still see micro-targeting as a massive and very serious threat to civil liberties and privacy. Additional thoughts? Ray Strother said elections will… “…never, ever be the same again.” What are the implications of strategies of this type for future elections? What’s next in the realm of the citizen consumer and political strategy?