In browsing through the fine video library of James Kotecki, one can’t help but stumble upon the video of his interview with Ron Paul in his dorm room.
I think it’s safe to say that’s an American political first, unless I’m unaware of some Taft summit at William & Mary. Also, a bit of an upgrade from a pencil puppet.
Of course, further perusal also yields an in-person interview with former contender (and, according to some, 2012 GOP front-runner) Mike Huckabee.
Now, seeing these two candidates being among the first to dip their toes into direct communication with the Internet (even though Obama has a lauded Internet machine, it’s largely a one-way communication rather than a dialogue), I couldn’t help but note that these guys are also the two candidates who probably overperformed the most in the 2008 campaign. Obama would probably be the third, but his relationship with the Internet has already been noted.
Now for a question: Did Huckabee and Paul exceed expectations in part because of their efforts to reach out in untraditional ways to voters, such as through the Internet, and were they prescient, or were they simply long-shot candidates searching for any way to gain tracition, and they just got (a little) lucky?
In other words, was the Internet used as a deliberate tool by these campaigns, or was it a desperate, long-shot measure that just happened to pay off and inject a little life into what should have been floundering campaigns?
In discussing the matter, it’s essential to note that for all the suprises of the Paul and Huckabee campaigns, they did, in fact, lose. And they lost to a candidate that largely treats the Internet as a burdensome obligation than an actual tool to be used to one’s advantage. Just some food for thought.
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