Will an Obama-style campaign work in India?
First, some excerpts from Internet key to Obama victories, by Steve Schifferes © BBC MMVIII
“With Barack Obama moving close to victory in the Democratic presidential primary campaign, the internet has proved one of the key tools to his success…
The internet has been moving to the mainstream of political life in the US for some years. But in this presidential cycle it has been particularly important for the Obama campaign, which was starting from scratch with few resources and little name recognition.
The internet favours the outsider, and gives them the ability to quickly mobilise supporters and money online.
And the more nimble use of the internet by the Obama campaign in its early stages helped him overcome the huge initial lead of Hillary Clinton in the presidential nominating race…Mr Obama’s internet strategy was at the heart of his plan to win the Democratic nomination, according to expert Phil Noble
…When Senator Obama announced his campaign, his internet site was already fully developed and ready to go - with a set of tools which allowed supporters to meet and organise as well as contribute money.
…Mr Noble…expects Mr Obama to raise $1 billion online during the 2008 campaign, 12 times as much as John Kerry raised through online fundraising in 2004.
And he says that two million Obama activists have already been mobilised to become volunteer workers for the campaign - a key advance in the “ground war” of getting out the vote.
And some key internet stunts - including the independently developed “Obama girl” mock ad on YouTube - helped increase Mr Obama’s public profile early on.
…One of the unique features of the Obama campaign has been its ability to embrace social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. Indeed Mr Obama’s decision to run was influenced by the fact that a page created on MySpace by supporters not connected to any official campaign quickly signed up 160,000 supporters.
…His use of social networking sites has helped Mr Obama to mobilise young people, a group which has traditionally been uninterested in politics, according to Professor Thomas Patterson of Harvard University.
*** End of Excerpts ***
While I realise that there are fundamental differences between the Presidential system in US and what we have in India, I wonder if:
1] It is possible for someone who is a political unknown or an “outsider” to emerge on the national stage in India and play a key role in politics leveraging the internet and the young, urban demographics?
2] It is possible to raise “clean money” to fight elections in India the way Obama has done?
3] Internet penetration sufficiently broad amongst the youth and urban areas that such a strategy could work?
4] there might be other reasons that make this strategy un-workable in the Indian context?
Thoughts and comments welcome, as always…
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