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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Jai,
I love your blog, and you always raise critical point relevant to our community. But at the same time I feel you are little too straight laced about American politics being clean, and little too politically correct.
Obama is a Saudi plant with 100s of millions being funneled through front groups, and Soros as go between. That is why he has unlimited supply of money.
US State Department, and most of the top leadership have made over $50 M each working for Saudi over the years. These include the Ambassador to India Mulford, and 50 other ones to middle east. No wonder they always are talking about Muslim interests than American interests. Same is the situation with many Ivy league universities being activist for Saudis including Harvard, and Georgetown.
Bottom line the penetration of US politics by Wahhabist is as bad as in India. The only difference is it happens legally in this country, and usually people at the highest level are involved as “consultants” not ordinary folks as in India.
You want to find how Saudis funded 9/11 don’t follow the official US govt investigations follow the US insurance industry lawsuit against the Saudis. I think Jihad Watch, LGF, Front Page, Danile Pipes, Steve Emerson, and Andrew Bostom and Jawa Report will tell you about the rot in American politics.
Anyhow, please continue give us great posts but please take off your rose colored glasses.
Dear Shantanu
My take on your Q.1: “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?”
India’s is not a presidential system, so no one can run for national policy influence without being part of a large group. Therefore a team of at least 1500 leaders will have to run together (sorry for repeating my ‘mantra, but the facts must always be laid out). Even if you had an Obama (and I don’t agree with all his policies; plus I believe you need at least 20 Obamas) you would only have one MP in Parliament. No good.
So let us start talking of an “unknown group” not “unknown outsider”. This new group 1500 of leaders will have to first of all demonstrate a set of at least 20 leaders with public speaking skills of the calibre of Vajpayee (or Obama). So now we are talking of an even more difficult task: of getting 1500 leaders with at least 20 **outstanding** public speakers.
Third, no one among the 1500 should create dissonance in the public mind. They will have to run as a single unit, like a well-oiled army; totally committed to a few key policies. Any infighting or display of ego by ANY member will finish off that entire group. If members have to be publicly ‘expelled’ or if this group splits into two or three parts due to ego, or due to any reason, then it is finished. The end. (That, by the way, is typical of most political groups in India.) Unity in campaign and action once elected is totally necessary in order to build basic credibility. Remember the party of clowns – Janata Party? That was the worst example of all. The public rightly hates stupid egotists who want to do crazy things in the guise of running the country. Much better a dictatorial and corrupt Indira Gandhi, in their view, than a motley bunch of idiots.
Once these three things (among others) come together then funds will certaintly flow in from various sources including also from the internet. I suspect the internet will still form only a small part of total funding. Second, it will yield small numbers in relation to Obama’s fund raising activities (ie. you won’t get $100 million or more, which is Rs.4,000 crores, but a small fraction of that).
However, in keeping with Indian electoral laws which set limits on electoral funding, this group cannot spend more than about Rs.150 crores or so anyway to contest elections. Hence even if this method can raise Rs.20-50 crores it would be a useful add-on.
But back to square one. On FTI (and elsewhere) I have highlighted the importance of not worrying about funds at this stage but about establishing a viable group of 1500 leaders with a common policy. So far the progress has been slow and erratic; hence my view continues as before: the greatest problem in India today is the scarcity of good leaders. Let us work on that first.
Regards
Sanjeev
Dear Naresh and Sanjeev: Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
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@Naresh: Thank you for your kind words.
You say: “…I feel you are little too straight laced about American politics being clean, and little too politically correct.”
Not quite…Pl. have a look at these two posts whenever you have a moment.
https://satyameva-jayate.org/2007/06/05/scandal-at-us-justice-deptt/
and
https://satyameva-jayate.org/2005/11/04/corruption-are-we-the-only-ones/
As for Obama’s finances, do you have any links or references to back up your statements? I would be really interested in them…
…follow the US insurance industry lawsuit against the Saudis.
Again, do you have any link(s) I can refer to?
***
@ Sanjeev: You said, “…So let us start talking of an “unknown group” not “unknown outsider”…”
I am happy with that except I believe getting 1500 people together before starting anything is a really tall order…
Does anyone have any idea of how many “leaders” did the Congress have when it began the struggle for independence?
“…Third, no one among the 1500 should create dissonance in the public mind. They will have to run as a single unit, like a well-oiled army; totally committed to a few key policies….”
That is perhaps even more difficult than getting 1500 together in one place!
Does it matter if the 1500 have some differences? Most parties have leaders with varying views (sometimes even widely varying views) and of course the Congress had its share of moderates and extremists (and not only did they disagree on the “means” but in some cases,also the “end”)
“….hence my view continues as before: the greatest problem in India today is the scarcity of good leaders. Let us work on that first.”
This I agree with completely…Yes, let us work on that first.
1. Sometime back, I read a book where a story goes like this…
A Pakistani PM visited China and he was impressed by the China’s commune system model of development. He was so excited that he said to Chinese PM, we need to borrow your model and implement it in Pakistan. Chinese PM silently smiled and then said, Mr PM, this is China and yours is Pakistan. We have our peculiar situations and problems, for which we developed our own model of development. You have your own situations and problems, you have to develop your own model suited to your country. Pakistan PM felt embarrased and didn’t say further. We are same brothers, Indians and Pakistanis, who look to borrow.
2. We Bharatiya are number ONE experts in imitation, copying, forgery. Forgive me, if I am harsh. Imitating Hollywood word, now tons of Lullywood, Tullywood, Mullywood, Bollywood, Kellywood, Doogywood, Piggywood, Rattywood and list goes on. A few months ago, even Amitabh Bacchan said, it disgusting to hear the word Bollywood and Sabhana Azmi said, its irritating. There is a programe in CNN .. 360 degree, now we see some Indian experts started imitating it. Lists goes on.
3. By imitating, we now defeated westerners in terms smoking (over 11% of world smokers are in India, recent Time magazine info), and on the way to defeat them in terms of alcohol consumption. Not many westerners smoke today (~4% of the world smokers), their % going down. And in pornography industry, we can beat US in a week, if govt removed censors.
4. We shall also imitate Obama word and his skills, and repackaged as Sonama (for Sonia), Advama (for Advani), Mayama (for Mayavati), Bhaama (for my ID Bharat), Lalama (for Laloo) and list should go on.
5. My point, why not we learn to innovate, create own brands, own techniques, suited to our situations? Our forfathers were masters of innovation in virtually every field- from science to engineering to polity to medicine to spirituality etc. And today, descendents of innovators, we transforned ourselves into imitators, copyers, and whats not. And we feel proud of it and why not, we have become innovators of all these new techniques. We need to patent them, who knows tomorrow they would bring trillions of dollars revenues.
6. As I said in a previous message, a donkey wearing the skin of a lion don’t turned into a lion (from Swami Vivekananda lectures). Obama is in an American situation, where pseudo-secualrism, deceiving citizens does not work. He had to offer certifiates hundreds of times that he is a practising Christian (not a muslim) and he swear by christian faith. Turn him into a non-christian (muslim, hindu, buddhist etc) and see, how many American supports him. Contrary, a lady in India lied to the nation and citizens hundreds of times (a habitual lier, George Fernandes rightly said) and still the supreme leader. In fact, lie keeps adding to achievement lists in CV.
Bharat
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Dear Bharat
You say, our “descendents of innovators, we transforned ourselves into imitators, copyers, and whats not.” May I ask what stops you today from being similarly creative today?
The answer must lie in the political system of corruption called socialism. Indians have not lost their innate brilliance; our socialist system has made pygmies out of them. Today the corrupt have made themselves indispensable by creating laws to block out good people from entering leadership positions. Therefore Indians need to look at their political system, study its incentives, and overthrow this system, replacing it with the system of freedom.
The brilliant and creative Indians you seek are very much alive today. The only thing is that they do not live or teach in India because India doesn’t want them or care to listen to them. Our best management gurus, economists, scientists have been forced to leave India. These people are widely recognised and honoured (and listened to) in areas like science and economics all over the world – but in India. The world is taking advantage of our best Indians to improve their societies. If Indians were to drop out of Silicon Valley, or the world’s best financial/ management consultancy companies/ universities, the growth rates of the world would come to a halt in shock. We are the brainpower of the world today, but very few live in India, because nobody wants them in India.
Brilliant Indians like Jagdish Bhagwati and Deepak Lal have been asking us for decades to abandon India’s Fabian socialism and adopt policies which will take India to the top of the world. But Indians studiously refuse to listen to them, deluded as they are with their Nehruvian socialist model.
It is now a task for people like you to lead India to a regeneration of brainpower through policies of freedom. I’d suggest following the standard scientific method of research. Understand (as deeply as humanly possible) all the knowledge in the world – including from ancient India – and pick out the very best ideas and bring them together in a creative way. A question to ask is: why do Indians who go to USA produce good output but the same Indians in India achieve a relatively dismal output?
I suggest that 1500 outstanding Indians come together and change India. I firmly believe India can be changed dramatically in 5 years by following policies of good governance. Do Indians want good governance at all; that is my question, or they just like to whine and cry like babies about their ancient glories? 5 years from now India can become new, once again. Who wants to do that?
Regards
Sanjeev
Answer to your question, Sanjeev:
“The country whose youth are inspired by the glory of the past, pain of the present and dreams of the future always moves on the path of progress.” ~Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950)
Past is the key to the present, and present is the key to the future. We create and recreate through these keys (at least in my field of work).
Bharat
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Shantanu
Going by press reports and other sources on the net, Obama’s campaign is undoubtedly very well managed . Clearly, he has brought to the table his solid experience in community organization.
His use of internet is actually part of a broader strategy – leveraging technology to expand the electorate and challenge the role of the white, blue collared (and sometimes rural) workers in deciding the fate of US elections.
In the Indian context, we have a 300 million strong middle class which hasn’t got much of a say in Indian politics. The political landscape in India is shaped by the poor and not the middle class. It is a numbers game, yes and also the middle class rarely gets out and votes. Blame it on our sense of insularity – I never went out and voted myself! Though not tested statistically, I am inclined to add that the middle class in India believes politics is what happens in the television set kept in their living rooms or maybe it has just given up. Just like the youth of America, until Obama came on the scene – first time this segment is getting out to vote and participating in the process is such a massive way.
I think in India, the internet and the mobile phone can be used to market a credible alternative to the mainstream junk of politicians. These channels can help in raising funds from the “aam aadmi”. 1% of salary – is that too much to ask for in return for the promise of creating a safe and civil society. Trust is must.
The success of Obama’s campaign has strengthened my belief in the power of technology and online social networks.
Bharat, Sanjeev and Pritosh: Thanks for your comments..
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@ Bharat: You said: My point, why not we learn to innovate, create own brands, own techniques, suited to our situations?
I agree…We will need to create our own models and develop our own approaches…blindly copying what worked elsewhere will most likely fail…
So we are in agreement on this…
My point in writing this post was to provoke people into thinking and also to understand what can we learn from Barack Obama’s campaign strategy and how can we apply it (with suitable modifications) to the Indian context.
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@ Sanjeev: Several good points here…thanks for sharing.
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@ Pritosh: I think this observation of yours is spot on:
His use of internet is actually part of a broader strategy – leveraging technology to expand the electorate and challenge the role of the white, blue collared (and sometimes rural) workers in deciding the fate of US elections.
and like you, I share this – some would say overtly optimistic – view:
…the middle class in India believes politics is what happens in the television set kept in their living rooms or maybe it has just given up.
Just like the youth of America, until Obama came on the scene…
The next few years will be critical…Let us wait and see…
For the curious amongst you, here is an analysis of fund-raising by Obama and McCain to date.
Some interesting observations:
1. Obama has conistently raised more money than McCain right since Jan ’08. His total is now £401m compared to $171m raised by McCain
2. Almost half of that money has been raised by those contributing $200 or less