Is Ron Paul the Howard Dean of the '08 Cycle?

In 2007 a little known congressman from Texas utilized the web to rocket his long shoot bid for the White House. Ron Paul was by far the most popular Republican politician on the Internet in 2007 and surpassed most Democrats as well by many metrics of online success.

Over and over Paul confounded the Washington establishment pundits. Paul's supporters were rallied using new strategies and technologies such as post-debate SMS polls and organizing the largest one day online fundraiser ever. These large online fundraisers were called Ron Paul Money Bombs, and corresponded with historic revolutionary events such as Guy Falkes Day, and the Boston Tea Party.

The Ron Paul Money Ticker is an example of Texas Congressman building on the innovations of the Dean campaign but going one step further. We all remember the Howard Dean fundraising bat that gauged overall fundraising progress, but the Paul campaign took things to a new level with a near real time ticker of contributions and contributors.

Ron Paul Money Bomb

Ron Paul Official Site

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"The holy grail of online politics is converting online enthusiasm to offline results"
-Micah Sifrey of techPresident

"Every lesson everyone learned from last time is that you have to respond quicker, and because of the calendar, everyone thinks it's do or die, now or never. Add to that the short news cycles, with the Internet and blogs, and all those things conspire to make things more ferocious than ever."
-Joe Trippi, Senior Strategist for Edwards 2008




"In the world of television, the massive flows of information are largely in only one direction, which makes it virtually impossible for individuals to take part in what passes for a national conversation. Individuals receive, but they cannot send. They hear, but they do not speak."
- Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States speaks about the power of the 'Net compared to television

Eventful.com - The New MeetUp?

Eventful.com, created by Brian Dear, is a new technology that made big news on the US campaign trail in 2007. Eventful allows its users to find events, share and syndicate discoveries, search for future events, and create grassroots campaigns. John Edwards and Ron Paul both utilized the site as a way to engage voters in new and interesting ways.

In Paul's case, the site allowed supporters to organize a presidential campaign rally with little assistance from the actual campaign. The Edwards campaign also utilized the popular site in 2007 by hosting the "Demand and be Heard" contest. The contest asked people to organize online and demand the presidential contender visit their city. Edwards promised to visit the city with the most demands, which ended up being the tiny, rural of Columbus, Kentucky, it beat out large cities on both coasts.

Web Drives Demand-Side Politics

YouTube Debate - the Old Embraces the New

In one of America's most historical cities, Charleston, SC, and at the very traditional military college, the Citadel - the old media embraced the new. Stiff Citadel cadets in starched uniforms led each presidential contender on to the stage and in to the new world of the ruckus, free-wheeling YouTube debate.

Anderson Cooper was the moderator and he introduced each question from YouTube users and tried to hold the candidates feet to the fire with the occasional follow up question. In addition to the YouTube questions, CNN asked each campaign to create a thirty second YouTube type video. These videos showed a lot about what each campaign understood about this new age in political media. The Edwards campaign used an interesting spot called 'Hair" to challenge the old media via the new to focus on issues and not the frivolous.

Despite all the skeptics, CNN embraced user generated media with style and made the debate not just another cattle call, but an interesting experiment. In the future, it is hard to imagine returning to nothing but presidential debates where the candidates give non-answers to questions chosen by the pundits and media elite.

At Debate, Citizen-Questioner Rules

Quantum Leap: The French Elections

Nicolas Sarkozy triumphed over Segolene Royal, the first woman as a major party candidate, but the biggest lasting impact will be their use of technology and not issues of sex or policy differences between the two politicians. Both candidates used the Web to reach out to the French people in new ways using blogs and online videos to engage voters who in turn took to the 'Net to engage the candidates.

Runner Up: One Man Sparks Global Outrage

David Khin was just another of the many thousands of young backpackers traveling thru Burma seeing the sights of this ancient county - that is until the government cracked down on the protesting Buddhist monks and began to kill them. Despite the government cutting off the country's internet connections to the world, Khin used his digital camera to graphically capture the images of the government's brutal repression and sneaked over the border and created a Operation Burmese Freedom page on Facebook. Within a matter of days he had over 300,000 of friends who helped alert the world to the real story of murder and repression.

Hidden Life of Burma's Opposition

2007 was also a year that viral video exploded in politics - thanks largely to YouTube. Last year we saw average citizens independently create videos to spread a message about their candidates and attack their opponents. The following three videos made a big impression in 2007.


Vote Different - The 1984 Apple Computer 'Think Different' ad changed the advertising world. This anti-Clinton ad brillantly plays off the original Apple ad and ridicules the Clinton campaign's message about their supposed invincibility.

Free Tibet Banner Drop - This video is not glitz or glam, but it shows how the Web can be used by determined people with a specific message. It is virtually impossible for governments to stop this type of protest.

The Politics of Parsing - This video was the Edwards campaigns quick response to Hillary's performance in one of the debates.

Africa Technological Revolution

Africa is on the verge of a technological revolution. The 20th century story of Africa was European imperialism, genocide, authoritarian governments and tribalism. But today, Africa may be on the verge of a new day.

As we have seen in Kenya and other nations, technology allows the world to focus on dictators that steal elections and helps bring pressure to follow the rule of law. Several international organizations, like Amnesty International and Witness, have used the Internet to help document genocide, the crisis in Darfur and other African issues. Pambazuka News has recently created a high profile "online forum for social justice in Africa" that is beginning to have real impact. These activities and other episodes amplified via the internet have brought a much higher level of awareness of African issues and problem to the Western world.

Also, according to Business Daily, 2007 was the most active year for technology industry investments in Africa and several companies are now planning to spread fiber optics and wireless broadband across the African continent in 2008. Don't forget, the United States may also elect a new president in 2008 with African roots, and that will have a meaningful impact as well.

Pambazuka News

Business Daily

	BIG NUMBERS

Worldwide, Facebook has nearly caught up with MySpace, according to comScore, with 93 million unique visitors versus 105 million for MySpace.
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The Obama campaign has build an online donor base exceeding 500,000 contributors. techPresident crowns Obama as the king of online fundraising, even beating out Congressman Ron Paul.
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704,895 people have joined the group Stop Hillary Clinton: One Million Strong Against Hillary. This is by far the largest group focused against a specific candidate running for president.
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Here's what we think will happen in the world of the Internet and politics in 2008

1) Pro-democratic protesters will cast a Shadow over the 2008 Summer Games It would be hard to over estimate how much importance the Chinese government places on the Olympics. It is a symbol of national pride, a demonstration of modernity to the world and a time for China to literally dominate center stage of the world's attention for several weeks. The pro-democracy forces know this too and they have long since begun to make plans to make their voices heard and embarrass the Chinese government. As vividly demonstrated by the protest video on the Great Wall (see Hot Video above), it doesn't take much to have a big impact. The whole world will be watching.

2) The $100 Laptop will make its mark...finally. In 2006, we first focused on the $100 Laptop. Now that it is in production and beginning to get into the hands of children in Peru, Nigeria, Sudan and other countries, it will begin to have a real impact. The $100 laptop is truly a revolutionary idea and eventually this technology will be placed in the hands millions of the world's youth. Watch out because when this happens, there are sure to be fireworks.

3) There will be Several huge "macaca moments" in the 2008 US Elections. In the past two years online videos have become a central part of American political campaigns. Politicians have the uncanny ability to say very stupid things, and in the YouTube age these moments can be viewed viewed by millions within hours. We predict that there will be several of these "macaca moments" this year that will change campaigns and win or loose several important elections at the national, state, and local levels.

4) Globalization protesters will organize a big protest via the Web There will be some type of global protest event involving hundreds of millions of people in '08 - simultaneously organized via the web. There are lots of possibilities but the initial focus may be to link global online action about a given issue with in the streets protest against a big global brand. Think of a global warming action focused on McDonalds, Coke or the like. It's going to happen - the only question is when and how.