Obama Campaign Keeps Its Eye on the Ball

One of the hardest things for a lawyer to do in a jury trial is to keep his or her eye on the ball. To keep in mind that their purpose is not to score points off the opposing lawyer, or impress the judge with their legal abilities, or even to impress their clients. The purpose is to get the jury to agree that doing justice means returning a verdict in favor of their client.

It is amazing how many trial attorneys lose sight of that goal. They get distracted by what their opponents are doing, or by what the judge is doing, or by what their clients think of the trial. When that happens, their ability to get the jury to give their client a verdict is compromised.

The same thing is true of political campaigns. The ultimate goal of a political campaign is not to impress the media, or to win public opinion polls while the campaign is in progress. The ulitmate goal is win the election when the votes are cast.

What this means is that they can't get distracted by all the things that are occuring during the campaign. They can't get distracted by the media, or by what their supporters think is important, or even by what their opponents are doing.

In a jury trial, as in a campaign, the winning side will have a plan, a theme, that they follow, no matter what happens during the process. This is not to say that they shouldn't watch what is happening around them, and when appropriate, react to it, but it is to say that they have to make sure that they follow their plan.

The Obama campaign has exhibited an ability to do just that during the last several months. They had a plan to win the nomination which they followed. They weren't distracted from that plan by the media, or by Senator Clinton's campaign, or by even what their supporters wanted. They focused on winning the nomination like a laser and always keep that goal in sight.

The same will be true of the general election. National polls don't really mean a thing since a presidential election isn't one big national elections, but 50 state elections. The issue isn't whether the selection of Sarah Palin is getting McCain support in September, but whether it will get him support in November.

Those voters who want Obama to win should do what he is doing. Keep your eye on the ball, remember the ultimate prize is won nine weeks from now. Keep working. Talk to your family and friends about the importance of this election. Don't get distracted by the media or even by the Republicans.

So you're running for office...

A winning campaign plans ahead. That's why this post is timely and important for your race. In 2009.

Local elections happen in the "off-year" elections. That means city council members, some mayors, some municipal judges, municipal clerks, school boards, educational service center boards, and other municipal elections are on the ballot.

Now is the perfect time to start thinking about your run for office next year- I'm going to lay out some of the preliminary things you should accomplish during the coming months.

First things first:

1. Gather Information: You'll need to get two kinds of data together: public and personal.

Public: Go to your local board of elections- you're going to need to get some documents there. Medina County, for example, doesn't have any previous municipal election results listed on the internet. To my knowledge, no local board of elections has financial data online.

Get these documents:

- Election Results from the previous cycles. You'll want to get precinct by precinct results from the previous elections involving the position you're looking at. The last two times the position has been up is more than sufficient.

-Filing Deadlines for the position you're looking for. What are the requirements? How many signatures do you need to have? When do the petitions have to be turned in? Strategically, you may not want to pull petitions just yet- but you need to know what time frames you're working toward.

-Voter Files (you may be able to get this from your local party as well) with the registrations for your entire area. In "off-year" elections, you have to make sure you're hitting the voters who will definitely vote.

-Financial Data. Pull up any and all information on your potential opponents either in a primary or a general election. Pull up information on any local clubs (example: Lodi City Libertarian Club) that might be helping to fund a candidate.

-Other Considerations: be sure to find out what your district encompasses. Some school districts are not equal to the municipal areas and some municipal areas have pockets of townships.

Personal:

- People you know. Make a list of all the people you know on a spreadsheet. Get out lists of who you send holiday cards to, wedding guests, anything that you can think of. This is critical. It doesn't matter if they don't live in your city. This should also include any political contacts. All you know. Everybody. Don't skip anyone.

- Groups you're involved in. What kind of organizations are you involved in? If you're not involved in any, start getting out there. You need to be involved in the community you're planning to run in.

- Lists of party donors. Get any information you can about frequently donors in the Democratic Party in your county and in your city. Typically, these are your secondary donors including like minded groups like labor unions, progressive groups, etc.

2. Planning

-Materials: These will make your life easier. Buy a large calendar, get a map of the area you're campaigning in (broken down into precincts even!), at least one clipboard, have a spreadsheet program that you know how to use, and some envelopes/stamps.

-Media Costs: How much do newspaper ads cost in your area? How much do signs cost? What about mailings and literature? Figure these things out!

-Making the overall plan: This is going to brush over what can be a complicated process with a simple goal: how many votes do I need to win and how many times do I need to get my message to a voter to get their vote? Think: ideally I'd have a mailing at these times or I'll hit the doors this many times. Write it on the calendar.

-Make the Budget: This is also simplifying the process: but make a spreadsheet of the things that you wanted to do when you made your plan- place the costs next to it. What's the total? That's your fund raising goal. Place everything possible on here, you can take out things later if the money isn't coming in.

3. Action

-Get Involved!

-Work on campaigns now- pick a race that gets you knocking on doors and meeting people. The race that will help you the most ISN'T for President. It's a local race involving local issues. Also, if you help get someone elected to a county office they will still be around when you're running next year. No matter what amount you help Barack Obama in 2008, he won't be around to hit on doors for your school board race in 2009.

- Join community groups- being involved in local community groups will help you meet contacts and network. This is about the number of people that will vote for you and if you know more people you know more votes. Plus, this can be fun. Join a community service organization, or even one that relates to a hobby of yours. Just be smart- you can't put your membership in NORML on a campaign flyer.

-With the Democratic Party- is there a mailing list? Are there precinct chairs in your city? Is the party having an event coming up? Make appearances and network. If the first time you meet the democratic party in your county and city is when you start running and ask for help and money... don't be shocked if they're less than willing to support you.

-Remember that list of names? Keep adding to it. When you meet someone new...place them on it.

-Open a committee/fundraising- Depending on the amount of money you need and your budget, you may want to open a fundraising committee sooner rather than later. Find a treasurer and send out a mailer using the envelopes and stamps you bought that lets the people you know (remember that list?) know you're thinking of running and you'll need their help.



Summary: You've got to plan now to run in the future. It's like any business, sports team, or relationship. You need planning. A campaign is not magic- it's a strategic marketing campaign. Any questions? Or if you want to run- make a comment on this post or email MCDAC and let us know.

Money Follows Vision, Vision Doesn't Follow Money

At a recent meeting, a participant in a discussion among members of the board of trustees for a non-profit organization made the following observation:Money follows vision, vision doesn't follow money.

That simple observation grabbed the attention of several board members. Although the statement was made in the context of charitable giving, it also applies to political giving.

Most people give money to candidates and/or political organizations that have a vision of what they want accomplish and are able to articulate that vision. Candidates who have a vision and can give voice to that vision are going to do much better at raising money than those who cannot.

The Bible teaches us that "without a vision, the people perish." Well, in politics, the same is also true. Without a vision, the candidate and/or political organization doesn't raise money.

The vision, by the way, can't simply be "I want a political office, so elect me." Such a message is self-centered and conveys an attitude that the person is only interested in themselves. The vision has to be "other-centered". It has to be rooted in service to others, not service to self.

People have a lot of causes that want donations. Your campaign or organization is just one cause among many. You have to grab their attention with your vision, or else, you cause will perish for a lack of resources.

"People Like to be Asked, and They Like to be Thanked"

The title of this entry is a quote from Thomas "Tip" O'Neill, the former Democratic Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. It comes from his autobiography called Man of the House. In Man of the House he tells about his first campaign when he ran for political office in Boston. He narrowly lost the election. He was talking to his landlady after the election who told him that she didn't vote for him because he never asked for her vote. He concluded that story with the quote that appears above.

Many local candidates make the same mistake that O'Neill made in his first race. They don't ask their friends, neighborhoods, and relatives to get involved in their campaigns. They have a variety of reasons. They don't want to appear "pushy". They don't want to intrude. They don't want to presume on their relationships. A lot of the time, though, they are afraid of being rejected.

If you want to run for office, you have to ask people to help you out. Often your friends and relatives want to get involved, but just like you don't want to presume on their time, they don't want to presume on your campaign. They are also afraid of rejection. So many times a potential source of volunteers goes unused.

Just as bad for a campaign, if not worse, is not thanking people for their help. Take the time to send volunteers and donors a thank you note, either written or typed, it doesn't matter. Another thing that you might want to consider is giving your volunteers and donors a souvenir of the campaign, like a T-shirt or a coffee cup. The cost of such items is relatively small compared to the potential benefits.

In any event, thought, Democratic candidates need to learn the O'Neill lesson: People like to be asked and they liked to be thanked."

Call it "The Iraq Recession"

Think Progress has an entry up on its blog that points out that economists were predicting that if the Iraq War caused the price of oil to go up, or caused a shortfall in production, the United States was at risk for a recession. Of course, as can be seen from the increase of the price of oil since 2002, both events have happened.

Although the Bush Administration wants to deny the connection, there is no reason why Democrats should let them. There is a suggestion in the comments to the Think Progress blog entry that Democrats and progressives should refer to any recession as the "The Iraq Recession."

This is a great idea because in one phrase it ties together two issues, Iraq and the economy, that are concerning voters. They are, of course, the two issues that will ensure a Democratic victory in the 2008 presidential race.

One thing that Republicans have been better at than Democrats is "branding". Their skill in this is seen both in the positive sense of using branding to explain their policies and in the negative sense of using branding to attack their opponents. This Republican superiority in branding is related to their better use of emotion in political advertising, according to Dr. Drew Westin, author of The Political Brain.

It is past time to return the favor and the target-rich environment of the diaster that has been the Bush Administration gives Democrats a lot of opportunities.

Inside Look at the Clinton Ground Campaign in Nevada

Huffington Post has an article up about the Clinton ground campaign in Nevada. The ground campaign started about a year ago and involved volunteers talking with voters and recruiting potential volunteers. The article makes several good points. One is that good organization tends to be ignored by the media because they can't see it and its effects aren't known until the end of the campaign. Another point is that ground campaigns tend to be organized and run by relatively young volunteers because it is physically and emotionally and it helps if you don't have a family and/or a full time job stressing you out in addition to the campaign work.

According to the writer of the article these were the goals of the Clinton campaign:

The purpose of the organization Mook was building was to accomplish a very specific string of results: (1) Recruit a competent and dedicated leader for every precinct; (2) Test those leaders to make sure they are capable of recruiting and leading other caucus goers; (3) ID and turn out as many Clinton supporters to caucus as possible; and (4) Train precinct leaders to make sure they know how to lead their caucus attendees on the big day.

Quite frankly that should be the goal of every Democratic county party in Ohio. Find dedicated precinct leaders; train them and test them to make sure they know what they are doing; identify voters who will vote Democratic in their precincts; and make sure those voters vote on election day. Too often precinct committee persons positions have been treated as if their sole function was to elect the county chair and governing committee. Consequently in many counties Democratic candidates are on their own when it comes to building a grassroots structure and in every election cycle the work has to start all over again. Folks, that is no way to run a railroad.

If you are interested in grassroots organization, check out this article. If you are involved in a successful grassroots organization, let us know how your organization works. You can email us at webmaster@medinacountydemocraticactioncommittee.org.

"Most people would rather go to a movie that has a plot."

The title of this entry is a line from an article on Huffington Post by Tom Edsall titled "Will the GOP Blindside the Democrats on Terror Issues?". He is quoting Brian Katulis, who Edsall describes as "a less well known figure in the Democratic foreign policy establishment who is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress where he is a Senior Advisor to the Center's Middle East Progress project".

Katulis's point is a good one and is applicable to national, state, and local campaigns. Too often local candidates run for office by putting out a list of what they think are important issues with no attempt to connect the issues into a coherent story line. They do this because they assume that most voters are as interested in politics as they are. It is this interest, after all, that propels the candidate into the race.

Well, here's a news flash: Most voters are a lot more interested in their lives, in their families, in their jobs, than they will ever be in politics. Most people aren't that interested in politics, at least not as interested as those who run for office, or, for that matter, who read blogs like this one. Most people want a movie with a plot.

So, if you are a candidate for a local office this year, take Katulis's advice and give the voters a movie with a plot. Give them a coherent narrative. Something this is easy to remember. Don't just give them a list of issues you think are important and expect them to remember your name.

What Baseball & Politics Have in Common

Now what do baseball and politics have in common? In both of them organizations that have a lot of money have an inherent advantage over those that do not. A political organization that can outspend its competitors by 2.5 to 1 has an advantage. Likewise a baseball team that can outspend its main competitor by 2.5 to 1 has an advantage.

In 2007 the Boston Red Sox had a payroll of $143,026,214 while the Cleveland Indians had a payroll of 61,673,267, according to a report from KFAN radio. This means that for every dollar Boston spent of payroll Cleveland was spending approximately 43 cents. Unless the team executives spending the money are complete morons, which Boston's are not, this gives Boston a tremendous advantage in assembling a team.

If you look at the report referred to above, you will find that of the four teams that made the 2007 American League playoffs, three of them ranked 1,2,3 in money spent on payrolls. The exception was, of course, the Cleveland Indians. It shouldn't come as any surprise that teams that can go out on the free agency market and purchase good players have an advantage over those that cannot.

Likewise, if you look at the front-runners for the Democratic nomination all three of the leaders have raised more money than the candidates who trail them. Candidates who can go out and purchase advertising time and spend money to build an organization have an advantage over those who cannot.

Given free agency in baseball and the lack of any effective fundraising limits and/or expenditure limits in political campaigns, this state of affairs can be expected to continue.

Politics Is Marketing

One of the problems that Democrats seem to have is that all too often Democrats overlook that politics is about marketing. A political campaign markets the candidate who is running. A political party markets its ideas, its philosophy about how a government should be run. A political action commmittee markets itself. All of these efforts are designed to somehow influence the voters when they choose their elected leaders.

Yet, it sometimes seems that while Republicans understand this basic concept, Democrats not only don't understand it, they resist it. Part of this may be that a lot of Democrats don't come from business families and don't have business backgrounds before entering politics. They are not likely to have been business majors in college. Their exposure to marketing concepts is limited.

It is way past time for Democrats to grasp this simple fact: If they want political power in a democratic society, then they have to market themselves, their candidates, and their ideas. Consumers don't usually buy a product they are not aware of and voters don't either.

Three Rules for Local Campaigns

This is the year that Ohio elects city, village, and township officials across the state. There are a lot of Democrats running for local office. MCDAC members have a lot of experience running in local elections. Here are three rules to keep in mind when you are organizing your campaign:

1. Not all voters are equal. By that we mean that voters who won't vote in this year's elections are not equal to those voters who will vote. Voter turn-out will be about 50% of the electorate, and in some areas, less. You need to figure out the voting history of voters in your area and concentrate on those voters who will vote in this year's elections.

2. There is never enough time or enough money. Campaigns are captive of things that are finite. Those are money and time. You need to focus on fund-raising and you need to budget your time. Keep in mind that people can only get done about half of what they think they can get done; things will probably cost around twice as much as you think they will; and things will take about twice as long to accomplish as you think they will take. This means that you have to budget both your time and your campaign money.

3. The most valuable resource in any campaign is the candidate's time. Since time is finite, and since the candidate is the person that you want voters who are going to vote in off-year elections to be talking to, you need to make sure that you both protect and maximize the candidate's time. Here's an example: Let's say that a candidate and volunteers are going to do a door-to-door canvas on a street. The candidate should only be hitting homes with voters who are pretty certain to vote. Households with voters who may vote in an off-year election should be covered by other volunteers.

Those are the three rules. Thanks for taking the time to participate in local campaigns and good luck!

Logic Doesn't Win Campaigns, Emotion Wins Campaigns

Earlier this year we posted this entry on how Democrats need to relate emotionally to voters. In the July 29, 2007 edition of the Washington Post, Drew Westin, a psychologist who writes on the voters and campaigns, has an excellent article in the Washington Post.

The following is from the article:

When you hear a pollster or strategist say, "We've got 'em beat on the issues," you know you're on the dispassionate river, and you know you're going under. By my count, voters disagreed with Ronald Reagan on about 75 percent of "the issues." But they liked him. They believed he would restore America's greatness. They voted with their values.

So do Democrats, but their candidates too often hide their values in the fine print of their policies. Democratic pundits, strategists and primary voters require their candidates to do precisely the things that lose general elections: to offer their 16-point energy plans rather than to offer their life stories, their values, their visions and a couple of well-chosen "signature issues."

Westin goes on in the article to describe what he thinks, based on his research regarding voters, that Democrats need to do:

Data from thousands of voters surveyed since the late 1940s suggest that voters tend to ask four questions (in this order) that determine how they vote:

· How do I feel about the candidates' parties and their principles?

· How does this candidate make me feel?

· How do I feel about this candidate's personal characteristics, such as integrity, leadership and empathy?

· How do I feel about this candidate's stands on issues that matter to me?

Candidates who focus toward the top of this hierarchy and work their way down generally win. They drink from the wellsprings of partisan sentiments, which account for more than 80 percent of votes. They tell emotionally compelling stories about who they are and what they believe in

Westin was once on a radio program on public radio and he said that Democratic candidates act like the voters are like Thomas Jefferson, sitting around Monticello, reading essays, and pondering politics and policy. Well, most of us have too much going on in our lives to be TJ. We have to worry about our jobs, our families, our relationships, our finances, and everything else that makes up our day, to ponder politics. That's why most voters use emotion to cut through the clutter surrounding campaigns.

The problem, of course, with using emotion is that voters can be manipulated. Republicans know this and are good at it. Democrats make their jobs easier by not using emotional arguments to sell themselves, their party, and their policies.

We are not talking about manipulating voters, but we are talking about presenting politics in such a way that voters can emotionally connect to our candidates, our party, and can emotionally relate to what we want to do if elected. FDR understood, this. Harry Truman understood this. JFK understood this. LBJ understood this. Bill Clinton certainly understood this. The question is does the current group of Democratic candidates understand this?

Clinton Appealing More to Women Donors While Obama Targets Younger Professionals

The Washington Post has an interesting story today about Clinton stepping up her appeals to women donors. The Clinton campaign has decided that women donors are an untapped resource for political contributions. The Clinton campaign is developing explicit strategies to solicit donations from women, different from those used to solicit from men.

Meanwhile the Obama campaign is targeting what it calls "Generation O" for political donations. While the campaign believes that such donors can't always give the maximum donations, they can give donations in the $500 range. The Obama campaign, two days after announcing its first-quarter fundraising totals, announced that it had received contributions from another 40,000 people via the internet. If those contributions averaged just $25.00 per donation, that would be another $1,000,000.00 raised via the internet.

All of this is good for both the Democratic Party in particular and progressives in general. Once people get active politically a lot of them stay active. People who get involved in presidential campaigns in 2008 will be people that can be motivated for future campaigns. Not all of them, to be sure, but enough of them to make a difference in future campaigns. What is sometimes overlooked is that campaigning is like any other activity, the more you do it, the better you become at it. Volunteers who participate next year in the 2008 presidential campaign will be more experienced when they help out in future campaigns.

Further, since presidential campaigns have to list their donors, local party and progressive organizations will have the ability to access these donors for other campaigns. People who make political donations in 2008 will be people who might make such donations in the future.

You can click on the link in this entry's title to read the Washington Post article.

Presidential Candidate "Branding"

If you click here, you will go to a website that is studying the various presidential candidates both Democratic and Republican from a "branding" viewpoint. It is a website created by two companies that have joined up on this project. This is from the home page of the site:

Branding. It’s nothing new. In fact, “branding” is a clear example of business jargon that has penetrated popular culture. From package goods to pop stars, everything and everyone has a unique brand. However, understanding the nuances of a brand is first recognizing that a brand isn’t just a collection of logos or slogans or trademarks.

A brand is all about consumer experience represented by a collection of images and ideas that help to uniquely differentiate products or services that appear to be identical.

Brand preferences and other reactions are created by the accumulation of encounters, both directly relating to its use, and through the influence of messaging, advertising, design and public relations.

What could this mean for American politics? Arguably, candidates no longer run as themselves, they run as an extension of who the American public perceives them to be.

One of the areas in which Republicans have been ahead of Democrats is applying marketing principles to political campaigns and political communications. "Branding" is one such concept. We need to make sure that our candidates "brand" themselves before Republicans "brand" them.

What Karl Rove tries to do is to convince voters that his candidates' opponents are not acceptable alternatives to his candidates. Thus, even if voters don't like his candidates, they will still vote for them, or, perhaps not vote. Either way, his candidate is in a better position. So, while he is trying to build a positive brand for his candidate he is busy trying to tarnish the brand of the opponent.

This is why talk radio and Fox News have been so important for the Republicans. They are media institutions that both build up the Republicans' brand and tear down the Democrats' brand. What we need to do with blogs is the same thing, that is, tear down the Republican "brand" and build up the Democratic "brand."

Dr. Ruth's Advice for Politicians

If you click here, you can read a short story about Dr. Ruth Westheimer and listen to an interview with her. Now you are probably wondering why we are posting a link to an interview with a sex therapist on a blog about Democratic politics and political issues? Well, in the interview, she tells the interviewer that she credits a lot of her success to an old Yiddish saying that "a lesson taught with humor is an lesson remembered." We think that is good advice for Democratic politicians.

It is easy for politicians to be serious and these are very serious times, but Dr. Ruth's advice is sound. If you can work humor into your presentation, into your message, there is a better chance that your audience will remember it and pass it on. Think about it, are you more likely to tell a friend or a family member about a speech with statistics or a speech with some humor in it?

Of course, being humorous is not easy. It is very hard work. Anyone who has ever told a joke at the beginning of a speech only to have it fall flat can tell you how hard it is. Yet, humor is more effective at turning aside attacks or countering your opponents than anger.

One of the more effective uses of humor during a political debate was when Ronald Reagan said in one of the debates with Walter Mondale in 1984 that he wouldn't hold his opponent's age against him. It was a good line because it dealt with an issue that the Reagan people were worried about and that was the fact that Reagan was old and might cause Americans to wonder if he was sharp enough for the job. Reagan's joke was both a way of acknowledging the issue and then dealing with it.

More recently, just this past month, John Edwards had to deal with the media obsession with his $400 haircut. One way he is doing that is working it into his standard speech. He does this by saying things like he wants an America where every child can dream of growing up and getting $400 haircuts. It gets his audience laughing and is much more effective than whining about how unfair it is that the media is making a big deal over the haircut.

So when you are crafting a political message, take Dr. Ruth's advice and use humor to make your point. If it works for a sex therapist, it should work for a politicians.

Why Not Try Lowering the Cost of Campaigns?

The amazing thing about political journalism is the "pack mentality" that seems to affect its practitioners. Almost all political journalists and commentators think "inside the box." There seems to be very little original thinking. This means that both issues discussed by political journalists and solutions proposed are fairly narrow. Take, for example, campaign financing.

Since the Watergate era the focus on the issue of campaign financing has been to regulate the contribution side of the equation. This means passing legislation that restricts the amount of money that can be given to a particular candidate by a particular person or entity. Yet, the cost of campaigns keeps rising, and the amount of money going to candidates keeps going up and up, especially for campaigns for Federal office. Meanwhile, the cost of campaigns going up means that more and more people are discouraged from running for local offices because those races are becoming more and more expensive.

Here's a suggestion: focus on the bringing the cost of campaigns down. How? Here's one idea that could have a significant impact: allow candidates for all offices to mail at the same rate as non-profit organizations. Non-profit organizations can mail for a very reduced rate. Extend that rate to all political candidates. There would obviously be some cost to the USPS, but the benefit to society of driving down the cost of campaigns would be worth it.

Actually, it is our understanding that the law does allow the state organizations of the Republican and Democratic parties to mail at the same rate as non-profit organizations, or at a very similar rate. The above proposal would extend that rate to all candidates running for public office.

There may very well be problems with this proposal that we haven't thought of, and maybe its not such a great idea, but the important thing is to change the focus from controlling contributions to lowering the cost of campaigns. If the cost of campaigns could be significantly brought down, then more people could run for office without risking bankruptcy.

Psychology Today Article on Political Ideology & Personality

Okay, so we have all instinctly known that there are innate personality differences between liberals and conservatives, but it is nice to have proof. If you click on the link in this entry's title, you will see an article that explores those differences. Conservatives respond more to threats that involve death and are more organized in their personal lives. Liberals like color and are messier. The article also explains why Republicans use ads that convey implied or explicit threats such as the ad that the Bush campaign ran in 2004 with the wolves or the ad that Reagan ran in 1984 with the bear lumbering through the woods. What the article also points out, though, is that research indicates that simply asking people to stop and analyze the information they are being given leads to a decrease in susceptibility to this kind of psychological manipulation.

Hillary Clinton's Use of Webcasts in 08 Campaign

When Hillary Clinton announced, she used a webcast to reach supporters and the general public. She bypassed the traditional first announcement to a rally where supporters are invited along with the media. Now her campaign is using webcasts embedded in email announcements to announce her positions to her supporters. The first one that has been issued deals with Iraq. You can view it by clicking on the link in this entry's title. A viewer can, of course, also view it by going to her presidential campaign website.

This is a very intriguing step and one that many more campaigns will be adopting, if they haven't already. It allows politicians to bypass the media and get their message directly out to their supporters and it is much cheaper than buying commercial time on television.

Tactics like this will, over time, change the relationship between the media and candidates. Right now, candidates need the media and so put up with the a lot of the media's stupidity on issues and campaigns so as not to tick off media representatives. Once they no longer need the media, candidates will become a lot less tolerant of their stupidity, their vapidness, and their biases.

Such tactics could also drastically reduce the cost of campaigns. It costs a lot less to send out email messages than to run 30 second spots on television and you can target them a lot better. This is a campaign tool that bears watching and developing, not just for national campaigns, but for local campaigns as well.