Motivating Voters

Guests on the Digital Politics podcast this week are Rich Berke, HCD Research and Chris Borick, Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion talking about the E-Voter Institute’s 4th Annual Survey of Voter Expectations–Persuading and Motivating Voters:  What Will It Take in 2010?

We all agreed that there are remarkably similar attitudes between people along the political spectrum, and across gender, ages and ethnic groups.  The study shows how pervasive the web has become in our everyday lives as well as how it has changed the expectations of voters.  Provocative indications in the study point to the need for new ways to motivate voters to contribute, show support for candidates, and turn out to vote in order to break through the media clutter.

The study reveals that people find debates informative but the high percentage of people who say this makes me wonder if they are all watching the full debates, selections on cable news shows, downloading YouTube excerpts or reading about them online or in the newspapers.

Download the study and check out this interview for more insights:

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Political Power of the Online Community

Digital Politics podcast this week features John Marelius, political reporter for the San Diego Union-Tribune talking about the candidates in the 2010 California Governor and Senate races, the role the technology community might play in the campaign of technologically savvy candidates, and which initiatives might wind up on the ballot in November 2010.  John suggests that voters might get mixed up about Republican women candidates in California with Meg Whitman running for governor and Carly Fiorina running for the Senate.  Neither one has run for office in the past, both have a base in the Bay Area and both are wealthy and funding their own campaigns.

California primary is in June 2010 but it is never too early to get some insights about the competitors.

List to the interview.

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Online Branding of Candidates and Causes

Digital Politics Podcast today focused on the increasing tendency to employ branding techniques developed for consumer goods and business services to sell political and advocacy campaigns of all types.  Guest was Brian Keeler, VP for Politics and Advocacy for VShift, New York.  Brian agreed with me that voters have become much more brand savvy and that political consultants are starting to realize how important it is for candidates to focus on the details of a branding campaign (online and off) and not just the message.

Brian is currently working with some candidates running in 2009 and of particular interest are his efforts for the re-election campaign of Jon Corzine for Governor of New Jersey.  While Brian was not going to reveal any secrets about the soon to be re-launched site JonCorzine09.com, he did hint at some techniques to integrate content across multiple web locations.  The few Governor races in 2009 will certainly be a chance to test, at a state level, many of those lessons learned from the 2008 campaigns.

Hear the entire discussion.

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