Vote for all your favorite problems, and then vote against the deficit!

In this past election cycle, there was basically just an “Anti-Bush” and “Anyone but the GOP” sentiment coming out of the Democratic camp, while the Republican camp….really didn’t have a camp, because that would involve their organization. The Republicans were faced w/ a daunting challenge of distancing themselves from the unpopular Bush Administration and choosing from a cast of nominees that all had their flaws, while the Democrats had two very feasible presidential candidates.

Both camps were very candidate-orientated, as is becoming the trend nowadays. Sen. McCain was constantly portrayed as a "maverick" who did what was best for the country, even if it meant going against his party. President Obama also tried to distance himself from the culture of Washington politics in general, pledging "change" and his plan to clean up Washington. While the Democrats embraced this idea, the Republicans couldn't and it cost them the election. Most true GOP voters weren't anywhere near 100% happy w/ their candidate, while most Obama voters were overly happy w/ their candidate. This in turn amounted in his camp being better organized, funded, etc.

Probably the biggest turning point in the election was the fallout of the market in October. Up until the market tanked, the McCain-Palin team had a slim lead in most polls and was still riding the Gov. Sarah Palin hype. However, similar to the Iran Hosta crisis in 1979, the market turned the election to the Democrats.

Similar to the ideas of Teachout, the Obama voters were very enthusiastic, confident, and just simply excited for the election, so they organized and made the nomination and election happen. Obama used this to his advantage to form mailing lists, blogs, etc. -- most notably the text messaging system that notified those who signed up of important events such as who the VP would be and when he would name him. This helped him win the election, and he has brought this idea of reaching out via the web to the White House -- revamping the White House website, producing a Recovery site to deal w/ the bailout, etc. In terms of their actual campaign websites; Obama's simply gives thanks and has a T-Shirt sale, McCain's says thanks, & Clinton's is asking for help to pay off her debt (apparently the Clinton Machine is longer so well off financially!).


In terms of Congressional candidates, the web effect hasn't hit them in full force yet. While they can be vulnerable to Youtube "gotcha" moments, because their actual constituencies are much smaller, some of which have large segments that don't even use the internet I'm sure, they are more likely to be going door to door, having town hall meetings, attending local breakfasts, etc. However, just because they havent been hit by the web yet, it doenst mean they are any less vulnerable. In fact, congressional candidates are usually always more vulnerable than presidentail candidages; with Richard Nixon being the outlier here, feeling he was so vulnerable when in actuality he was fine, causing his resignation. The fact that these congressional candidates are always in an election year or pre-election year takes up a lot of their resources. And because they have an unlimited number of terms, the only time they can really "kick back, relax" and not worry about reelection is when they have determined not to run anymore or have extremely thick skin.