The Politics/Technology Discussion Is Going In The Wrong Direction

(This is cross posted on the EchoDitto SXSW blog) 

I have been in politics all my life. For most of that time I have been very optimistic about the potential for politics to have a positive impact on the world. And that optimism increased as I saw the potential for using technology to educate, engage, and mobilize audiences increase and become more integrated. It’s a fairly simple equation in my mind. Better politics help better people get elected and better people do a better job running the country (at whatever level they were elected - local, state, federal, etc.). And technology can help facilitate that on many different levels.

Of late, however, I have been down on politics — I am frustrated that the media and various other people talk about all the innovation and evolution in our political process, but the reality is far from that. I am saddened by the fact that our government fails to serve most of our population well, and some people not at all - and that tools are available to help expand the reach of government, but those in power don’t seem interested in using them in any meaningful way. I’m cranky about the fact that so many people look at technology as the solution, when there are obviously so many more more important factors.

Politics is exciting to watch and occasionally fun to participate in, but its not fulfilling its role in our society right now. Worse than that, our democracy is broken. And the rate at which change is occurring so that technology can play a meaningful role in fixing these problems is painfully slow.

What made me so frustrated today?
I was at a panel discussion this morning with a group of very smart political operatives from the internet space (several of whom are friends of mine). They were talking all about Facebook (one of the panelists was from Facebook) and user-generated videos that appeared on YouTube, list building and GOTV. Frankly, there wasn’t any new ground broken in the discussion.

So, I stepped up and asked the panel if they felt the shifting nature of politics, which increasingly recognizes the role of the community and gives some (though still not very much) voice to the grassroots community will spill over into better functioning of government, greater access for citizens, and an increased likelihood of real solutions being found for the problems facing our society. I think it was a good question.

The responses were not very good. Panelist answer ranged from “government doesn’t understand technology and has no interest in using it that way” to “the campaigns haven’t really achieved anything of significance, so there isn’t a model to transfer over to the operation of government anyway.” (Those aren’t direct quotes, FYI…)

So, I’m frustrated on a couple levels. First, I’m frustrated that the media (and people at a panel like the one this morning) obsess over the ‘paradigm shift’ happening in politics, when really very little, if anything, has changed at all. Second, I’m frustrated that nobody in the political space seems to look past the end of the campaign cycle to the job that ultimately their candidate/party will have to do when elected. I was in the political space for a long time (and am not that far outside of it now) so I understand the mentality, but I got into politics with the goal of helping improve our society and I feel as if the industry is just navel gazing far too much about this technology stuff. And lastly, I’m frustrated that you can get so many smart people together on a panel, or at a conference like SXSW for that matter, and not even begin to scratch the surface of the serious issues that need addressing.

I’ll keep hoping to find a panel, or a group of political professionals, who want to realize the true world changing opportunities that technology offers and how to actually improve our society.

Presidential Announcements v2.0

I had this really long, eloquent post written about how all the candidates are using the web to launch their political campaigns.  I hit the wrong button and the whole thing was lost.  I won’t try to reconstruct the entire thing, but let me try and summarize a couple of the key points.

John Edwards announced his campaign for the Presidency with a web video.  Barack Obama used a web video a few weeks later to do the same.  And now Hillary Clinton, who announced her intention to run for President on Saturday, has used a video on her Website to break the news.  It seems you can’t be a candidate for President - at least not a Democratic candidate - without launching your campaign on the web.  (Memo to Joe Biden and Bill Richardson, who announced their candidacy’s on the Sunday Morning Talk Shows — you might want to check to make sure your announcement registered at all, or consider posting the video of your appearance on YouTube to make sure people take it seriously).

Both the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post used Senator Clinton’s announcement to analyze the role that the web will play in the upcoming campaign.  The LA Times offers a brief history of the highs and lows of internet campaigns over the past decade, writing:

The Internet’s power both to make and break politicians has been vividly demonstrated in recent years.

In 2004, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean jumped from political obscurity to grab the front-runner’s position in the initial stages of the Democratic race largely on the strength of the interest and fundraising he generated online.

Last year, Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) watched his reelection campaign — and his hopes of emerging as a prime contender for the GOP presidential nomination — go down in flames after a video clip of him addressing a young man of Indian descent as “macaca” made the rounds on the Web.

Barely a factor in campaigning 11 years ago when Clinton’s husband won reelection as president, the Internet has become an integral part of the political landscape, with every major candidate fielding a website and seeking to create a virtual community around his — or her — campaign.

But with the recent advent of YouTube and other video-sharing sites, analysts said the most intriguing aspect of the evolving use of the Web may be as part of an immense game of political “gotcha,” in which campaigns seek to catch opposing candidates off-guard and off-message, as happened to Allen.

By contrast, the Washington Post took more of an editorial stance on what makes for good web video in politics, offering this comparison Clinton, Obama, and Edwards:

Unlike other candidates (coughBarack Obamacough), whose videos might have been produced by a guy with a cellphone camera, Clinton’s announcement was a veritable showpiece of Hollywood-style set design, lighting and cinematography. While Clinton, looking radiant in a red jacket and flattering makeup, affected the demeanor of a kaffe-klatching neighbor while speaking about the Iraq war, energy, Social Security and health care, the camera swung with pen dular subtlety between a background tableaux of framed family pictures and a fabulous table lamp exuding a warm glow. In fact, the background is so eye-catching, so crowded with totemic details, so bursting with semiotic potential, that I missed whole passages of Clinton’s statement the first time around. (And yes, I do want that lamp.)

The effect was one of breathtaking political shrewdness and brilliant staging, like a mash-up between “The West Wing” and Diane Keaton’s latest holiday heartwarmer. And for all its studied spontaneity, its air of having been pre-tested, choreographed, and managed to within a microfiber of Clinton’s mascara, it worked, if only to provide a little eye candy within a grainy sea of canned speeches and awkward iChats. The aesthetic sophistication suited Clinton, who, as a former first lady and a U.S. senator, would look hopelessly out of place in most other contexts (rocking the mom jeans in the Ninth Ward? Uh-uh. Maybe an ornate Senate office, but where’s the zazz in yet another wall of law books?), and the look and the script warmed up a woman portrayed as either an amoral ice queen or control-freaky dragon lady by her political opponents.

Three quick points: First, the novelty of launching a campaign on the web should have worn off a long time ago.  The web is not even close to being the most dynamic vehicle for delivering information anymore, politics has just been slow to embrace what virtually every major consumer brand and entertainment company in the world has been doing for the past five years.  A really nice website, a blog, or even a web video announcement is not enough.  Its time you ran a fully funded, fully supported effort online to promote your campaign - and to engage the audience that chooses to get its information there instead of through traditional news or campaign events (which are still important as well).  Second, announcing your campaign online sets all of our expectations very high that you, as a candidate, will remain committed to using the web.  John Edwards, you have already created behind-the-scenes web videos about yourself, recorded podcast conversations about issues, and similar.  Are you going to keep doing that when you are visiting four states a day - so we can see what really happens to a person when they don’t sleep enough, eat healthy, or have complete control over their message?  Hillary Clinton, you are taking your web efforts to the next level already, inviting the audience to create the first guest blog post to be published on your site and hosting a series of live video chats with the web audience over the coming week.  Are you going to host live web-chats every week, about any topic?  Are you going to take on the large and vocal segment of the online audience who questions your policies, challenges your positions, and even insults you personally — or will your web campaign, like your offline efforts, be so highly managed and controlled that it fails to really engage people?  Finally, the media needs to find a better way to cover and express the value the web plays in this upcoming cycle than how they are currently doing it.  We have all read, time and time again, what a big impact the web is playing and will continue to play in politics.  Its time to assign a full time, daily reporter to cover each campaign’s online efforts.  It is time to hold the campaigns accountable for what they say will be an online, grassroots fueled effort and put the same scrutiny on their web efforts as you do on their fundraising, their television ads, their speeches, and — even in some cases, their clothing.  Just as you have pushed increasing resources into covering traditional news through the online medium, now its time to recognize that the online efforts of a presidential campaign are also news and cover them accordingly.

It should be an exciting couple of years for those of us who live, work, and love the online medium.  I will definitely be watching to see what happens.  I hope the political world realizes the potential that it has to reach and engage the audience before and lives up to its end of the bargain.

Update: I wasn’t totally fair to Bill Richardson.  He has a very nice website (here) and has posted his announcement video to YouTube and other places.  He has a MySpace page, a Facebook profile, etc.  He’s following the new media playbook pretty much to all the way.  We will have to wait and see how that works for him.

The Times They Are A Changin’

Monday is the day when the media covers the media.  And yesterday did not disappoint.  What was making news?  Here is just a sampling:

- Time Magazine was delivered to newsstands on Friday and by Monday the industry was in a full fledged twitter.  The magazine is much thinner and puts a heavier emphasis than ever before on hard-core reporting and high-profile authors.  Gone are the days when Time tries to be everything to all people it seems.  As Richard Stengel, the managing editor explained it to readers in a letter that appeared in the latest issue, the new publication date “reflects the way the Internet is affecting pretty much everything about the news business.”  He notes:

The most immediate change is right in front of you. The issue you are holding in your hands — or perhaps you’re reading this online — is the first issue of TIME with our new on-sale day, Friday. In fact, it’s the first copy of TIME magazine to go on sale on Friday in more than 50 years. We’ve moved our publication schedule because the news environment has shifted and because we’ve been listening to you. Over and over, we’ve heard from subscribers that they get the magazine early in the week and then put it aside to read on the weekend. The solution was pretty simple: let’s get you the magazine on the weekend when you want it.

At the same time, I believe that getting the magazine on newsstands on Friday helps us set the news agenda, not just mirror it. The traditional newsmagazine was retrospective, looking back at what happened the previous week. But today’s TIME is much more forward-looking, offering you guidance on what’s essential to know going forward. Many news sources give you information; we provide knowledge and meaning.

You can read more here, here, and here.

- Kit Seelye writes in the New York Times about how Washington Bureaus for major print news organizations are shrinking.  She writes “Faced with declining advertising revenues and competition from the Web, midsize, regional dailies across the country have been retrenching in recent years to focus on local news. That has scaled back their Washington coverage, and their national ambitions.”

- In another story by Kit Seelye, the curtain is pulled back at The Politico, the new hard-core political news organization led by former Washington Post writers Jim VanderHei and John Harris (more recently a contributor to Time) and graced with the talents of columnists like Roger Simon.  According to Seelye, “The Politico is planning its own regular half-hour program on Allbritton’s 24-hour cable news service, Channel 8, which reaches 1.1 million viewers in the region. Its reporters are to appear on CBS News programs. And The Politico is planning a five-minute daily segment in the late afternoon on WTOP, Washington’s all-news radio station.”  Does this signal some kind of major change in political news coverage - or the media industy all together?  The article suggests it might, though it gives the doubters their due as well:

If The Politico succeeds, it could signal that the Web has become a more plausible alternative for mainstream journalists. (Most bloggers offer their Web logs free, and rare is the site that pays reporters to create original content.) But there are skeptics who say that the focus of The Politico is too narrow and that the marketplace too crowded with sources of political news, from sites like RealClearPolitics.com to scores of other publications, including newspapers and their Web sites. Partisans, especially, feast on sites that affirm their views; The Politico says it will be nonpartisan.

What I find most interesting is that this whole discussion about the shift in the media, political or otherwise, is coming the same week that the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is taking place out in Las Vegas.  CES is the glitzy, crazy party of the year for gadget junkies as well as the platform that every major technology company in the world uses to launch their new initiatives.  What are people talking about at CES this week?  Based on the coverage I have read, 2007 will be the year of the networked consumer — in other words, it is the year that the industry will finally figure out that different people have different preferences when it comes to getting, sharing, and experiencing information and deliver the technologies and services to satisfy the demand.  Rather than try to force one format on people, technology folks are promoting devices, and services, that do it all.  The consumer will have their choice of content and method of delivery (they always have really), but more importantly, the variety and the quality of the experience will finally begin to rise to meet expectations. 

The changes at Time Magazine and the launch of The Politico reflect a recognition by those in journalism that people don’t get their news one way anymore.  Its not a run and hide strategy that suggests people aren’t interested in the news, or aren’t satisfied with the quality of the content (though that may come in time) - its a evolution of both the delivery method and the content strategy to adapt to changing times.  By contrast, the shrinking of the Washington Bureaus does the opposite - it will further limit the choices that consumers have when it comes to news and will serve only to increase frustration.  As distribution methods become more micro-focused and consumers are able to pick what information they want to receive, when, and how, the media companies that pulled their reporters should be doing the opposite — hiring more, training better, and assigning differently so that more things are covered, more thoughtful insights are provided, and more options exist for people to consume the news they find most interesting or relevant.

John Edwards’ Online Presidential Launch

The online world is buzzing about the online-heavy launch of John Edwards’ campaign for President.  Jeff Jarvis summarized it this way:

So John Edwards announced his presidential announcement on YouTube in a video made by Andrew Baron and Joanne Colan of Rocketboom (who put up their own interview the next day) and Chuck Olsen (who, Andrew reports, is flying with Edwards to make video for the official campaign site). The digital cool doesn’t end there. Edwards tells you to text the word “hope” to a given number to get more instructions; how mobile. As NewTeeVee reports, he has Robert Scoble trailing around with a camera as well. He’s “live-bloggin” (their usage, not the usual meaning) at Daily Kos. He’s trying to create is own sort of Peace Corps called One Corps with people signing up online to do good deeds under his brand (they will “fight poverty” and, oh, while they’re at it, flog candidates who “support One America ideals’ [that was the old name of this campaign effort] and spread the word by calling radio stations). And tonight he’s having an online town hall from Iowa.

How cyber can you get?

Is this all just a publicity stunt to look modern and cool or is this a turning point in how campaigns are run? We’ll know in about a decade.

I think we will know whether John Edwards, and other candidates for President in 2008, are serious about the use of the internet and change the way they campaign well before a decade has passed.  Change is already taking place.  I wonder what impact those changes will have on politics - and what use of online is really worthwhile when promoting a political activity like this.  What will John Edwards’ next announcement look like and how much of his campaign will be geared towards the online audience (as opposed to complementing his outreach to all audiences, to balance or bypass television coverage, for example)?  How will the online momentum that he is able to generate translate into real votes on Election Day (remember, Howard Dean had all the online momentum before the 2004 primaries began but couldn’t translate them into wins in key primary states like Iowa and New Hampshire, dooming his quest). 

I have high hopes for the Edwards campaign and their online efforts in particular.  But I don’t want this to become a debate about what an internet-driven campaign should look like, or a media-driven frenzy over ‘who is going to be the internet candidate’.  Every candidiate should launch their campaigns online in some way because a big part of the electorate looks online for some part of their news, or political information.  But every campaign, Edwards included, should also have a substantial grass-roots base, a sophisticated media strategy, a good message and some credible policy positions, advertising, and a host of other things.  The smart campaigns know this.  And when we look back in November 2008 at which candidate was elected as our next President, it will be the one who mixed all those pieces best that wins the day. 

Political Ads on iPods?

From Washington Whispers…

The Future of Politics in an iPod
It wasn’t long ago that we told you of how the Democrats and Republicans were preparing a new way to reach voters in 2008 through their mobile technology and iPods. Well, now we know why. Republican pollster David Winston tells us that new research found that 40 percent of 2006 voters ages 18 to 34 own iPods. And many don’t make time to watch lots of tv, choosing instead to TiVo their faves or record podcasts. So what will be the best way to reach those critical voters in 2008? Through their iPods, he says, especially when the mp3s go wireless. “That’s the next environment,” he predicts, “where people will get their information.” His tip to the pols: Make the ads riveting. The best example: losing Maryland Senate candidate Michael Steele’s family-focused tv ads, some of which featured a cute Boston terrier.

I think he’s on the right track.  The big question, at least for me, is whether political advertisers will recognize the difference between the message and the medium.  An iPod, like any other piece of technology, is simply a delivery mechanism for content.  People like watching TV, listening to music, and playing games on their handheld devices because they are away from home or don’t have access to other forms of technology where they usually get that stuff.  Will political ads be compelling enough to get people to watch, simply becuase they are available for an iPod or similar?  its not about the content of the ads alone - as he suggests.  Its about the political process as a whole as well.

Google CEO says Internet is key to campaign win

Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, told Republican governors yesterday at the internet was going to play a big role in politics.  More importantly, Schmidt gave some examples of cool ways the internet was already changing politics.  One example from overseas:

Schmidt said the Gulf kingdom of Bahrain got a taste in the run-up to its elections last weekend, when someone used the Google Earth satellite mapping feature to photograph the ruling family’s lavish houses, and posted them on line, juxtaposed next to the homes of ordinary citizens.

The government tried to censor the photos, which instantly boosted their popularity, he said.

He also said that Google was taking steps to limit the effectiveness of ‘Google-bombing’ - a tactic of manipulating search results to promote a specific topic.  Some bloggers used this tactic to help promote flattering news about Democratic candidates and unflattering news about their Republican opponents during this past Election cycle.

You can read the full article here.

On a related note, Mindshare (where I work) released a white paper last week about the impact that technology had on this past election cycle and how candidates should use interactive techniques in the future to win elections.  I hope you will download and read it. 

Old Media Scare Tactic… About New Media

This week’s issue of U.S. News and World Report features a blurb about the future of political communications.  It reads:

Political Ads: From Bad to Worse

Sorry if you hated all those candidate calls at dinnertime during the last two weeks of the midterm elections, but it’s only going to get worse in 2008. Both parties plan to invade your computer with instant messages and pop-up ads, and your cellphone and BlackBerry will get zapped with text advertisements. But there is good news. They plan to cut back on TV advertising because it just isn’t as effective as the Internet.

I don’t disagree with the facts — political campaigns will absolutely adapt to meet the changing communications needs of the audicence.  I do, however, take issue with the presentation.  The tone of this little blurb is a sad example of how old media — the stodgy magazine writer in this case – has to scare traditional political folks into believing that more focused, more personalized communications is somehow bad. Campaigns will not recklessly send text messages or use pop-ups (nobody uses pop-ups anymore!  c’mon!) to reach voters. 

Puhlease. 

Why Candidates Watch What You Buy

AdWeek has an article about micro-targeting - the political strategy of using lifestyle data (magazine subscriptions, shopping habits, etc.) to target and communicate with voters.  I am quoted.

My first quote is about the value of micro-targeting:

“You are now targeting based on behavior,” says Brian Reich, a senior strategic consultant at Mindshare Interactive Campaigns, a Washington public affairs shop that handles lobbying and ballot initiatives. “You understand a lot more about a person based on how they spend their time and money, rather than on how they identify themselves.”

My second quote is about the difference in approach to elections demonstrated by the Republicans and the Democrats:

The Democrats’ data-gathering strategy pales in comparison. Prior to this year, some states lost or discarded voter data between elections, according to the DNC. And unlike Republicans, who handpick candidates early on and develop corresponding campaign messages before the upcoming race, Democrats often find themselves playing catchup— waiting until a candidate gets the party nomination, then figuring out how to sell him or her to the voters.

The disparity between these arrangements is obvious. “If you wait until [a nomination] to tell people you have to mobilize, you have a problem,” argued Reich. The Democrats are now in a scramble—and the stakes are high. Many political observers are predicting that the GOP may lose its lock on both houses of Congress. But for that to happen, the Democrats must win 15 seats in the House and six in the Senate.

I have never tried hid my frustration with the Democratic Party and its use of technology.  I wrote an article for Personal Democracy after the 2004 cycle about the mistakes I felt the Democrats had made in developing their database for example.  And while the Democrats have made a much larger commitment than many expected over the past two years, I think the Republicans are are still far ahead of the Democrats, and have a more practical approach to the use of technology to support their election activities. 

The Democrats will probably win big next week — take control of the House, maybe the Senate as well.  Still, the Democrats will lose some close seats because the Republican message and turnout machines are using technology in a more focused and efficient way.  They have identified the most important political activities and found ways to use technology to support their efforts - whether its targeting and message delivery, opposition research, Get-Out-The-Vote or similar.  In other words, technology is not the story. 

If the Democrats do win big, the message that more needs to be done will likely be lost… the focus will be on the President’s failures in Iraq or the corrupt practices of the Republican leadership in Congress.  Political experts and the media give credit to liberal bloggers, or the few candidates who found a way to tap MySpace or YouTube with changing the face of politics.  And while there is some truth to that, and they all deserve some credit for pushing this discussion forward, there is more to the conversation.

Democrats continue to invest in technology, and I believe they are closing the gap that exists between them and the Republicans in this area.  But, there is still a fundamental difference in the philsophies of the two parties — and until Democrats position technology as an element of the campaign, and not the story itself, the Republicans will continue to have an advantage.

Candidates Click Into Interactive Tactics

My CEO, Dan Solomon, has an op-ed in today’s Media Daily News.  It begins:

SINCE THE 2004 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, we have seen a seismic shift in the online world–a transition that took political campaigns and advocacy organizations from a dependence on text-heavy, “static” Web sites and vaulted them into the dynamic world of blogs and vlogs, RSS feeds and news aggregators, social networks, video and photo-sharing, mashups and video e-mail.

Political campaigns, both issue- and candidate-based, are experimenting with the new interactive tools, and trying to figure out how to turn clicks into loyal followers and convert energy into action. Not every technology that is available to candidates is a good fit–and campaigns and other issue-oriented groups traditionally trail the consumer marketing world when it comes to trying new things. But, with the communications landscape changing and audience expectations rising, the need to adapt is clear.

Four of these new technologies seem to hold the greatest promise and deserve a closer look for those wishing to have their message in the mainstream–or even a small rivulet of community thought: social networks, video, mobile and mapping.

Read the whole essay…

To Bomb or Not To Bomb?

The New York Times reports this morning on a campaign being waged by Chris Bowers, a contributor to the liberal blog, MyDD.com, to manipulate Google rankings to highlight unfavorable articles about Republican candidates leading up to this year’s elections.  The process is called “Google Bombing.”

If things go as planned for liberal bloggers in the next few weeks, searching Google for “Jon Kyl,” the Republican senator from Arizona now running for re-election, will produce high among the returns a link to an April 13 article from The Phoenix New Times, an alternative weekly.

Mr. Kyl “has spent his time in Washington kowtowing to the Bush administration and the radical right,” the article suggests, “very often to the detriment of Arizonans.”

Searching Google for “Peter King,” the Republican congressman from Long Island, would bring up a link to a Newsday article headlined “King Endorses Ethnic Profiling.”

Fifty or so other Republican candidates have also been made targets in a sophisticated “Google bombing” campaign intended to game the search engine’s ranking algorithms. By flooding the Web with references to the candidates and repeatedly cross-linking to specific articles and sites on the Web, it is possible to take advantage of Google’s formula and force those articles to the top of the list of search results.

Tactically, this is brilliant — Google is the most widely used search engine in the world, the site that most voters or prospective voters will use to find information about a candidate as they prepare to go to the polls on November 7th.  A now it has been co-opted by the political industry to deliver information. 

Search engine optimization, if you can put this activity in that category (as Bowers does), is a huge business in the online space, with companies spending millions to try and massage their own search rankings to highlight the good and hide the bad.  You can buy ads that appear when a certain set of key words are entered into a search engine, or configure your content so that it gets recognized more readily by the spiders that categorize all the web’s information each day.  The common belief among internet professionals is that if you try to manipulate the rankings in Google too much, the Googleplex will notice and adjust its algorythm for categorizing content to ignore your tactics, and your content will be pushed back down to the bottom of the ranks.  That threat doesn’t stop consultants from hiring themselves out to manage campaigns to achieve exactly what Chris Bowers is trying to do. 

Why does anyone care?  If Bowers is successful in moving unflattering articles about Republican candidates up in the search results, he might be able to impact how a voter decides who to support (or at least what information they read while making that decision).  That could play a role in tipping a few close races.  I suspect Chris Bowers isn’t the only one who has figured out how to manipulate search results to promote certain content over something else - he’s just getting the press for it.  And Republicans are most likely feigning disgust to try and position themselves as victims, hoping to eek out a little sympathy in an otherwise unfriendly political environment.  Besides, Bowers is more likely to have an impact on the outcome of the election as a result of the press coverage that is generated about this campaign than from the effort itself.

What about the voters?  Bowers says in the article that he doesn’t believe the practice would deceive most Internet users:

“I think Internet users are very smart and most are aware of what a Google bomb is,” he said, “and they will be aware that results can be massaged a bit.”

I seriously doubt that.  Normal web users don’t run around talking wondering how they can manipulate the results of a search engine.  They load in their search term and look for the results — the answer to a question, a review of a book or movie, an address for a dinner reservation, etc.  They can decide on their own if the information is useful (based on their own expectations, and the expectations that Google sets for providing the best access to information online) and proceed accordingly.  But they almost certainly don’t know that they are only getting part of the story, or that deeper down in the search rankings they might find a resource that balances out the conversation.

This is part of the political game and we will have to wait until November 7th to see if it had any impact.  In the meantime, organizations of all stripes should look at how Bowers and his pals are able to move information around the web and take notes.