Landrieu runs high-tech campaign
08/21/2007
By Gerard Shields
The Advocate
WASHINGTON -- If you're a potential campaign supporter of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu named Roy, you most likely received a personalized e-mail recently whose salutation began "Dear Roy … "
Yet if your name is Sarah, your electronic message from the Louisiana Democrat began "Dear Sarah … "
The personal touch to computer messages is just one aspect of the 21st-century campaign Landrieu is running in her bid for re-election next year.
In the past six years, Landrieu and other candidates have seen the technology playing field explode with, among other things, YouTube, blogs and interactive Web sites with audio and video footage.
To keep pace with the changes, Landrieu hired Web site consultants who hope their electronic wizardry zaps the two-term senator to victory.
On a recent tour of the state, Landrieu was approached by an Abbeville woman who asked if the senator was going to continue operating an award-winning blog of her one-year anniversary Hurricane Katrina tour of Louisiana. Dispatches from the tour were posted on Landrieu's Senate Web site, http://www.landrieu.senate.gov, which gets more than 1,500 hits per day.
"It's startling how much things have changed, even in Louisiana, which is one of the least connected states in the Union," said Adam Sharp, communications director and campaign spokesman for Landrieu. "The playing field has definitely changed."
Brent Blackaby of Blackrock Associates in San Francisco is the wizard behind Landrieu's personal e-mail wave, which was done by simply merging a form letter with names from a database. But Blackaby acknowledged it's better than dabbing stamps and envelopes.
"It's about providing a place for people to act," Blackaby said. "It's creating a site where people can participate. You reach out to them rather than having them come to you."
Blackaby worked on the Democratic presidential campaign of retired U.S. Army Gen. Wesley Clark. The campaign used the Internet to corral Clark's supporters into one cohesive group, Blackaby said, while also raising $7 million of Clark's $16 million campaign.
"The draft movement wouldn't have been available without the Internet," he said. "We had no money and we had no organization."
Using that experience, Blackaby and Larry Huynh (pronounced wynn) started their company.
Blackaby calls himself a political junkie who will only work with Democrats. To date, he has handled about 20 state and federal races, including 12 current campaigns — including Landrieu's.
The Web has also helped Landrieu raise significant cash.
Donors are pitched right on the home page to give whatever they can. A movement once spread by word of mouth is now exchanged by friends e-mailing each other.
The Landrieu campaign does not have exact figures for how much of her $2.8 million has been raised over the Internet. In April, Landrieu was able to contact about 2,000 people. Since then, the number has grown to about 30,000, said Ron Faucheux, campaign chairman for Landrieu.
"The thing about Internet fundraising, it builds over time," Faucheux said.
In addition to her e-mails and blog, Landrieu will be enhancing her campaign Web site, http://www.marylandrieu.com, later this year to contain campaign video footage and audio, which exist on her Senate Web site.
Faucheux, former publisher and editor of Campaigns and Elections, appreciates the immediacy campaigning in the 21st century brings.
"The old news cycle that used to spin around once a day is now a continuum," he said.
However, former U.S. Sen. George Allen, R-Va., learned that the immediacy of video footage being posted on the Internet can have a negative effect. Allen lost to U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., after he was filmed making a racial slur to a Webb campaign aide.
The footage went on YouTube and found its way to the nightly television news, showing that politicians are under a continuous spotlight.
"A candidate has to be on his or her 'A game' around the clock," said Blackaby, who handled the technology aspect of Webb's campaign. "A flub can be transmitted to thousands of people, if not millions, in the blink of an eye."
Though it did not work in Allen's favor, Blackaby sees amateur video footage as an effective political tool.
"It keeps people more accountable than they were … which is good for the democratic process," Blackaby said.
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