Chris Carney v. Chris Hackett (Pennsylvania 10th Congressional District)
The Lebanon Daily News stated, “On paper, freshman Rep. Chris Carney should be relatively easy pickings for the Republican Party and its nominee, Chris Hackett. After all, Republican voters outnumber Democrats in Carney's rural district in northeastern Pennsylvania by more than 30,000, and Carney owed his 2006 election largely to a sex scandal that engulfed the GOP incumbent, Don Sherwood.” And the DCCC has the race listed a “targeted race.” However, as of a September 21-25 poll, Carney has a solid 10-point lead over Hackett.
A review of the respective web sites and internet news about the campaigns show a picture of politics as usual. The first thing one notices on the official sites are the attack messages. Both sites prominently feature “fact check” sections that attack the opponent’s record, messages and actions. The different comes from Carney’s use of video, possibly accounted for by deeper pockets. Beyond the fact check section, the sites are primarily a repository for press releases, in the media stories, and candidate bios.
A review of the few blogs and media outlets reporting on this race, shows a lopsided coverage of the race. Carney seems to be playing well with the district’s republican base. As a conservative Blue Dog democrat, he has successfully portrayed himself as a candidate with Pennsylvania values, first, and a democrat, second. The local media has fixed on the story of “Republicans turn out for Carney” and “Republicans for Carney” (a group formed by the Carney campaign). The coverage of Hackett follows the line that republicans are supporting the man (Carney) and not the letter after the candidate’s name (Hackett – R). Most of the blog comments followed a Democrat line calling on democrats to rally behind all democrat candidates. Though, one blog comment call Carney “a Repub in Dem clothing” and calls on democrats to unseat him as a warning to other Blue Dog democrats.
Carney, as the incumbent seems to follow the Margolis and Resnick model, politics as usual. He favors offline events such as a “Republicans for Carney” rally, or a press confernce at a local hunting and skeet club to promote his pro-gun stance. Events designed to get local media coverage and to reinforce his identity as a moderate, even conservative, among democrats. A theme that is re-played often in the press and one that has been hard for Hackett to counter.
As for Hackett, he should be taking his cues from Benkler and Howard, and using his new media campaign to be agile, innovative and responsive. He should be using it to target potential voters with a direct email campaign, recruit and mobilize volunteer to canvas the district, and provide campaign materials for download and email re-direct. Nevertheless, a visit to his site shows a politics as usual approach and highlights a possible lack of funding by a lack of visual design and appeal. Instead of using his online presence to mobilize and motivate his followers, he uses it a tradition brochure-like way to criticize his opponent in a manner that lacks the impact to attract media attention.
So considering that this campaign is in a district that is narrow geographically and demographically homogeneous, is an aggressive and innovative new media strategy important? Is a web site or even the use of outside new media options, such as YouTube and Facebook (Carney has 367 supporters and Hackett has 127 supporters out of a possible electorate of around 484,000), going to have a significant impact over the local press coverage and the campaign’s publicity events to change an election?
Campaign Journal Two
For the second installment of the Campaign Journal, I will look at the Delaware gubernatorial race. Though not a particularly competitive race, it is the only one of the four races I am following that had in addition to the major-party candidates had two independent or third-party candidates. This race also lets us look at the through the lens of Michael Margolis and David Resnick authors of Politics as Usual.
Margolis and Resnick propose that though there is potential for the internet to create a forum in which all candidates and party can have equal access to voters and can provide the content needed for informed voters, the realities of money, campaign strategies, voter behavior and political self-interest will trump the altruistic potentials of the web. The Delaware gubernatorial race will allow for an examination of the campaign web site presentations of the candidates and their issues. In this race, there is no incumbent (current governor is term-limited)—though the Democrat’s (party of the out-going governor) nominee could be viewed as such since Delaware has had a Democrat in the governor’s office for the past 16 years—and there are two third-party (Independent Party of Delaware (IPOD) and the Blue Enigma Party) candidates.
One characteristic of the Margolis and Resnick model is that campaign web sites will become more standardized or “normalized,” this is evident on the campaign sites of the two major-party candidates—Jack Markell (D) and Bill Lee (R). Both sites use a patriotic red, white and blue color pallet, with a banner art containing the Delaware state flag. Both sites have prominent buttons for “about,” “issues,” “news,” “contact,” “supporter sign up,” “events” and “donate,” and both sites utilize multimedia in the form of video on the home page. Though Margolis and Resnick also state, the inequality of financial resources will limit the ability of third-party candidates to produce highly designed and technologically sophisticated web sites. The web site for the Blue Enigma Party illustrates this prediction, as the standardization of the content is not evident. In the case of the Blue Enigma Party, the web site is a true “brochure” site. The web site provides very basic information about the party, its platform of issues, a short uninformative biography of their candidate for governor (Jeff Brown), a generic link to email the party, and an external link to declareyourself.com, a voter registration site.
Further, the web sites of the major-party candidates illustrate Margolis and Resnick prediction that standard offline campaign practices will dictate online content and practices. On of these practices is in the branding of the candidates. On Markell’s site, his logo labels him as the “DEMOCRAT FOR GOVERNOR,” as the Democrats have held the office for 16 years it make political sense to identify ones self with the incumbent party; Bill Lee, as the Republican, makes no partisan claim. Secondly, the Markell has not been diligent in updating the information on his site, the last update was September 10 announcing that he had won the Democratic primary and he has not listed any upcoming event. Bill Lee’s site has been updated with news since September 10, but he is updating his event calendar. This would suggest the challenger, Bill Lee, is trying to create interest in the race, where as the de facto incumbent, Jack Markell, is keeping race interest low to take advantage of the fact that low voter interest and election day turn out favors the incumbent. These two strategies—party ID and controlling information flow—are clearly from the traditional offline campaign playbook; the goal of campaigning is to win the election, it is not to enlighten voters or promote better democracy.
Margolis and Resnick propose that though there is potential for the internet to create a forum in which all candidates and party can have equal access to voters and can provide the content needed for informed voters, the realities of money, campaign strategies, voter behavior and political self-interest will trump the altruistic potentials of the web. The Delaware gubernatorial race will allow for an examination of the campaign web site presentations of the candidates and their issues. In this race, there is no incumbent (current governor is term-limited)—though the Democrat’s (party of the out-going governor) nominee could be viewed as such since Delaware has had a Democrat in the governor’s office for the past 16 years—and there are two third-party (Independent Party of Delaware (IPOD) and the Blue Enigma Party) candidates.
One characteristic of the Margolis and Resnick model is that campaign web sites will become more standardized or “normalized,” this is evident on the campaign sites of the two major-party candidates—Jack Markell (D) and Bill Lee (R). Both sites use a patriotic red, white and blue color pallet, with a banner art containing the Delaware state flag. Both sites have prominent buttons for “about,” “issues,” “news,” “contact,” “supporter sign up,” “events” and “donate,” and both sites utilize multimedia in the form of video on the home page. Though Margolis and Resnick also state, the inequality of financial resources will limit the ability of third-party candidates to produce highly designed and technologically sophisticated web sites. The web site for the Blue Enigma Party illustrates this prediction, as the standardization of the content is not evident. In the case of the Blue Enigma Party, the web site is a true “brochure” site. The web site provides very basic information about the party, its platform of issues, a short uninformative biography of their candidate for governor (Jeff Brown), a generic link to email the party, and an external link to declareyourself.com, a voter registration site.
Further, the web sites of the major-party candidates illustrate Margolis and Resnick prediction that standard offline campaign practices will dictate online content and practices. On of these practices is in the branding of the candidates. On Markell’s site, his logo labels him as the “DEMOCRAT FOR GOVERNOR,” as the Democrats have held the office for 16 years it make political sense to identify ones self with the incumbent party; Bill Lee, as the Republican, makes no partisan claim. Secondly, the Markell has not been diligent in updating the information on his site, the last update was September 10 announcing that he had won the Democratic primary and he has not listed any upcoming event. Bill Lee’s site has been updated with news since September 10, but he is updating his event calendar. This would suggest the challenger, Bill Lee, is trying to create interest in the race, where as the de facto incumbent, Jack Markell, is keeping race interest low to take advantage of the fact that low voter interest and election day turn out favors the incumbent. These two strategies—party ID and controlling information flow—are clearly from the traditional offline campaign playbook; the goal of campaigning is to win the election, it is not to enlighten voters or promote better democracy.
Campaign Journal One
For the remainder of the 2008 US elections, four races will be followed and examined in detail. They are the gubernatorial race of Delaware, the US House of Representatives races for the 5th district in Georgia, 8th district in Indiana, and 10th district in Pennsylvania. The Delaware gubernatorial race is the only open race of the four as the current governor, Ruth Minner, is term limited and ineligible for re-election. Each of the House races has an incumbent running for re-election, with Rep. John Lewis of Georgia’s 5th Congressional District running unopposed.
In Delaware, after a hard Democratic primary race, state treasurer Jack Markell beat Lt. Gov. John Carney, Jr. to take on Bill Lee (Republican), Mike Protack (Independent) – who dropped out of the race on September 13, and Jeff Brown (Blue Enigma). Since 1992, the Governor’s seat has been in the Democrat's hands and according to the Cook Report, the most competitive part of this race to succeed Gov. Minner was to be the Democratic primary. A brief review of the news stories concerning the candidates indicates that Markell’s biggest opponent and critic will remain former Democratic primary candidate Carney.
In Georgia, Rep. John Lewis will seek an unopposed re-election as representative to Georgia’s 5th Congressional District – a post he has held since 1986. In Indiana, the race for the 8th Congressional District appears to be non-competitive with incumbent Rep. Brad Ellsworth (Democrat) favored over rival Greg Goode (Republican). The most competitive race will most likely be for Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District; Chris Hackett (Republican) is challenging incumbent Rep. Chris Carney (Democrat). RealClearPolitics sums up the challenge this way:
Notably, all of the campaigns have active functioning websites, though in design, style and use of new media tools – video, blogs, social networks, etc. – the sites vary by party and challenger status, Democrat’s and incumbent’s use a higher level of design in their sites. In the case of the Delaware Governor’s race, neither the Democrat nor the Republican is the incumbent and both sites are similar in design. The exception is the website for the Blue Enigma Party and their candidate for governor, Jeff Brown. It is nothing more than an online brochure with no way to engage the candidate or participate in the campaign, other than email and a link to register as a voter.
In Delaware, after a hard Democratic primary race, state treasurer Jack Markell beat Lt. Gov. John Carney, Jr. to take on Bill Lee (Republican), Mike Protack (Independent) – who dropped out of the race on September 13, and Jeff Brown (Blue Enigma). Since 1992, the Governor’s seat has been in the Democrat's hands and according to the Cook Report, the most competitive part of this race to succeed Gov. Minner was to be the Democratic primary. A brief review of the news stories concerning the candidates indicates that Markell’s biggest opponent and critic will remain former Democratic primary candidate Carney.
In Georgia, Rep. John Lewis will seek an unopposed re-election as representative to Georgia’s 5th Congressional District – a post he has held since 1986. In Indiana, the race for the 8th Congressional District appears to be non-competitive with incumbent Rep. Brad Ellsworth (Democrat) favored over rival Greg Goode (Republican). The most competitive race will most likely be for Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District; Chris Hackett (Republican) is challenging incumbent Rep. Chris Carney (Democrat). RealClearPolitics sums up the challenge this way:
Rep. Christopher Carney represents a Northeast Pennsylvania district that gave President Bush 60% of the vote in 2004, and where Barack Obama did notably poorly in the state's April primary. That's not a recipe for success for a Democrat, especially one who won by challenging an incumbent with serious personal problems. Republicans are enthusiastic about businessman Chris Hackett (R), who won a competitive primary. (source)
Notably, all of the campaigns have active functioning websites, though in design, style and use of new media tools – video, blogs, social networks, etc. – the sites vary by party and challenger status, Democrat’s and incumbent’s use a higher level of design in their sites. In the case of the Delaware Governor’s race, neither the Democrat nor the Republican is the incumbent and both sites are similar in design. The exception is the website for the Blue Enigma Party and their candidate for governor, Jeff Brown. It is nothing more than an online brochure with no way to engage the candidate or participate in the campaign, other than email and a link to register as a voter.
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