The Daily Beacon’s editor-in-chief was recently invited to attend a conference on the media’s role in the 2008 election at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Garrett Graff, editor-at-large at The Washingtonian, said the 2008 presidential election would either produce the first campaign won because of its use of the Internet or the last campaign won without major Internet usage.
Graff participated on a panel about Internet and the 2008 election at the National College Conference for Political Engagement at Harvard University on Saturday.
“I think everyone can agree that Barack Obama is where he is today, the Democratic nominee, because of his use of online fundraising, online organizing and social networking,” Graff said.
The panelists — Graff, Senior Contributing Editor Rachel Sklar of The Huffington Post and James Kotecki of the political blog KoteckiTV — discussed the Internet and how it helps to magnify the immediate reactions to soundbytes and clips.
Graff said former Virginia Sen. George Allen lost his 2006 senatorial election in part because of a YouTube gaffe. Allen said an obscure racial slur, which caused viewers to label him a racist.
“I always like to say that if George Allen had spent his re-election campaign sitting on a beach somewhere in the Bahamas, not talking to anyone, he would probably be the Republican nominee today,” Graff said.
He mentioned that such online videos have immediate and lasting effects.
“Think about a video that hasn’t happened yet and the impact that it would have on a campaign if it happened tomorrow,” Graff said. “If there’s a video of John McCain stumbling or falling off a stage, as Bob Dole did in 1996, I think that that would end John McCain’s campaign because that would confirm for everyone that John McCain was too old and too frail to be president.”
The same result would not happen for Obama, Graff said. If he stumbled, it would only stand as one day’s story because Obama does not have the stigma of old age tacked onto his campaign.
“What we vote on is a sense of character and a sense of authenticity,” he said. “And so what’s the uniting principle of everything we’ve seen so far from the Internet – from Facebook to (Stephen) Colbert to online message boards – is this hunt for what the authentic candidate really is.”
The panel discussed the introduction of new media, such as the Internet, online video and blogging, into the election process and the idea that how candidates used new media would affect their successes and failures.
“We’re confronting a landscape today that the candidates are completely unsure of how to win,” Gaffe said.
Sen. Hillary Clinton used new media to her advantage during her campaign by creating timely, entertaining videos, Sklar said. Such videos included a call to supporters to pick her campaign theme song and a spoof of “The Sopranos.”
Kotecki said he wished Clinton had used such videos for something more substantial to the political discourse.
Benjamin Johnson, a student from the University of Iowa, questioned that logic, saying college students and young people get on video-streaming sites like YouTube to be entertained, not watch “boring forums.” He said the popularity of YouTube adds to the competition for campaigns to get their voices heard online and that it’s easier to become noticed with an entertaining video.
A plethora of such videos were discussed during the panel discussion, including the ubiquitous political video, “Obama Girl,” another example of one which used comedy to garner its audience.
Sklar, however, brought up Obama’s March speech on racism in America, which rose to prominence in the YouTube charts. That served as an example of a serious political video that viewers watched in droves.
The “Saturday Night Live” skits of former President Gerald Ford stumbling had a similar effect to what the YouTube video does today, Sklar said. They both focus on the candidates, but online videos are much faster. It took weeks for viewers to learn and embrace actor Chevy Chase’s Ford.
“What the Internet really is is this huge magnifier,” Sklar said. “Whatever is going to happen is just going to happen way bigger on the Internet.”