Wide Area News
The great divide
by Russell Brown
The US Democratic primary gives bloggers a chance to take on the big guys.
Most New Zealand residents can’t vote in the US Democratic primary – but that doesn’t mean it’s not great sport to watch. Especially on the internet.
It was late in the day of the Indiana primary when commentators realised one big, important county had yet to report. An unusually large pile of absentee votes was holding back the count.
A day that seemed to be winding down suddenly had a spark. And when Rudy Clay, the mayor of Gary, the county’s largest city (and the county Democratic chairman), told the Washington Post’s campaign blog the Trail that “when all the votes are counted, when Gary comes in, I think you’re looking at something for the world to see”, it was all on.
The local newspaper’s blog produced each new total more quickly than the TV news networks (although you could also watch MSNBC’s coverage live, and at remarkably good quality, in your browser), each update passed on by dozens more independent blogs. Their comments columns popped and crackled as readers stayed up late.
In the end, Hillary Clinton avoided the defeat that would have surely ended her campaign, but watching her lead shrink steadily from four percentage points to less than one as Gary went big for Barack Obama made for a fascinating afternoon.
The nature of the online commentary depended a great deal on which blog you were reading. Never has a primary campaign opened up a divide in the citizen media the way Obama v Clinton has. At the mass-circulation liberal sites AmericaBlog and DailyKos, Clinton has increasingly been seen as something approaching a demon. At TalkLeft and Corrente, Obama supporters are babbling cultists, and the man himself an “empty suit”.
Corrente even managed to turn the phrase “creative class” into an ironic slur against Obama voters, as it advanced a quixotic argument in favour of Clinton’s proposal for a three-month “gas tax holiday”.
The quip rang partly true, if not perhaps in the way the author intended. Because Obama’s voters are certainly leading the way on YouTube. A mash-up of a World War II movie, posted after Indiana and casting Clinton as Hitler as the Allies closed in, was vicious. It was also incredibly clever.
This isn’t a new phenomenon. Back in the fonder days of the campaign, the video of a composition by Black Eyed Peas’ Will.I.Am, incorporating Obama speeches and his “Yes we can” rallying call, picked up around 10 million views and 100,000 comments on YouTube. A flurry of “response videos” from ordinary users set yet more Obama rhetoric to music.
By the time you read this, the race will very probably have been settled in Obama’s favour. Observers will be checking AmericaBlog and TalkLeft to see if they’ve come down from the ceiling.
And a few bloggers will be a little bit sad that the relative straightforwardness of a general election campaign has commenced. The Byzantine primary rules, different in every state, gave the ordinary guy (and let’s face it – obsessive number-wonking is a guy thing) a shot at not only taking on the media experts as to who was winning – but also sometimes being right.
Email: russb@dubwise.co.nz
