Thanks for Saying Nothing

Tesasers:

The paradox of this scene was that the Obama campaign’s communications strategy was predicated in part on an aggressive indifference to this insider set. Staff members were encouraged to ignore new Web sites like The Page, written by Time’s Mark Halperin, and Politico, both of which had gained instant cachet among the Washington smarty-pants set. “If Politico and Halperin say we’re winning, we’re losing,” Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, would repeat mantralike around headquarters. He said his least favorite words in the English language were, “I saw someone on cable say this. . . .”

. . . . . There was a sense among Obama’s communications team that not only did they have a gifted candidate to ride but also that they had figured out new ways to maximize their advantages. The campaign highlighted its mastery of new political media that included a vast database of e-mail addresses and an ability to quickly put up Web sites and use blogs, online video and text messaging. They viewed themselves as “game changers” (the 2008 cliché for innovators), avatars of a New Way organization that had more in common with a Silicon Valley start-up — think Google or YouTube — than with any traditional political campaign that came before it.

. . . . . In one semifamous vignette, Bush’s communications team was holding a quiet celebration in the Roosevelt Room a few days after his re-election in 2004. The president stopped by to thank everyone for their efforts and then singled out McClellan, his robotically on-message front man. “I want to especially thank Scotty,” the president said. “I want to thank Scotty for saying” — and he paused — “nothing.”

. . . . . .

In the course of the campaign, the Obama team showcased a number of new-media applications designed to project a sense of open-book communications to the public. They promoted the fact that the campaign made major announcements — like Obama’s selection of Biden — by communicating “directly” with voters who provided their e-mail and text addresses.

If Obama was attacked by a rival, the campaign would not just push back by traditional means (arguing their case with reporters) but also by putting up their own Web sites like fightthesmears.com. This allowed the campaign not only to defend itself but also to draw more coverage to how innovative and responsive it was. “You would get a press hit each time you’d roll out a Web site, which in itself became a narrative,” Sevugan said.

In recent weeks, the incoming president has begun delivering a weekly video address online — the Obama version of the traditional weekly radio address. Plouffe has initiated a kind of online suggestion box, where voters are invited to write in and discuss the issues they are most concerned about.

There has been much speculation about how the new administration might deploy the Obama campaign’s massive voter database. People have theorized that it could be a way for the White House to skirt the traditional media “filter,” just as Ronald Reagan — and in a different way, George W. Bush — would “go over the heads” of the Washington elite and speak directly to the people through televised news conferences or outlets like conservative talk radio. “The massive list of energized activists is the biggest stick Obama will carry in Washington,” the liberal blogger Ari Melber wrote on The Nation’s Web site. “It enables direct communication at a remarkable scale. . . . To put it another way, the list dwarfs the audience of all the nightly cable-news shows combined.”

Plouffe said the list could be used to invite grass-roots participation in government or to build support for the administration’s policies. “We’ll see whether it works or not,” he said. “It’s never been tried before.”

. . . .The idea that Obama has benefited from an extended journalistic valentine breeds great impatience from his advisers. They argue that good press follows naturally onto winning campaigns — and that the efforts of Clinton and McCain yielded deservedly bad press. “Part of our coverage ended up being better in both instances; we ended up running better campaigns,” Gibbs said. “We had a narrative that was probably better.”

Read the, as they say, whole thing.