Politics has been commonly referred to as a blood sport. Well the reality of the new modern political environment is that politics really now is viral.
In the purest form politics is all about substance. Where people stand on issues of the day, stuff involving actually policy, in theory determines who wins. Well thats was the theory.
Than its was all about who had the most support. In recent years its was all about the money. The bigger the bank accounts of your backers the bigger your support.
In the sense of the ongoing Democratic fight you should have been able to determine who was winning by just visiting some Democratic events. Go to an event and count the number of supporters of Obamas or Clinton supporters. Were there more Barack Obama T-shirts in the audience. In the past if you saw more Obama banners and such you’d assume he was winning. He had more on the street buzz that would translate into support once the media picked up on the fact.
Well know its all about the viral nature of a candidates support. Right now Obama is kicking some serious Clinton butt thanks to his Youtube buzz. The remake of the old Apple 1984 is generating more press than I’ve ever seen for any type of early promotional campaign. Plus it really is purely viral in nature. Forget about that fact that Obama second nephew knew someone who sold the clip maker his computer, all that searching for an explanation of the video clip is just the media trying to undrstand the power of viral marketing. It does not matter how/why the clip was made its worked.
Obama is playing it smart with his responses to the whole issue. But why shouldn’t he play it cool. He could have handed out a couple of million Obama shirts, buttons, banners and he wouldn’t even come close to the reach that he’s received from this one video clip. What is funny is the traditional media’s inability to really understand that Obama is really generating some real buzz with his Youtube support. The problem is how will Obama be able to transfer that support into something bigger.