Campaign Watch »

• Online campaigning – a candidate’s view

  June 2, 2009 @ 2:21 pm | by Kilian Doyle

  Stephen O’Shea is a candidate in the Dundrum ward for Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council.

  He started his campaign late, with virtually no budget. As an experiment, he embraced online media, such as his blog, Twitter, Google et al and has erected no posters, preferring to use a Flickr account instead.

  In this post on his blog, he gives a candid critique of the impact of the use of online tools on his election chances.

  He reveals that while his first tentative steps into world of blogging and Tweeting  have been a useful education for him, their impact has been minimal. ”Will I pick up any extra votes? Not enough to justify the effort.”

  In other words, it’s largely been a waste of time. We here are inclined to agree. We’ve said it before, and we’ll no doubt say it again, but there is no substitute for pressing the flesh.

• Online campaigning: visionary or window-dressing? Discuss

  May 28, 2009 @ 10:16 am | by Kilian Doyle

  Labour candidate in the Tallaght ward for the South Dublin County Council election Dermot Looney has issued a brave boast. He claims that his online campaign is the “biggest and best” out of several thousand local election candidates in Ireland.

  Them’s fighting words, fella. Methinks the Greens, who seem to be on a mission to take over the whole Internet, may have a thing or two to say about that.

  To give Looney credit, he has been running his blog for years, with – he says – great success.  Not only that, but he has deftly cut the slaggers off at the pass by calling it the The Looney Left, which is a gesture of self-deprecation rarely seen among politicians.

  As anyone with even a passing interest in elections is aware, Irish political parties have embraced the Internet this year in a way never before seen, undoubtedly inspired by the success of the Obama campaign’s online mobilisation prior to last year’s US presidential elections, which changed politics forever.

  From MEPs with big budgets to lowly aspirant town council members, Irish candidates, like Obama’s team, are using every tool at their disposal, from websites to blogs to Facebook to Youtube to Twitter, in a bid to reach as many potential voters as possible. And, lest we forget, fundraise. 

  However, Ireland and the US are very different animals. The sheer scale of the US, which has a population nearly 75 times the size of ours and 140 times the land mass, means it is simply unfeasible for a US presidential candidate to knock on every door or even speak in every city. The internet was therefore quite simply the only possible way to reach everyone.

  While the same could be said for the large European election constituencies, most Irish politicians do not have the excuse of being unable to cover all the ground, particularly in the local elections, where candidates are vying to represent relatively small electorates. It could be argued that no matter how visible their online presence, there is still no substitute for politicians wearing out shoe leather and pressing the flesh.

  Or is there? What do you think? Is Politics 2.0  worthwhile, a waste of time or a bit of both?

• Video niceties

  May 27, 2009 @ 9:23 am | by Kilian Doyle

  The Green Party have finally released their European election video, which we left out of our previous post on such broadcasts because it wasn’t ready.

  It features clips of well-schooled and well-intentioned punters – including some dude single-handedly holding up a windmill – explaining why the Greens are good for jobs, overlaid with the sound of a folksy acoustic guitar being strummed gently. So far, so good.

  But then it goes all schmaltzy and becomes another tearjerker, heavy on the “doing it for the kids” message. The insinuation is that if you don’t vote Green, your children and grandchildren will grow up foraging in feral packs in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. So there.

  

  Meanwhile, the campaign of Fianna Fáil’s Dublin candidate Lord Mayor Eibhlin Byrne has gone to the dogs.  Wonder how long it will take for Sam’s face to replace his owner’s on her posters?

  

  campaignwatch@irishtimes.com

• We’ve got more cyberspacers than you

  May 15, 2009 @ 12:45 pm | by Kilian Doyle

  The  Green Party launched its fancy new website today and, in celebration, their press office has sent us in a scintillating set of figures detailing their local election candidates’ quest into cyberspace.

  Apparently, of the 99 Green candidates, 32 have Facebook accounts, a dozen are Twitterers and over 20 have their own websites or blogs.

  The Green Party itself boasts 44,500 Youtube video views and a whopping 474 followers - and rising – on Twitter.   

  Now that they’ve thrown down the gauntlet, any other parties out there care to compete? 

  To see how much CO2 each Green Party Tweet emits, try this CO2 calculator for Twitter

  PS Anyone know off the top of their heads do the Greens plant a tree every time they post on their blogs? 

  campaignwatch@irishtimes.com