High school style campaigns

What's next, "Vote 4 Rudy" and "Obama rocks my socks" signs lining campus bulletin boards? I hope not.

When I log onto Facebook to peruse my friends' photo albums and delay the agony of homework, or when I procrastinate for a few minutes by listening to new musicians on MySpace, I am bombarded with political messages. Before cult followings developed for these social networking sites, TV campaign ads were the primary medium where political messages invaded my life. I could leave the room during commercials and avoid theses ads for a few months before every fourth November, but I definitely can't live without Facebook for two years before the election.

At this rate of candidates campaigning on social networking sites, campus bulletin boards will soon look like high school halls during student council elections.
Photo: Jyl Unruh

Using social networking sites is a smart move from a financial standpoint, as it's a virtually free means to reaching the masses (that is, if candidates can resist the popular temptation to hire a professional director to create their posts). But, it reminds me of high school. Just like the high school biology teacher who busts her butt to adequately explain the process of mitosis while her students pass notes, the candidates (or their young, tech-savvy assistants) spend a lot of effort reaching the youth who just don't care about politics.

Similar to high school student council campaigns, presidential hopefuls' MySpace campaigns encourage people to vote for the hottest guy or for the girl with the cutest campaign profile.

The candidates totally play to this popularity contest. Hillary tries to relate to the young crowd by insisting that she is "a lousy cook" under her interests. Huckabee tries fitting in with other MySpacers by using simply "Mike" as his name over his profile picture.

This new means is watering down the political system and encouraging voters to pick their candidate based on image, not the issues.