The Big Picture - Political Networking

Did you realize that when you do a Yahoo search for “political networking,” you get 260,000,000 links. Google’s a bit more manageable, coming in at only 1,630,000. You end up with a wide array of results – everything from past articles I’ve done here at The National Networker, to links to geographically-based political networking, to technology articles, to articles on politics, to blogs, etc. I even found a link to an article on political networking from 1997. It just doesn’t end. The one thing that was missing (or nearly missing) in the results were links to candidates – atleast they didn’t show up on the first few pages that I scanned. In fact, the only candidate whose name came up when I did a search for “political networking” was Barack Obama – and it was the 6th link on the 3rd page in. How often have you ever gone past the first page on any search? Now you see my point.

Since this is a presidential election year, I thought for sure I would see more candidates’ sites come up. What about Ron Paul with his well-connect army of die-hard supporters who broke all sorts of one-day fundraising records? – Nope, nowhere to be seen. Breaking that fundraising record didn’t happen without political networking.

Or John McCain. What about all the McCainiacs, or Mitt Romney with his well-oiled political machine, or Hillary Clinton who is able to tap into a large political establishment? Nowhere, Nada, Nothing. So why is this?

I think there are a couple of reasons. First off, let me say that I think it’s a good thing that there was essentially no candidate tied to the “political networking” search. Political networking has taken on a life all its own and is much bigger than any one politician. Candidates come and go, but relationships you have with someone else stay – even political relationships. I personally don’t ever want to see any politician being viewed as “owning” political networking. Because as soon as that politician retires, so would the idea of political networking.

The second reason I believe there was only one link to a politician is that even though campaigns use cutting edge information and technology, they are still behind the times. Let me explain. Campaigns have one purpose – to win. Once election day takes place, a campaign is done and is no more. It is much easier to take what has worked in the past, than to try something new. This is important to campaigns, because even though there are many parallels between campaigns and business, one of the biggest differences is that in a business there is always tomorrow. In a campaign, there is no tomorrow after election day. So campaigns generally use what has worked in the past.

In the past a network of supporters has always been important, but not one that was connected over the internet. Again, the purpose of a campaign is to win an election, not create a movement.

Movements have an interest in political networking for different reasons than campaigns do. Campaigns have a need to assemble supporters of a candidate through election day – a short term goal. Movements, who are tapping into online political networking, have a need to assemble supporters over a longer period of time – innovation becomes a means to make assembly easier, enhance communication, and hence advance a cause – a long term objective.

So now you have the big picture of political networking from my point of view.

I’d love to hear your comments about this topic. Please visit TNNW Blog, view my article and leave your comments. I look forward to reading them.

 

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Contact Matthew Best at MatthewB@TheNationalNetWorker.com or Post a Comment on .