Tale of the Tape

Do you remember when George Allen lost the race for his Senate seat in Virginia? The exact moment when he lost may be hard to pinpoint, but the videos of him calling some guy Macaca and of people with "Allen for Senate" stickers beating up a law student at the Omni Hotel probably had something to do with it. Now Kos is urging the troops to videotape all things and appearances Republican, and Washington Post's Chris Cillizza isn't sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

In a feature called Wag The Blog, Cillizza examines several aspects of blogs, how they work, and what influence they actually have on politics. In the latest entry, he poses the aforementioned question as a topic for discourse: is it good for politics for everyone to be filmed all the time? Or, as Cillizza says, will it "...rob regular people of ever getting to know the 'real' candidate because overly guarded politicians let nothing genuine slip for fear they are always being watched by a camera?"

I was discussing this with a few people around the office, and we came to the conclusion that politicians are overly guarded anyways. Most elected officials on the national stage carry a paranoia that they are always being watched for something leakable or scandalous to happen, or for them to Say The Wrong Thing, which will then spell the end of their political career. They are right. The current political culture is almost unanimously dedicated to nailing the other guy to something he said or did when he was tired, or drunk, or lacking focus.

That has surprised me. I once thought the gotcha politics were a threshing method, to separate the wheat from the chaff among politicians who were ideologically not that different despite their party difference, but that was when everyone was hugging the center. Now that the wings have gotten farther away from each other, I assumed that ideological differences would be the natural divisor. I would be wrong.

Everyone on the campaign trail says or does stupid things — if they didn't, sales of Maalox to campaign managers and communications directors would plummet. I think that YouTube will allow downballot candidates who are not on the national stage to experience the feeling of being in the big leagues, even if it is a hard lesson that they end up learning the hard way.

I understand why some might not be totally excited about the idea of citizen journalists chronicling a candidate's every move. If we were talking about activists camping at a candidate's house, I would understand the concern — public figures deserve some modicum of a private life. While at public appearances, however, I don't think that something that requires a candidate to be a little more consistent and not specifically tailor a vapid, empty message to each individual interest group is a bad thing at all.

From a campaign strategy standpoint, I don't see how you don't send a team out to follow your opponent around, miniDV cameras and wireless broadband connections at the ready. It seems like borderline political malpractice to not engage in that simple but potentially vital exercise, and not just for catching gaffes. Being able to forecast changes in message and tactics are potentially very useful to a campaign.

It might also encourage a candidate to be more authentic rather than less. The American People have been clamoring for a guy that speaks his mind and is genuine for years. The only problem is that the guy who speaks his mind and puts up no firewall between his personality and his candidate persona is usually non-viable and slightly crazed. The potential for a real candidate to be real is there, and maybe the key to that will be video cameras rather than a giant bus with a catchy nickname about Straight Talk.