Technology is Killing the Robot...Good.

Technology is Killing the Robot...Good. 

Our favorite TV programs have very short seasons these days.  One of my recent favorites, the 2012 Republican nominating process, ended when Mitt Romney won the Florida Primary. 

Grandpa Paul, the angry Newt and the rest of the clown college may have proved unable to defeat the Romney robot, but the show must go on.  Just like the network competition, the race for the Republican crown will continue in the form of low rated spinoff shows and reruns until even the most ardent supporters can take no more.  

The summer conventions figure to be uneventful. That’s good, because summer is pleasant and offers many distractions from real political decision making.  This shouldn’t be surprising since a united convention is the broadcast format that elites in both parties prefer. 

 We will have to wait until summer ends to see the heavyweight matchup of the year between President Obama and Governor Romney really heat up.  In the mean time they will battle for critical swing voters in all 18 swing states, through robotic attempts to relate to we the people.   

Almost all politicians are robotic, so the issue must be examined in relative terms.  Few would argue that the Republican candidate most likely to be a robot is anybody other than Mitt.  After 5 years of campaigning one wonders if it is possible for him for him to lose that awkward smile. 

“Few candidates are as deft as Mr. Romney at genially brushing off unwelcome queries and comments.

In Bedford, N.H., a woman walked up to him after a speech and declared: ‘I have a lot friends who say you are the robotic type. And I am like, no, you need to stay that way because you are a leader.’

Mr. Romney’s mouth arched into a somewhat pained smile as he rushed to conclude the conversation. ‘Nice to see you guys,’ he said as he walked away.” (Parker/Barbaro).

The robotic Romney is the choice of the Republican establishment just as John F. Kerry was the choice of the Democratic political elite in 2004. The Democrats thought that their robot had won in 2000, so it seemed plausible that the 2004 edition could defeat an unpopular president.  But there was something not quite right about the way Kerry translated to swing voters. 

“The suspicion is that there is something robotic about Mr Kerry: that he is programmed to say what he thinks most people want to hear...One reason why Mr Bush won last time was that he appeared happier in his own skin than Mr. Gore,” (The Economist 2004).

Kerry and Gore’s efforts were losing ones in part because they were more robotic than George W. Bush.  It is reasonable to suggest that Romney’s robot resemblance was the reason that a sizable group of conservatives were able to overlook Newt’s personal misgivings.  

It is difficult to quantify the extent a candidate resembles a robot.  It’s just too silly of a question for pollsters to ask.  Perhaps they should, because it is a plausible explanation for the preferences of less ideological voters.  

According to a recent Washington Post poll (Cohen) that asks respondents how well they feel each candidate understands the problems of average Americans, President Obama scored much higher than Romney and Gingrich.  55% said that Obama is doing a decent job with 30% of those saying he does very well.  Romney’s numbers for the same question are 39% decent and 7% very well, demonstrating a clear gap.  

“Polling suggests that voters find President Obama more empathetic with their plight than Mitt Romney,” (Dickerson).  

It isn’t surprising that the establishment elites in both parties prefer robotic candidates who roll with the political tides and are easily malleable.  Robotics has never been a formula for political success and voters will continue to reject it, perhaps more strongly than ever.   

The preferences of party elites are becoming less influential as social media continues to change the broadcast format of Presidential campaigning.  More evidence of the changes are found in the Democratic party, but this is a large political trend that Republicans are not immune to. 

Election strategists operate in an evolving discipline that is subject to external forces like changing technology.  The railroad caused the candidates to try and actually meet the voters.  Radio forced candidates to be better speakers and television required them to look attractive on top of it.  The recent explosion in social media should be expected to increase the demands on candidates in similar ways.  Social media has had enough time to sink in with a broad section of the electorate, even if some demographics are more engaged than others.  We should expect that its influence on elections to become more apparent.  

Television and radio have historically offered a medium capable of reaching a mass audience.  Social media has reduced communication costs while simultaneously increasing the demand for more personalized content, reaching a different mass audience in more specific ways.   It is now cheaper to reach voters but arguably more difficult to capture their attention. 

Rational observers could expect that both the content and delivery systems for campaign messaging adapt accordingly.  Today the Democrats are doing a better job grappling with the implications of social media than their counterparts. 

 The 2004 Howard Dean campaign was the first attempt by a national campaign to get the most out of social media.  Dean’s campaign was a pioneer of cyber-campaigning, as it explored new ways to motivate and communicate with potential voters.  

In 2006, a very influential paper was published called, Powering Up Internet Campaigns, Zephyr, Teach-out.  It said that parties should involve more local political entrepreneurs, by encouraging them to create local political communities.  The strategy allows parties to tailor their campaign messages to particular local audiences. Decentralizing campaign messaging offers a means of maintaining and expanding intra-party diversity. 

The Democrats refined and applied the lessons of the Howard Dean campaign in the 2006 congressional elections successfully.  Decentralization of party messaging helped to allow candidates in more conservative districts to better tailor their message to their constituencies.  Democrats realized that their cause could be strengthened  by being less ideologically rigid, particularly on culturally sensitive issues.  

Democrats were able to turn over 30 house seats in part because of their willingness to field and support candidates who were allowed to deviate from the party norms.  Blue Dog Democrats accounted for 20% of the House Democrat’s voting bloc in the 110th Congress.

Republicans have yet to substantially copy this effort.  This would be a prudent juncture to consider it because it is much simpler to change the position of a candidate of a particular party, than to change the preferences of an unfriendly voting district.  What if Republicans put in a serious effort to represent urban areas? 

It is a mistake to conclude that the increase in news coverage causes candidates to have to be, “on,” 24 hours a day.  They need to stop trying to do so.  People are not perfect and neither are their candidates.  

The mass marketing efforts of the days of TV and radio dominance presented candidates as a detached group of elites.  The comparatively limited content of the TV and radio days allowed politicians to maintain carefully crafted public images.  The image control that TV/radio allowed politicians is virtually gone, replaced by what Donald Rumsfeld might call an unknown unknown - the next major news breaker could be a blogger that nobody in the establishment has heard of (ie Meredith Whitney).  So perhaps candidates should just act like themselves.

Newt has figured something out even if his own campaign is doomed.  His campaign marks a long term turning point in American politics.  The rejection of the robot. When South Carolina voters supported Newt they indicated that the Newt’s humanity, however brutish, was preferred to the Romney Robot. 

Romney will win the Republican nomination but he will lose the general election because he demonstrates less humanity than President Obama.  Romney comes across as being less human than Newt who is as unabashedly self-interested as the public he vainly seeks to lord over. 

I feel for Newt, he didn’t ask to be born, he is just being the best Newt he can be with the endowments his god gave him.  He sailed to wild political heights fueled by his own hot air and crashed back down when his hot air didn’t mix with his political messages. 

He is in the sunset of his days and has little left to lose, his wife seems willing to support him in most any circumstance. One has to wonder if has has any unspent ammo, similar to the moon base that he can use when he gets cornered.  He is cornered again. With the nomination gone his most important variable seems to be the value of his speaking fees.  

 Normal people don’t always say and do the right things. The 24 hour news cycle will continue to expose politicians who see it as their duty to be perfect as the human beings that they are.  Voter’s will be less and less shocked by personal scandals and more willing to overlook less than perfect personality traits.  

The Republican elites don’t understand this yet.  They continue to invest millions in their robot candidate, hoping to invent the right app that can make Romney relatable.  

TV and radio messages are targeted at massive audiences and not surprisingly produced candidates  that appeal on a massive, generic level.  Social media is much more personal. The impact of social media on campaigning will continue to become more apparent in the way candidates present themselves to voters.  

 What people like about Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama is not that they were the best at being flawless.  Instead voters were able to relate to their imperfections.  The era of the robotic candidates who are bankrolled by party elites like Mitt Romney, John Kerry, and Al Gore will end as voter’s will increasingly expect their leaders to demonstrate their humanity, flaws and all.    

Cohen, Jon.  Poll: Obama tops Romney and Gingrich on ‘understanding’ average Americans.  1/30/2012.  Retrieved from:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/behind-the-numbers/post/poll-obama-tops-romney-and-gingrich-on-understanding-average-americans/2012/01/03/gIQAcfnqcQ_blog.html; 

Dickerson, John. Who’s more aloof -- Obama or Romney.  2/2/2012.  Retrieved from:  http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57370406-503544/whos-more-aloof-obama-or-romney/; 

The Economist.  Not Dean, Not Bush, Not a Robot.  7/2/2004.  Retrieved from:  http://www.economist.com/node/2941610; 

(Parker/Barbaro).  The Retooled, Loose Romney, Guessing Voters’ Age and Ethnicity.  12/27/2011.  Retrieved from:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/us/politics/a-new-romney-seeking-to-connect-reveals-some-quirks.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all;