bytes and ballots

Today's Los Angeles Times has a story on political "trackers", following the Burns Senate campaign in Montana:

Trackers — using inexpensive hand-held cameras and having the ability to post clips almost instantly on YouTube and other video-sharing websites — have become a major element in several campaigns.

The most notable tracker moment this year came in Virginia when Republican Sen. George Allen used the word "macaca" to describe his Democratic tracker, a 20-year-old Indian American man.

Allen's critics say the word was a racial insult; Allen says it was a "made-up word" that intended no offense. The senator nonetheless apologized, and the issue dominated news coverage of the campaign for days.

In some ways, the work of trackers is not new. Opposing campaigns have long followed what the other guy was saying, trolling for a slip or worse. In 1987, for instance, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s presidential campaign was torpedoed when opponents unearthed the Delaware Democrat's use of bits of speeches lifted from other public figures.

But back then, opposing campaigns had to either persuade the news media to pick it up or invest in a campaign ad to get their message on the air, said Michael Cornfield, vice president at ElectionMall.com, a nonpartisan campaign-technology firm.

With YouTube and related technologies, publicizing material now is much less cumbersome — and less expensive.

But here is an interesting claim in the story:

Although candidates of both parties post their television advertisements on YouTube, the Democrats appear more inclined — so far — to use the technology.

In the Montana race, Republicans have periodically tracked appearances of Burns' Democratic opponent, state Senate President Jon Tester.

But the GOP has posted only one: a recent call by Tester to repeal the Patriot Act.

That opens the door to some interesting research questions: Are Democratic campaigns more likely to use YouTube for "tracking"? Is that because their campaigns are more tech-savvy, or because they perceive that YouTube's demographics are ones that Democrats wish to target? And of course there is the bottom-line research issue here: do voters view these materials on YouTube, and are they influencing their decisions?