Is it possible to be too creative in an online campaign?
WashingtonPost.com offers a commentary on the ongoing Politics Online Conference at George Washington University. It notes that one of the speakers this year came from JibJab, the outfit that created the widely viewed online parody titled "This Land." (If you haven’t seen it, you must not have had an Internet connection last fall.)
The piece examines what this means for traditional campaigns and contains the following important observation:
Matthew Dowd, the Bush-Cheney campaign’s chief strategist in 2004,
acknowledged that "the bigger campaigns always have to struggle with
‘How far do you push the envelope?’"
Robert MacMillan goes on in the piece to conclude:
But even the candidates willing to step over the precipice must realize that the best genius moments, from Archimedes to JibJab, are usually accidents. "This Land" is no exception, Spiridellis said. "All of a sudden this thing spread across the globe. We were at the center of something we never expected."
And maybe this is the lesson for attendees at this year’s Politics
Online Conference: The Internet is no panacea, and unintended
consequences can take your candidate on an incredible online ride.