Every campaign consultant, staffer, volunteer and candidate needs to read Howard Fineman's piece in Newsweek, headlined Out of Control, in which Fineman explores how, "increasingly, campaigning isn't something the candidates do. It's something that's done to them."
"The rules are being rewritten for 2008," Fineman says, thanks to "independent big money," the compressed front-loaded primary calendar - and, most importantly, the emergence of things like MySpace and YouTube.
Fineman:
As of this week, a new watershed was reached: professional-level ads that used to be the province of “media consultants” in darkened studios full of high-priced gear. Digital graphics and video have been democratized. The stunning result: the anonymously produced, devastating “Big Sister” anti-Hillary attack ad. Posted on YouTube, it had received more than a million hits in a week.
Warns Fineman: "What the viral campaign gives, it can take away - fast. The possibilities for distorting reality, and not just reflecting it, are enormous - and uncontrollable."
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