#17: “an Obama moment for Welsh Labour”

The claim

There is almost no need to introduce the above claim, such is the attention given to it by the media and blogosphere over the last few days. Nevertheless, and for completeness, it comes from Neath MP Peter Hain, who used it on the Labourlist website to describe the new Labour-leaning Aneurin Glyndwr website. When questioned about the claim on Dragon’s Eye, he went onto suggest that:

“what Barack Obama did in his campaign was transform the nature of political campaigning and reach new generations of people who operate on the internet”

It is a claim that has attracted derision from political opponents and Labour supporters alike. But are they deriding it for the right reasons?

The evidence

Implicit in nearly all the criticism is the view that the comparison is absurdly flattering to Welsh Labour. Certainly, the notion that a single off-the-peg blog-style website, with allied Twitter, Facebook and YouTube pages should be compared to the Obama campaign’s vast online fundraising and social networking presence seems more than a little ridiculous. More intriguing, however, is the claim is that Obama’s campaign has transformed the nature of political campaigning, and that Welsh Labour should attempt to emulate that.

The notion that Obama’s victory depended on the internet has gained much credence, as evidenced by this BBC story from the Primaries. This analysis identifies two areas in which the internet proved important to Obama’s campaign: fundraising and mobilisation. On the former, the amount raised by Obama was undoubtedly impressive, enabling him to be able to outspend his rival, first in the Primary campaign, and then even more decisively in the General Election campaign. Nor is it disputed that Obama raised much more money via the internet than any previous candidate.1 But as this study has shown, the proportion of cash raised via small donors was virtually identical to that of George W Bush in 2004. This is important, because it points to a mobilisation campaign of a less revolutionary nature than is supposed.2 And that matters here, because mobilisation is what Peter Hain is talking about in relation to Aneurin Glyndwr.

In terms of the basic statistics, Obama’s online mobilisation efforts were impressive (see here) as was his use of myBarackObama.com, possibly the first genuinely mass-market political social networking site. For Aneurin Glyndwr to get anywhere near to the success of that project, it would need to attract some 15,000 registered supporters,3 a figure that probably exceeds the membership of the Labour Party in Wales. That does not mean it is impossible, particularly as one of the avowed aims is to reach out to new potential supporters, but it does underline the scale of the ambition.

A focus on emulating the mobilisation efforts of Obama may also obsure what was truly significant about his campaign. Obama used the web to make fundraising more straightforward – but then spent the largest chunk of the money on gaining impact via linear television. As this breakdown demonstrates, of a total reported expenditure of $760m, 41% went on “broadcast media”, i.e TV advertising. That is not to say the internet was not important – more was spent on this form of media than on print for example – but it shows that Obama relied overwhelmingly on good old fashioned telly to get people to vote for him. Since TV advertising is not permitted for political parties or candidates, this is a lesson that is non-transferable.

The conclusion: Debunked

Is Aneurin Glyndwr a significant foray into online political engagement in Wales? It is probably too soon to say, although the early efforts suggest not; at present it resembles many other political blogs in tone, content and use of other online tools, and as such seems destined to become merely one of many. Comparing it to the Obama campaign’s online presence appears to be a statement aimed more squarely at gaining attention than in reflecting the ambition of the site and as such should be taken with a rather large pinch of salt.

But on the deeper claim that Obama achieved something revolutionary that Welsh Labour is even capable of emulating, the claim is most firmly debunked. What was different about Obama’s campaign was its ability to raise money online, a facility that does not exist via AG, and spend it on TV advertising, an option not available in Wales. The comparison is not only grandiose, it is also rooted in the myth of the Obama campaign rather than its reality.

***

1 A reported $500 million via 6.5 million donations from 3 million online donors (source)

2 Although it should be noted that repeat donors made up a greater share of the Obama pot

2 myBarackObama.com had a reported user account base of between 1.5 and 2 million. Obama had some 2.3 million Facebook supporters by the end of the General Election campaign. The latter statistic included non-US citizens, however, so as a proportion of the population a mass mobilisation Welsh political website would need a user account base of 15,000 to be deemed as successful as myBarackObama.com.

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