On 8.11.06, Sen. George Allen, a shoo-in for reelection and early favorite for the GOP 08 pres nomination, called Web Campaign video tracker S.R. Sidarth "Macaca".

On 8.14.08, the Webb campaign, unable to get TV stations to take the video and run with the story, posted it on the new video service, YouTube, which as of then was not on anyone's political radar.

The rest is history.

True, there were pioneers in this space before, most notably the "Vlogfather", John Amato of Crooks and Liars. I myself had been working in the Web Video vineyards since 99.

But S.R., the Webb Campaign, and the DSCC's Mike Liddell - and, of course, George Allen himself - created the perfect storm that created the first "Macaca Moment", forever changing politics.

And so, with a tip of the hat and slight bow, I say:

Happy Anniversary!

LINKS:

WEBB CAMPAIGN: Macaca Moment/Allen's Listening Tour: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G7gq7GQ71c

TOP 10 POLITICAL WEB VIDEOS OF ALL TIME: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcszvVWJTUg

TOP 10 POLITICAL WEB VIDEOS OF THE 08 PRIMARIES: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9grHLZ8S27w

WEB VIDEO ODYSSEY 08
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gnYagYoJFY&feature=iv
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPdtAGiv9cM

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/29/delegate.counter/index.html

This YouTube video – http://youtube.com/watch?v=B4P-camUjjk – exposed the deplorable conditions of the Fort Bragg barracks where soldiers returning from Afghanistan live. Turns out that even when returning home, our soldiers have been living in Hell holes thanks to intolerable neglect.

And America might have never known of this intolerable treatment of our soliders – but for the efforts of a digital citizen and their a YouTube account.

But Bittergate does serve as a key reminder of the Macaca Moment’s core communications lesson for 21st century campaigns:

Digital recording devices - video recorders, audio recorders, cell phone recorders -- are everywhere. All the time. They are small, discrete, often invisible – even when they are being used. And video and audio can be sent wirelessly from anywhere to anywhere, anytime – so that a comment made in San Francisco (or rural Virginia) may be instantly shown on national TV.

Combine (1) this rule of Digital Omnipresence with (2) the rules of Off-the-Record/On the Record (i.e. – nothing is ever truly, reliably, off-the-record), then you’ve got Bittergate.

What’s the upshot? Campaign managers should consider, on a daily basis, reminding candidates of their Digital Miranda rights – call it the “Macaca Warning”:

“You have the right to be recorded - and should expect you are being videotaped and recorded 24/7. Anything you say can and will be used against you by your opponents. Beware that something that sounds OK in one setting may be a gaffe in another setting...”

Then again, if the Macaca Warning were read to candidates, we might not have whiskey shots, Bomb-Bomb-Iran, or 100 Years Wars...

Not because it was interactive-to-the-max (more on that below). Not because it was a great issues discussion for anyone who has been following the race closely (though its target audience are voters who have not been following the race closely). Not because Hillary is a great tech candidate, or will be a great tech president (though her gov Blogs proposal is the most interesting tech policy proposal to date). In fact, not because of Hillary at all (though she did well, though I’m sure Obama would have done better in that type of forum). Nor even because it was a great technological leap forward (Bill Clinton did the first electronic town hall in 92 - more later).

Hillary’s town hall was significant for more prosaic reasons: It took candidate electronic town halls - and TV/Web simulcasts - mainstream.

We’ve come a long way since Ike did the first candidate town halls, “Ask Ike”, in 1952. What the Clinton campaign did was fully fulfill what Ross Perot prophesized in 1992 - the electronic town hall. Notably, candidate Bill Clinton actually did an electronic town hall in spring 1992 in Ontario, California, with remote audiences participating from Fremont, Fresno, and elsewhere by remote feed. But that was held during the “sitzkrieg” period of the 92 campaign, so it went largely unnoticed. I’m not aware of a fully interactive town hall since - McCain did satellite feeds in 2000, but they were not two-way. The Dean campaign may have, but overall its InternetTV strategy was memorable mostly for the utter failure that was Dean TV - a system way too cumbersome for users.

The 2000 GOP and 2004 Democratic conventions had a few satellite feeds, but again, not interactive. In fact, I think you’d have to say the most interactive convention moment was Nancy Reagan at the 1984 GOP convention waving to Ronald Reagan, watching from his hotel suite, who was beamed on to a jumbotron above the podium in Dallas.

Hillary’s Town Hall simulcast may not have been the first - nor even conceptually novel - but it will be remembered as groundbreaking. And credit where credit is due - a campaign linking in 22 remote locations - no small feat.

A few reactions to other posts on this topic:

Despite the name of this site, I think it’s important to remember that candidates are not actually running to be the Tech President of the Interactive United States. If tech savvy and interactivity got candidates elected, McCain would have won in 2000 and Dean would have won in 2004, as by any objective measure they were the tech candidates of those cycles. And that is as it should be. There is a lot more to being a president that knowing how to play to the tech crowd. In fact, I would argue one of Joe Trippi’s great mistakes in 04 was believing his own PR in 04. Now, when you have a smart candidate whose intelligence extends to policy, politics, and technology - that’s a lethal combination.

And interactivity, as judged by orthodox technorati, can be overrated. While we all had our judgments about the YouTube debates, I believe candidates are fully entitled to control media events. If they go overboard in being control freaks, they risk blowback -- which is exactly what Hillary got with Phil Devellis’s 1984/Vote Different video -- still a defining moment in this campaign -- and press coverage of the Clinton campaign planting questions. But to this observer Hillary’s town hall last night seem nearly as scripted as her initial web chats. The second question was on gay marriage - that may have been a strategic decision by her campaign to seem less rigid than past chats, but it couldn’t have won her many votes in Missouri, Idaho, Alabama and Georgia.

And remember, these are candidate town halls -- not no-rules-everyone-gets-to-hold-the-floor-indefinitely New England town halls. If full “interactivity” means open mic, you wind up getting frat boys rambling on with prank questions, ending their screed with, “Don’t Tase Me, Bro!” -or the retired gay officer filibustering the GOP YouTube debate. I’m for dropping don’t ask, don’t tell, but not for disrupting the GOP debate to further the cause.

I guess it’s the ultimate sign that I am truly getting old, but I am amazed how jaded many are about the technological leaps we’ve been seeing every election. It truly proves the maxim that breakthrough ideas - or tools - go from the impossible to the boring conventional wisdom overnight.

Maybe Hillary’s town hall was boring and convention to many who read and write on this site, but to me, having thought of electronic town halls as a chimera of the future when they were first put forward -- to see them made so easily accomplished, so accepted as even blase technology - that’s pretty amazing.

That's right: the Commission on Presidential Debates, the de facto big cheeses on general election debates, watched the primary debates, and embraced the future: http://www.debates.org/pages/news_111907.html

David All and I discuss the announcement, and the GOP YouTube debate, in NetCenter, a new web show we're experimenting with: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRCKJGeo2Qc

The Commission's announcement did not indicate what kind of "Internet Questions" will be asked -- text? Video???

Stay tuned...

The Burmese protests, led by Buddhist monks and disseminated worldwide by Web Video, mark the first protest where the medium unquestionably has had a major impact on a political mass revolt.

Political upheaval has always helped showcase new media: the Civil War and the photograph, the Spanish American War and film of Teddy Roosevelt’s rough riders, WWII, radio and newsreels, Vietnam and TV -

And now Burma and Web Video.

Notably, Burma had similar uprising in 1988 which received far less coverage. The year after, China’s Tiananmen Square protest received far greater coverage and is seared into our memories -- because of the TV images of the lone protested and the tank.

But Web Video’s radically little “d” democratic dynamics have unquestionably made the 2007 Burma uprising radically different from the 1988 protests.

Notably, the military, in the violent crackdown begun yesterday, began by, among other things, cutting off cell phone service so protesters can no longer send video out of the country.

Check out the Seattle Times interesting article on Web Video’s role in the protests: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003906566_burma27.htm...

To be sure, digital video has been important before -- as in the Ukrainian elections a few years back -- but this is the first YouTube mass revolt.