techPresident - Barack Obama and the Long Tail of Politics - Comments

I would argue that "Long

Will Johnston — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 21:54:44 -0500

I would argue that "Long Tail" is a term appropriately applied to both the Obama campaign as a whole and the nature of his fundraising.

As to the man himself, no, he does appeal to every person within the Long Tail. However, he does appeal to a percentage of them that is much higher than average. His campaign has convinced a large number of people who have never donated money or time to anything political to support his campaign with one or both. Those are the people in the Long Tail. Netflix and even Amazon only cater to a subset of the Long Tail. Amazon doesn't sell classic cars or antique dressers, but we still say that it derives its business from the long tail. They don't sell absolutely every item that one would want to purchase in the marketplace. Similarly, Barack Obama doesn't appeal to every voter within the Long Tail of politics, but he does derive a great deal of his support from the Long Tail.

If you narrow the categories down into people who are politically active, people who consider themselves left of center, or people who are disgruntled with politics, he captures an even larger percentage of the Long Tail.

As for political fundraising, the targeting of small donors has been going on for a long time, but Obama has done it on a scale never seen before. I would hazard a guess that a he has raised more in small donations than any politician has before (even adjusting for inflation) and that a larger percentage of the total amount of money he has raised has come from small donations than nearly any other Presidential candidate. He is leveraging the Long Tail of donors in a way rarely if ever seen before.

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The term "Long Tail" severely misused

Luigi Montanez — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 15:46:44 -0500

When will people start referring to small dollar fundraising as "The Long Tail"? Small dollar fundraising has been around for decades since direct mail was pioneered. The idea is nothing new. True, since small dollar online fundraising first succeeded in 2000 with McCain, it certainly has changed how campaigns are run.

But "The Long Tail", as Chris Andersen wrote in his book, can absolutely not be applied to small dollar fundraising. The canonical example of Amazon's success (selling a large variety of books instead of just the bestsellers) simply doesn't translate to the political world. If we were to apply The Long Tail theory as Andersen wrote it, then that would mean that the candidates are the products, and that a Long Tail candidate would appeal to all possible niches just as Amazon can with its selection of books or Netflix can with its selection of DVDs.

But that's simply not happening with Obama (or Paul), and it can never happen with any individual candidate. A single candidate can only have a finite number of positions and strengths. A candidate cannot be pro-life and pro-choice, but Amazon can certainly sell and profit from books about the two positions. A candidate cannot be the Change candidate, and the Liberty candidate, and the Leadership candidate, and the Security candidate, and the Education candidate all at once. A Long Tail candidate, by definition, is impossible.

While Obama certainly appeals to many voters from varying demographics, that just means he's an outstanding candidate who's been able to create a winning (so far) coalition. He's not a candidate of many niches, he's a candidate with a clear identity. The Long Tail of politics, as the Cato fellow defined it, does exist, but a single candidate can never embody it.

Additional thoughts........

Freedomfighter — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 13:24:37 -0500

I think the analogy of a "tail" has some conflicting ideas. Often, a presidential candidate will be described as having "long coat tails" that is his own election helps get others elected.

I think the analogy here, however, is length in building a sustained momentum. I think the idea works in regard to businesses, which build and grow, but I do not think the same argument can be made with politics. Politics depends on alliances and shared idea which can be fragile because people can change their minds. Politics has so many other dynamics. You can work the same place and drink the same beer over a ten year period but in politics, it just does not work that way.

For example, Moveon started in defense of Bill Clinton, but now it has endorsed Obama over Hillary. Is MoveOn progressive or is it consistently sexist in its attitude toward women? They defended Bill in violating his marriage to Hillary and now they do not think Hillary should be president. Makes you wonder. The long tail here exposes the organization for what it is.

Barack Obama and the Long Tail of Politics

Isaac Garcia — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 12:29:24 -0500

Are we seeing the birth of a new kind of mass, networked political mobilization happening before our eyes? That's the argument made by Isaac Garcia, CEO of Central Desktop, which has been working with the Obama campaign helping manage its thousands of grassroots volunteers.