The Y2K Political Explosion

An incumbent president who can't run again, his vice-president the likely (but not certain) nominee of his party, the other party with a nomination fight of its own--Roger Craver and I seized a moment like that twelve years ago to start the nonpartisan Hotline daily briefing service, on which the political and media worlds depend for the daily fix that feeds their political addiction.

We found the political community way behind the technological curve. Twelve years ago, the first question we got when we tried to sell Hotline subscriptions was, "What's a fax?" Then it became, "What's a modem?" Then, "What's the Internet?" To this day, political junkies, officeholders, and consultants alike seem slow to use, and slower to grasp the significance of, the changes that those in business must master to survive. Yet technological change changes politics. The front-porch campaign declined with the airplane. Giving different answers to different audiences mostly ended with radio. And some would say that whatever substance campaigns had ended with television, its thirty-second ads, and its seven-second sound bites.

And now here comes convergence--the blending of on-line and television--an explosion of video-on-demand. Video-on-demand will change our lives. Instead of the network programmers being in charge of what we see, and when, we will be in charge ourselves. We will be the programmers. We'll pick and choose what stories make up the news we see. We'll design our own concerts--and set the tempo for the music, too. We'll call our own camera shots at the ball game and golf match alike. Video-on-demand will change our news, our sports, our culture. Will it change our politics? Count on it.

Yet those in political power will still be slow to see or grasp the change. The reason? If you won office the last time, would you want to change the way you campaign next time? Add that to the built-in incumbent advantages that keep politicians in office beyond their time, and you understand why the ins are often the last to know. In 1970, Ohio governor Jim Rhodes was barred by law from seeking a third consecutive term. So instead, he ran for an open Senate seat in a primary against Bob Taft (father of the current governor, son of the old senator). Rhodes, who had never run a TV ad and had never lost, was sure he would never need anything so glitzy. So he ran without TV, and he lost. But the oldest of dogs can learn the newest of tricks. Four years later, in 1974, Jim Rhodes spent 80 percent of his budget on TV spots to get the governorship back. And he beat a Democratic incumbent in a year when Watergate should have made it impossible for a Republican challenger to win anything.

Those on Capitol Hill today who still think Yahoo is what you call your opponent, who hate e-mail because it means more constituent views to answer, or who would rather gripe about the Internet than understand it, risk being swept away by convergence. That is their Y2K problem.

So here is something those old Washington pros might welcome, yet another incumbent-protection package, this time in the form of a Letterman- and Hotline-like Top Ten List of On-Line Campaign Tips for 2000 and beyond:

10.Report every dollar every day. (Full financial disclosure on your own campaign Web site is as simple as an accountant's software program. It removes press and public suspicion. In five years, it will be the standard required by law.)

9.Voluntarily limit all campaign contributions to $100. (The e-mail fund-raising capacity of the Web is cheap--that is, free--and the security inhibitions over credit card transactions are gone. It can mean both more money and fewer obligations than an off-year full of K Street...