Politicians have realized that by lowering the barriers to political involvement they can attract people who otherwise wouldn't care. And so we have an entire class of people who are involved in politics because they think Obama's posters look cool or because they're angry that Sarah Palin's daughter almost won Dancing with the Stars. Call them the Alvin Greene vote. They don't understand a single issue, not even the dimmest populist ones, but they are emotionally involved with the image that the candidates project. They vote based on Saturday Night Live skits or what they hear on The View. Often young and dumb, for politicians they're an important target group. And they make up an increasingly large share of media consumers. A lot of the world feels it should have a say in American elections, and 2008 was the first time they got a say. It will probably not be the last.
We don't know how much foreign money Obama received in 2008, but it's safe to say that this will continue to be a problem, and without rigid legal accountability, this will become a pattern in future elections. With every candidate soliciting online donations, it becomes all too easy for money to trickle in from abroad. Accountability may close that door part of the way, but not all the way, because too many 501c's also have an impact on the political process. As do many groups that are not directly involved in elections, but do play a part and can legally receive money from overseas. It will take hard work to insulate the American political process from foreign donations. And with the rise of foreign exchange trading and online gambling interests based overseas who work through American front companies, that may no longer be possible.
And foreign money is the least of the problem. With social media playing such a major role, foreign campaigners will become ubiquitous. The Obama campaign benefited from a social media network that was often very "international". In the age of the internet, it becomes all too easy to run phone banks out of Gaza, raise money in Moscow and have stories that shake up the campaign appear in The Guardian. When enough of the campaign is being outsourced, it becomes impossible to regulate or track who does or says what on the internet. And that means anti-American candidates for public office now have a base of support that they can rely on. It worked for Obama. But it won't end there.
The only thing that could avert this would be if such conduct were viewed as scandalous, but the media is unlikely to treat the outsourcing of a campaign as scandalous, unless it's done by a candidate they don't like. Which means punishing a politician for his politics, rather than his actions, another reminder of why the media cannot be trusted to vet candidates or do anything but act as cheerleaders for their man or woman.
The internet is international and it is internationalizing American elections. We are now told which candidate has international approval. We have campaign rallies overseas. We have money coming in from abroad and unofficial campaign volunteers operating abroad. And that is only be the beginning.
Technology has erased distance, and that means the end of all forms of isolation, privacy and integrity. It has also erased standards and barriers. It is up to us to try and create new standards in the age of the internet. If we fail to do this, then the medium will go on dictating the message.
