Social Media in Campaigns: The New Golden Standard?

Social Media in Campaigns: The New Golden Standard?

Some of you have mentioned that it might be a good idea for political campaigns in certain European countries to use social media as a tool to reach the masses––in particular involve those who traditionally take the role of “spectator” and may not be politically active until voting time. It looks like the UK is jumping on the bandwagon on this one. The UK currently has a mixed control governing coalition between the Conservative Party led by David Cameron, and the Liberal-Democrat Party headed by Nicholas Clegg. The main opposition of the current coalition, the Labour Party (think, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair) aims to use a combination of social media activism and grass-roots mobilization to “energize the party-base”, a strategy relatively new in the region and more prevalent across the Atlantic. I do believe that Ed Miliband ought to take caution and avoid falling into this trap of expecting a similar outcome to take place in the UK. For one thing, the voting behavior is markedly different between the two systems. In the US, campaigns usually begin in January of that year, sometimes earlier (giving around 10 months to campaign), whereas in the UK, there is no such pattern, and in fact in April 2005, Tony Blair, announced his candidacy for the May 5, 2005 election, which he won. How is this possible? Well in the UK, voters vote for MP’s (members of Parliament) in their district, and the leader of the party of the majority of MPs is the Prime Minister and head of the Cabinet body. Thus, on the big picture it is similar to voting in a party-bloc as opposed to just a national candidate like the US. Particularly strong MP’s can sway the election, but this is unlikely if the majority of voters across the UK want to vote the opposition party in power. Thus, no matter how much mobilizing Miliband sees for Labour, if Conservative Party MPs can hold a majority in Westminster, (simple, first past the post voting system, which doesn’t exist in the US), then he has little chance of being Prime-Minister––unless he can convince the majority to form a coalition, like the one that exists now, but a coalition between the Conservative and Labour Party is highly unlikely, given their divisive politics. Unless Cameron and his constituents mess up somehow––lose the 2014 referendum, allow Scotland to break from the UK, adopt the Euro and lose the pound, significant changes as such, I doubt Miliband will be able to fully apply American style politics to full effect in the UK. His fate depends on the success or failure of the MPs in each district. If voters of a particular area like their Conservative MP, there is little he can do to move them to vote Labour, even if the Conservative MP may be better for the district and a Labour Prime-Minister may be better for the nation. In the US, these elections are for separate branches of government. A voter can vote for a member of Congress in the legislative branch and not vote in the general election for the executive branch, vice versa. Thus it is possible to have a Democratic president and a Republican held Congress (say even in both House of Reps and Senate)––just the chance of gridlock is very, very likely.  However, it is none the less valiant of him to try and be at the vanguard of this movement in Europe!

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/11/27/miliband-to-copy-obamas-campaign-strategy_n_4351467.html