Campaigns, Websites and Ideas
Source: Joe Matthews/Fox and Hounds Daily
In a 21st century campaign, it is no longer enough to offer ideas. Campaigns now routinely urge voters to submit their own.
Each of the three major, declared candidates for governor - Whitman, Poizner, Campbell - asks voters, through their web sites, to suggest ideas for making California a better place. I wondered: how many of these ideas made their way into the platforms of the candidates?
I asked each of the three campaigns to answer that question. Here's what I learned: not many. Only Tom Campbell's campaign could point to specific policy ideas that came directly from the ‘net.
Here are each campaign's response to my question:
POIZNER:
Bettina Inclan of the Poizner campaign provided her answer by email: "Creating a strong dialogue with voters has been an integral part of Steve Poizner's campaign. Thousands of Californians interact with Steve online through Twitter, Facebook and his website. Yet he understands that interaction can't only live online it needs to translate into real world action. Some examples:
"The California water crisis has been a priority for Steve. He went to the Central Valley and proposed his policy ideas and asked people to join him and sign a petition on his web site. Over a thousand people signed his petition and hundreds posted their thoughts on his plan.
"Recently, Steve Poizner participated in Brandman University's gubernatorial "Twitter debate." Dozens of questions were posted via twitter through the hashtag #CAdebate. Steve answered many of these questions. The tweets also gave the campaign a stronger understanding of people's interests, most of which were education and California's broken economy.
"The campaign regularly posts articles on the our blog, Facebook and Twitter asking for feedback. Recently we posted a poll asking about Californians' thought on creating a part-time legislature. Hundreds took the poll and talked about the pros and cons about the idea."
WHITMAN:
Whitman's campaign has space for suggestions and conversation that include lots of postings. A number of the recent posts come from people who don't like eBay. But there are a number of suggestions about the economy, illegal immigration and the budget, with a half-a-dozen posts a day coming in even during the busy holiday season.
In response to my question, a campaign official, who asked to speak on background (not to be quoted by name), called back and made the following points:
The campaign has set up message boards on the web site, similar to what Whitman had at eBay, and the suggestions made there are closely read and considered.
The campaign has been intrigued by ideas on keeping jobs from being lost to neighboring states, especially ideas tied to specific industries, including the movie business.
The campaign expects to do much more to seek ideas, including live chats with key policy aides.
CAMPBELL:
The candidate himself responded to my email and mentioned a handful of ideas that came in over the Internet:
"On water conservation, lining the canals as a way of saving was suggested by a blogger."
"On desalination, using nuclear was suggested as an energy source:" Under the theory, Campbell explained: "we'll probably encounter the same environmental objections to a desal plant as to a nuclear plant, so why not advance both ideas together?"
"On community colleges, I received the recommendation to include counselors on the ‘classroom' side of the ledger for purposes of applying the law that 50% of the budget has to be spent in the classroom, since counseling students to take the right courses produces demonstrably better results--especially for retraining needs in a recession.
"Prison guards have suggested savings from not reincarcerating for minor parole violations."
It's worth reading the submissions in the Ideas section of Campbell's campaign web site. Campbell notes that not all the ideas contributed by visitors to the site have been saved by the blog -- the current list has 135 ideas submitted by 177 people.
It's an interesting list of very specific ideas. Many involve education funding. But among others I found intriguing during a quick reading: basing the vehicle license fee on the weight of the car (since heavier cars typically do more damage to roads), creating a centralized way for people to apply for teaching jobs, splitting up Los Angeles and other large counties so that boards of supervisors are closer to constituents, lowering the sales tax on big ticket items such as cars and machinery to spur the economy, providing tax credits for businesses that hire ex-felons, and eliminating front license plates.
Oh, yes. One would-be policy maven suggested that Campbell, as a candidate with so many ideas, should think about ditching his party and running as an independent.
foxandhoundsdaily.com/blog/joe-mathews/6151-campaigns-websites-and-ideas