captioning performed by vitac captioning performed by vitac i think it's additive. i don't think it will be instead of. by the time we get to september every moment of television will be bought in ohio and florida and north carolina and indiana and a couple of other places. you'll not be able to buy television any more. >> there will be a lot of free moments here in california? >> yeah.

>> that was my initial campaign strategy. >> television stations in california are going to do just fine. yes. so no one is taking television off the table. i think newspaper advertising and magazine advertising has gone way down. radio maybe a little bit. nobody is taking television off the table. people still turn on their television first thing in the morning to get the news and sit in front of it before they go to bed. this is in addition to. one of the thing we were talking about in the green room we're in a moment in time where people don't necessarily trust their politicians and they don't trust the mainstream media and we saw that over and over again in the republican primary debates in the last several months, right, where people were actually candidates romney was actually going after the mainstream media or ron paul was or santorum. >> or newt gingrich as well. >> i think voters are now at a point where if they don't necessarily trust politicians or mainstream media they do trust their friends and neighbors and

colleagues and their friends on facebook. so it's an additive way to consume news. if you get that news story from your friend you're much more likely to read it than pick up the "new york times." you may not trust the "new york times" any more but you'll trust your fend shattering that story on facebook. >> i think in the middle, at some point in the evolution, i mean you used the tv example, but you still go back to 1960. tv played a decisive role with the debate with kennedy and nixon but the end of the day which campaign was more effective. more voters, chicago or indiana. there were still feet on the ground aspect to it in 1960 even though tv had been in there. we're in that evolutionary phase. what's in my head is the gap

versus yelp model which for years as someone who likes to travel places alibi have a nice repast, i look up for a nice restaurant. that's been placed by yelp which is basically a crowd forcing social media platform and gap is now trying to catch up to what yelp created. obviously that's in a very defined food area. that's a metaphor for the direction rear going in. sarah touched on something that is at the core of this. which is the idea of authenticity and trust. ultimately in any competitive the election it comes down authenticity and trust, assuming it's a competitive the election and i think that's even more so in online and social media in terms of how people engage and interact. my guess is we're a little bit in the middle of the evolution. at the end of the day i run any number of campaigns. the initiative campaigns. nothing defeats paid television. we do a lot on social media

platforms. they do have an impact particularly on advocacy and organizing. but when it comes down to convincing the band of voters who are uncommitted or undecided, and inelegant and inartful and the proverbial hammer hitting the mosquito there's nothing that moves you like paid television. does that have the potential to evolve? yes. >> if i could add a little something to chris because i think there's an important thing for people to consider on the television point which is, you know, you mentioned is there something that's going to tip us to more of an online technology communication stream for voters to campaign. a lot has to do with demographics. the reason why chris will testify to the strength of television because if you're able to buy time in local evening news you're going to hit more people to vote.

they are an older demographic, and those are traditionally people that are very responsible about their civic duty and vote in the general and primary the election. there's a science to where these markets exist and chris is very experienced in that, but really with the consumer of information that is the younger generation now as they continue to get older, i think that you'll see that being a forcing function for more of the investments by campaigns and the elections to getting to technology and technological advertising or online advertising is a way i should say that than television and your local network news because that demographic is no longer going leading consumer or the most active voter. >> if i understood you correctly when you were talking about the election of 1960, which this was supposed to be a defining the election with regard to media,

it was supposed to prove that media was the message. correct me if i'm wrong, it's said that more people who saw the great debates on television thought kennedy won. and more people who heard them on the radio thought nixon won. the word were the same, the medium was the message. if i heard you correctly also, you made reference to the disposition of the state of illinois in that the election. >> great state of illinois. the land of lincoln. >> that's what i've been told. also the land of richard j. daly. >> and rahm emanuel. >> a lot of close friends. but my recollection is that joe kennedy, i would like to be corrected -- joe kennedy called richard daly during the night of the the election and said are we going take illinois and daly said by the grace of god and

with then of some close friends and those close friends were the graveyard vote, basically. >> yes. obviously was not around, i cannot personally attest to that. but -- >> chris is a lawyer, by the way. >> but also the reason i invoked that particular moment was that, you know, richard nixon had a very similar conversation with a very powerful series of leaders in southern illinois. and, you know, what you really had to the extent that you believe what was reported on some of this stuff and again i'm not a firsthand witness -- >> but we've learned -- >> that's right. but what you had, you had southern illinois who had a bunch of folks not alive voting and chicago area having a bunch of folks who were not alive voting. the point i was trying to make while television played a decisive role in that the election for the reasons you articulated we still had an the election impacted by old style

politics that were taking place at both end of the state and one side did better than the other side. >> if i don't want to be lonely i can move thoi and get in a factory or die. because theography yard vote will still matter. >> people will still e-mail you. >> you know, one of the things that strikes me was this mention of getting a whole bunch of people together in san francisco and getting them to contact people in states that are in play. is this something that people talk about. let me tell you why i'm asking. because of the electoral college which is a relic of the 18th century, you know, constitution that was written when this was a country of 4 million people hugging the eastern coastline, we have something called the electoral college and what the electoral college does it d

disenfranchises me from the alexandria process. it doesn't matter whether i vote or not. does that matter? well in the election of 2000, you know, either vice president gore took florida or he didn't. look, maybe 35,000 jewish voters in palm beach actually did vote for pat buchanan. i don't know. >> we're pretty sure they didn't. >> but there's no question that gore won on a popular vote basis but that doesn't matter because that's the way it's counted. if i heard you correctly and i would like to be corrected if i'm wrong, is that to a certain extent you're empowering me as someone whose vote doesn't count or the new technology put it this way written large is enabling me to influence someone in ohio or in colorado or, you know, the ten states that really do matter, we're told in this the election. is that true? >> i think that is not

necessarily a new practice. i think that, you know, as long as we've had the elections that have existed out of a single province where counties will call into target counties and states into target states. that has been going on. >> my question is will the new technology make that more scientific? will it make it more efficient. >> more efficient, mortar get. >> now for for example would it find out i have a college classmate who works in cincinnati. for all i know he hasn't made up his mine. if i went to san francisco would this company you talked about in san francisco two facebook or twitter know that and tell me to get in touch with tim quinn? >> there will be, and there is targeted advertising that campaigns will be able to invest in that will be able to identify whether or not voters have certain sentiments on different issues and so, you know, to your specific question, you know, if

your friend in cincinnati was to have strong views on a certain type of issue, then they could be getting advertising through the campaign directly to them, and it's quite possible then in the future maybe this the election, that there will be a campaign organized enough to know that you should be reaching out to your friends that are weighing in on a specific issue based on direction they are giving you. so, yeah, sure. you can get communication from campaign that says if you have friends that have weighed in on this issue in this manner, you should reach out to them and tell them the truth. in fact that gets back to where we originally started the conversation around how the media battle will be changed as a result of the online communications and social networks because, you know, starting in two the elections ago and certainly 2010 it became much more high-profile, but now

the way that campaigns -- remember john mccain who is now one of the most prolific tweeters in the world did not have a twitter account in 2008 when he ran for president. and so, you know, we've seen already an evolution in 2012 both candidates will have great twitter followings and they will be weighing in on issues quickly. and so i think what you'll end up seeing is, you know, that rapid response move through social media so people are seeing content on tv, or they are picking up on a national news media event, and they are able to get direct communications from people they trust either supporting it or voicing in opposition to it. >> couple of quick thoughts picking up on that. one i think ultimately you'll get the segmenting of data because their systems become more inoperable and you can shift this stuff. it's conceivable living in san francisco i can get a list of 20

people who have some connection to me at some point in my life so i can determine through various databases and they have been identified as undecided voters. can you call these 20 people you have a relationship with them. we know you support candidate x, ask them to support candidate x. that's something that happens in some form or fashion. right now you have entities, there's a company out of san francisco which is founded by one of the founders of travelocity that has created this technology where it's basically a dashboard and you can follow not follow everyone who is talking about your particular candidate they also use this for hotels and other types of businesses that have high consumer interests. you can follow anyone who talks about you on social media but identifies specific individuals who are particularly influential in social media. so they will say this particular person tweeted about you. they have a large following and a large following in a demo

brafic that matches up that your campaign should care about. so you target your communications and engaging back and forth conversation with that particular person who is particularly influential because they've much bigger universe of folks that trust them. so it becomes tactical tools to engage in that dialogue. >> dialogue is the key. we're talking about dialogue. >> yes. >> chris bring up a really interesting point. i mean paul is talking about being able to be persuasive on social media and four years ago these candidates weren't, you know, one of the major nominees wasn't using it. that's how much we've advanced in four years. it's exciting every time we have one of these the elections where people around the world will be focused on this decision and new technologies will spring up and it will be exciting to see things that will emerge in 2012

and what we'll see in 2016. >> if this is going to be in addition to rather than instead of, are you telling us that campaigning is going to become more expense jennifer because someone has to pay for this and it's in addition to not instead of. >> we see it get more expensive every two years or four years. the predictions is that this year's presidential the election will amount to spending more than a billion dollars. that is unbelievable. now not helped by the supreme court who said that corporations did decide to play in these campaigns as well. you'll see enormous amounts of money flow into these real estates because you have super p.a.c.s that can spend like crazy. we're nowhere at the tipping point where they are less expensive. i can't imagine. >> i'll give a shout to facebook which is, you know, to buy advertising on facebook is a lot

more next and cheaper than it is to buy television. right. now i think there's different metrics and people on my side are still trying to figure out can we get to the proverbial swing voter. i'm shocked. but, yes. but bottom line is assuming you can get your pto your targeted voters, you're hitting are bull's eye. paid television uses the mallett. 80%, 90% of people watching paid television made up their mine already. social media and other online tools you can focus in on a bull's eye target so every dollar is communicated to someone you want to talk to. >> do you think that the obama campaign four years ago, not now, they were obviously out front versus mccain with regard to social media and i mean the president had a blackberry, the

now president had a blackberry and hopefully -- so how much of a difference do you think that made in that campaign? do you think -- and let me ask you and then i would like to broaden that out more generally. how much of a difference do you think it made? >> i think it made -- i think it made a huge difference. i think the obama campaign in 2008 was the most -- they were doing the most cutting-edge technological voter contact, fundraising online, reaching millions of people that we had ever seen. right. to be honest if they took that blueprint and did nothing but the exact same thing in 2012 they would be crazy. so they've already gone and i'm not -- >> the world has changed that much. tucker is right. john mccain was not the only person who had a twitter

account. it was in its infancy. i'm sure they are doing much more, much different stuff in 2012 to stay way ahead. do i think it ultimately made the difference between a president obama and president mccain? i don't know. i don't think it did. i think it was a we're for democrats. i think president obama had a message that spoke to the country. i don't think technology made the difference between him being in the white house or not but it made massive amounts of difference in terms of fundraising and reaching voters that wouldn't have been reached otherwise. >> can any of you put your finger on an the election and not necessarily for an individual but for a ballot proposition, for example, where you feel technology actually did make the difference between, you know, a win and a loss? >> i'll use one example. which is, and technology works many different ways. i mean we can talk about communicating with people via the social web or we can talk about e-mail trees, but really

there are campaigns are iterating on technology in a lot of exciting ways. for example, you know, the whitman campaign in california developed a system to be able to track real-time jerry brown's speech. so when jerry brown had an appearance there would be someone from the whitman campaign with an iphone that could then was live streaming back to whitman campaign headquarters so that the communications team could be emailing reporters responses to the actual charges that jerry brown was making in real-time, and it was the first time they had been able to piece together something like that and now you're seeing campaigns at the state level doing that type of thing now. of course at the national level you have a live stream with television stations. but as to whether or not a campaign actually made the difference, you know, in kind of an unconventional way brian

billbray a congressman in san francisco in 2006, a special the election, duke cunningham had been run out of town for good reason and that was a hotly contested seat and seen as a bellwether to see how the 2006 house congressional the elections would ultimately fare. unfortunately it was not the bellwether that the republicans had hoped. but the rnc were providing a lot of assistance, bill billbray who was running against a candidate who was captured on tape inviting someone who was not a legal voter to participate in the the election. and in that particular district in san francisco that was very controversial. that tape was then moved to you tube, and then put on the talk radio stations in san diego and in such a hotly contested race a lot of people that were participating in that the election will look back and say catching that technology and

moving it in the way to the media that it did it ultimately changed the election. i mean there's the famous moment, again in 2006. so these things, candidates making slip ups and saying things that they shouldn't have -- >> can't escape them now. >> can't escape them now. >> famous closed event in san francisco where a blogger happens to get then senator obama talking about pennsylvania which instantaneously by the next morning was a major national story and still an issue. >> this is when he said what they have is their guns, religion or words to that effect. >> to that effect. similar type of situation where -- you know -- >> could you just tell the audience what the mccaca moment was? >> senator cohen a senator in virginia. >> and he was presidential contender. >> early presidential type of hype building around him, you

know, i think that a lot of people considered his race in 2006 more of a technicality. he was popular in the state of virginia. had been governor in the state of virginia. and was caught on tape by a phone making a statement, it was a racial slur. and it wasn't tolerated by the electorate and ousted from office. i think that was a turn of events that was made possible by his democratic opponent because of technology. but there's a lot of technological innovations happening on campaigns aside from just online communication and it's really fascinating to watch. >> i interrupted you. when you were talk my first national campaign was in 1992, and i was much younger and much quicker at that time and one of my first assignment was to go to opposition events and then you would actually have to sprint with the report towers the

nearest pay phone to callback to whatever had transpired. right. think of that compared to these -- right now with nanotechnology you'll have nanodrones. think what you can do with watergate. nanodrone and they would never have to break into the watergate. but, you know, i do think, to first defining moment with tech was the bean campaign. i remember being in a campaign discussion for a rival campaign in the first quarter of reporting, and dean's money kept rolling in. there were these online donation and everybody kept reporting his number over the course of the day getting bigger and bigger by substantial amounts and i remember we're in a meeting and someone said there's that ceiling what you can raise online which then precipitated a discussion about the quote-unquote cascade effect that suggests because of

technology the multiplier effect is different than what you had typically in the past. that was a defining moment when you start to see the role of technology. >> interesting to listen to tucker. actually worked on the other side of that race in 2006 and i was the d triple c. for as important as technology is and i believe that i work at facebook, it's interesting the morning after that special the election we all woke up, went to the d triple c, ron was going crazy. throwing water bottles. what we took away from that race not that our candidate had just gotten beaten by saying something really stupid while an iphone was rolling but we had not tied the opponent to a very unpopular bush. our takeaway it had nothing to do with the technology, is that we should have tied bill billbray directly to president bush.

my larger point is there's still some really big things that matter. you can get the technology right. if the economy is bad. if the president is unpopular. if the country is against you because they are from ustrated h the direction of the country. >> do you think this will be forest and trees problem for this coming the election? that there's so much narrow casting and such specificity that there's a gigantic fact out there that gets -- >> i think actually to sarah's point, i mean, i'll be the first to admit this, unfortunately, 2008 wasn't a close the election and i think that there are strong reasons why the economy was really ultimately the deciding factor. in fact, i've heard people that i worked with on the mccain campaign say that actually that campaign was decided in the mail. that the most effective mailer that was ever sent was everybody's retirement accounts that showed up in october. but actually you look at this

the election and i think the technology will really make a difference because i think this will be a much closer the election, depending on if we see sea changes in the global community, or in the economy, if things remain the same this looks like a 50-50 race. >> don't want to put you on-the-spot, but we just heard from sarah that what you didn't do as effectively as you wished you did in hindsight is tie your foent a very unpopular president bush. why won't the democrats do the same thing with the republican candidate and make it -- why does your instinct tell you this will be a close the election i guess. >> the data suggests that right now. i think that potentially it looks like a 50-50 race and i think that it's impossible to tell. if i could tell you who was going to win this presidential race -- >> keep it between the two of us. >> right. >> i have to believe it will be

a closer race than what we experienced in 2008 and when the margins of these races get closer i think technology becomes -- >> increasingly relevant. >> investments in that type of communication are going to be really critical in this the election and i think both campaigns realize that. >> i just ask sarah and chris, barring the unforeseeable, war with iran or complete stock market crash, do you think this is going to be a close the election in 2008 is this. >> yeah, i think it's a 50-50 country. the president is in an incredibly good position. i think he's very strong. he has an amazing record to run on pap lot of successes. you have to approach every the election like it's going to be close and that's the way we approached 2006, 2006. you always approach it that way. ultimately this is a country that's very closely tied and so i think, yeah, barring something massive it's going a relatively close race but the president is in a very good position.

>> first of all i think presidential campaigns are different than congressional races and senate races and they are very different animals. >> i'll finish this, do i think these guys are right. this is going to be an exceptionally close race for the reasons articulated. i think the point sarah made earlier is belaboring. i think there are macro issues. there's three types of the elections. the election where the incumbent is in a difficult position you can run a infrastructure against the incumbent frairn wins. there's the election that i was in the 1996 where the incumbent is strong, bill clinton could run against a combination of gandhi and mother teresa and stills wins. then an the election like this, forces like the economy you're in very much of a gray area and it's a 50-50 country or 47-47 country with 6% of the electorate up for grabs and

about 100 precincts in five or six states. that's what the election is going to come down. my view is that gdp stays between 2% and 3% and you continue to have at least the job growth stays where it is or generally static doesn't go backwards. under that formula the president wins. if you have gdp that gets below 2%, hope for everyone it does not it becomes a more challenging the election. and i think any time you get to that close of a level we're slicing the political bologna that closely everybody asks the gore campaign, 5,000 decisions you can look back in retrosuspect. it was that close. if you made this or that keeps you up at night. do i think technology in all of this, if the election becomes that close it will have that type of an impact. i still think sarah's point is right there's some larger macro issues which ultimately is through that prism.