Table Of ContentPresidential Campaigning
in the Internet Age
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Oxford Studies in Digital Politics
Series Editor: Andrew Chadwick, Royal Holloway, University of London
Th e Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Information Technology
and Political Islam
Philip N. Howard
News on the Internet: Information and Citizenship in the 21st Century
David Tewksbury and Jason Ritt enberg
Th e MoveOn Eff ect: Th e Unexpected Transformation of American Political
Advocacy
David Karpf
Taking Our Country Back: Th e Craft ing of Networked Politics fr om Howard
Dean to Barack Obama
Daniel Kreiss
Digital Cities: Th e Internet and the Geography of Opportunity
Karen Mossberger, Caroline J. Tolbert, and William W. Franko
Democracy’s Fourth Wave? Digital Media and the Arab Spring
Philip N. Howard and Muzammil M. Hussain
Revolution Stalled: Th e Political Limits of the Internet in the Post-Soviet Sphere
Sarah Oates
Th e Hybrid Media System: Politics and Power
Andrew Chadwick
Bits and Atoms: Information and Communication Technology in Areas of
Limited Statehood
Steven Livingston and Gregor Walter-Drop
Tweeting to Power: Th e Social Media Revolution in American Politics
Jason Gainous and Kevin M. Wagner
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Presidential Campaigning
in the Internet Age
JENNIFER STROMER-GALLEY
1
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3
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stromer-Galley, Jennifer.
Presidential campaigning in the Internet age / Jennifer Stromer-Galley.
pages cm
ISBN 978–0–19–973193–0 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–19–973194–7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Internet in political campaigns—United States. 2. Digital communications—United States.
3. Presidential candidates—United States. I. Title.
JK2281.S78 2014
324.7’3—dc23
2013024870
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
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To my dad, Merlin Stromer,
for teaching me to “work fi rst, then play.”
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Contents
List of Figures i x
Acknowledgments x i
1. Introduction: The Paradox of Digital Campaigning in a
Democracy 1
2. 1 996: Mass-Mediated Campaigning in the Nascent Internet Age
21
3. 2000: Experimentation in the Internet Age
41
4. 2004: The Paradigm Shift
71
5. 2008: Networked Campaigning and Controlled Interactivity
104
6. 2012: Data-Driven Networked Campaigning
140
7. Conclusion: Shifting Practices of Political Campaigns
and Political Culture 1 71
Notes 189
References 2 09
Index 215
vii
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List of Figures
2.1 Th e Yahoo! search engine index from 1996 25
2.2 Th e front page of Lamar Alexander’s website 3 0
2.3 Th e home page of Bob Dole’s website 32
2.4 Th e Clinton-Gore campaign website 33
2.5 Th e Dole-Kemp website interactive page 35
3.1 Th e home page of Steve Forbes’s website 5 1
3.2 John McCain’s website 52
3.3 B ill Bradley’s website 54
3.4 Th e Gore campaign site embedded note to programmers in the
source code 57
3.5 Th e Gore-Lieberman page to join the “Instant MessageNet” 57
3.6 Th e Gore campaign’s att ack site 5 8
3.7 Th e home page of the general election website for Bush and Cheney 61
3.8 Zack Exley’s gwbush.com political parody site 64
4.1 Howard Dean’s campaign website 8 1
4.2 Th e home page of the Draft Wesley Clark movement 83
4.3 Th e offi cial Wesley Clark campaign website 8 4
4.4 John Kerry’s website in early June 2004 85
4.5 Th e Bush-Cheney website 88
5.1 Mike Huckabee’s campaign blog 116
5.2 Th e McCain-Palin website 119
5.3 Hillary Clinton’s website aft er losing Nevada 121
5.4 A still image from the mash-up YouTube video “Vote Diff erent” 1 24
5.5 Barack Obama’s website aft er the victory in Nevada 1 25
6.1 Mitt Romney’s website 153
6.2 Th e Romney campaign’s att ack site Obama Isn’t Working 1 54
6.3 Obama’s campaign website 1 57
ix
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