Obama's Digital-Age Advantage

[Commentary] One may wonder if David Plouffe, the architect of Barack Obama's ground-breaking 2007-08 Web-centered campaign, saw early on that no Republican could survive for 18 months under pressure from new media. Looking at the lineup of declared, dithering and desired Republicans, who among them does anyone think could keep a campaign vibrant from now until the real election starts on Labor Day 2012?

The Obama Web campaign of 2008 was an eon ago. Just as Moore's Law holds that transistorized computing power doubles every two years, there appears to be a Moore's law of politics, doubling the forces in play around presidential elections. Web sites, news aggregators, blogs, TV, radio, Facebook, Twitter, email, videos, smartphones, apps, tablets—it's all vastly more and more powerful than it was three years ago. The proponents of new media are correct that this opens the political process; more people get to input their opinions. But it's a voracious politics. Political users constantly log into Twitter accounts and mouse-click for anything "new" about the candidates. This is binge politicking.

A Republican candidate committed to running this gauntlet has to believe that come November 2012, the party will have nowhere else to go but to the polls to pull the lever for the last one standing. This assumes that the messaging power of electronic networks will magnify them. I believe the opposite: Given this much time, the medium eventually will melt them. The president, head ever up, will hold his ground. This genie isn't returning to the bottle, so let the revels begin. But if Republicans believe this election is an historic referendum on the politics of Barack Obama, they ought to consider the ancient merits of not letting the perfect become the enemy of the good. Tweet that.