Obama: Labour needs to take notes

Obama: Labour needs to take notes

Thursday, 30, Oct 2008 06:34

Presidential candidate Barack Obama has the "main insight" for engaging the support of young people and minorities and Labour needs to learn from him, according to a Fabian article published today.

"The US election challenges Labour to change dramatically – altering the way the party is organised, how it interacts with its supporters and communicates with the electorate," said co-author Nick Anstead.

Throughout the race for the White House, Obama has pinpointed the underrepresented such as 18-25 year olds, African-Americans, Asians and Hispanics, argued second co-authors Will Straw.

Obama has been using 21st generation methods, such as YouTube and Facebook to grab the attention of the young. He has been capitalising on the opportunity of technology and relying less on large donations to support his campaign.

"Obama's main insight has been that he can raise money from a huge number of people and get them to volunteer if he first asks and then lets them take control of their own role in the campaign", the Fabian article reads.

"The technologies – whether direct emails, microtargeting models, telephone systems, or social networking tools – have been secondary to this principle."

Labour need to take notes that technology does not "de-personalise" politics and these new forms of commutation have only made the presidential election more important to the underrepresented, said Mr Anstead.

There are expectations that this 2008 election will have this highest turn out rate for a presidential election since the 1960's.

Previously in the 2004 presidential election only 47 per cent of 18-24 year olds voted.