Dole for President
Background
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(Robert K. Arena, Jr. - Internet Coordinator - 1995-1996)
www.dole96.com was developed for Senator Dole's Presidential primary campaign. Mr. Arena's role was to help develop an online strategy to integrate all appropriate aspects of the campaign and identify a vendor to produce the site. The slate was completely blank - no one had used the Web in a campaign before, let alone a Presidential race. Rather than approach the Internet solely as a communications tool, we pioneered integrating the Internet into all aspects of the campaign.
The grassroots potential of the Internet is found in two of its features: the ability to publish to the entire Internet audience via the Web and the ability to broadcast to millions at no cost using email. With the publication of a single Web site, millions of people can read the same materials and sign up to get involved in the campaign - no printing costs, no mailing costs, no long distance or fax costs, no database keypunching costs. With this potential in mind, we focused on building a grassroots list of supporters and getting them involved in the campaign. Over the course of the Primary, more than 13,000 people signed up for the campaign's electronic mailing list, giving the campaign the ability to contact those voters on an ongoing basis with email at absolutely no cost. In addition to the mailing list, 4,000 people offered to volunteer online, giving the campaign a valuable off-line resource. We provided volunteers and supporters alike the ability to get involved and promote the campaign online - by sending email postcards to their friends telling them why they supported Bob Dole, or downloading a Bob Dole screen saver or wallpaper to show their support at work.
The finance team raised money online using the first-ever political Internet fundraising premium - a free Dole for President mouse pad for donors who gave more than $25.00. This concept brought in a whole new class of donors, college students and young people, who are traditionally not big donors and provided a glimpse of potential of the Internet to re-engage those who have left the political process. Fundraising was all done via pledge, as security on the Web was still a major issue being resolved for the average user.
Given the competitive nature of the race, endorsements were a daily focus of the political operation. In the past, an endorsement generated a day or two of news, and then little more. On the Internet, we created "Coast to Coast" - a clickable U.S. map where voters could go, click on their state, and learn about the endorsements the Senator had received from people in their state. The concept was to bring the campaign down to a local level - if their Governor or their State Representative, someone they knew far more about than Bob Dole, had endorsed the Senator, then they knew this was someone they could trust and support themselves.
The site had a full complement of press releases as well as important speeches. In addition to these, the site had an About Bob Dole section. For a man who had spent over 30 years in the public eye, his personal story was relatively unknown. We told the story with scanned snapshots taken directly from his personal photo album, giving the site and the candidate a human touch which came through on the Internet. The lessons we learned about telling a candidate's story online have been invaluable and have helped set our sites apart from others.
Not all uses of the Internet appear online. Even back in 1995, our research team was using the Internet to augment their research into candidate opposition.
By the end of the Senator's successful primary campaign we had accomplished our goals of developing an online grassroots network, delivering our message to the active primary audience, raising funds, and integrating the Internet into the campaign apparatus. www.dole96.com was widely recognized as the best site of the primary campaign:
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To learn more about Robert Arena, visit his site.