Bolling vs. Wagner: Technology

Technology is the core of any campaign today. The campaign website is a source of information that many people rely on. It's integral to reaching greater numbers of people and guiding those people's beliefs on a candidates stance on issues, how to donate their time and efforts, a place for supporters to connect with the candidate on a more personal level, and a very important resource for both local and national media.

Even though the heat of the Lieutenant Governor race between Bill Bolling and Jody Wagner has died down, their new media campaigns are in full swing. Both campaigns are running with a variety of new media outlets; website, blogs, twitter, youtube, interactive website components, email, and text messaging. Each candidate has attempted to put together a comprehensive face sending the same message to anyone who is listening, "Vote for me!"

I've put together a little report card to review each campaigns ease of use, quality of information, they're ability to "go viral" on the web, and who has been more successful in reaching out through new technology.

	Bill Bolling	Jody Wagner
Website	A- Bolling’s site is very appealing to the eye, there are a lot of images, and links information is easily accessible. There are many interactive components, and getting involved is easy from his site.	B Jody’s website isn’t bad, but the focus isn’t on the most persuasive pieces of information and it’s very txt heavy. The interactive/involvement component of the site is one of the first things that catches your eyes.
Blog	A Bolling’s blog is easy to read with lots of different media. Sound clips, quotes, and photos are visible as you scroll down the page. There are also links to other blogs related to the campaign.	F I’m not sure if Jody Wagner has a blog, there is an areas called “news” that discusses goings-on, but I couldn’t find the campaign blog or blogs that were connected to the campaign.
Social Media: Twitter, Facebook, Myspace	C+ Bolling’s a little off; he’s got a facebook application and a profile, but he doesn’t have a fan page. He also doesn’t update his twitter all that frequently, and his myspace profile is absolutely abysmal.	D The Wagner campaign is absolutely dreadful. She doesn’t have a myspace page at all, and her facebook exposure is pretty limited as well. She is redeemed by the fact that her twitter is updated almost hourly on occasion.
Youtube	C While his youtube looks good, has a great layout, it is completely lacking in content. There is only one video from 8 months ago, and when search Bill Bolling on youtube’s search engine the top searches are negative ads.	B Even if her site is a little plain, Jody Wagner keeps it up to date and has done great attracting foot traffic where the campaign wants it. Her ads are funny and more watched, unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be all that much about Jody on youtube at all.
Other	The Bolling campaign has a social media page on the main site that makes it easy to connect in almost any way.	Needs to work on it.

While Jody Wagner is behind, she's doing a much better job taking advantage of the benefits of social media. Unfortunately I don't think that either campaign was really able to reach out into those networks, younger people are not interested in campaigns and this campaign did not do enough to captivate their interest.

While both campaigns are dabbling in electronic communication, neither are taking advantage of it as much as they could. I imagine that in the final days, we can count on an increase on all this communication and perhaps a greater push through this very valuable medium.

Jody Wagner attacks Fall Flat

Jodi Wagner has ramped up her negative attacks on the Bill Bolling campaign. Her ads have started to focus more on her campaign's misperceptions on Bill Bolling; her accusations have started to pile up culminating with her accusations that his presence has been almost non-existent during his last term and his opposition to any bi-partisan work.

"Since taking office, Bolling has had an open invitation to the meetings of the Governor’s Advisory Council on Revenue Estimates, on which sit appropriate Cabinet Secretaries, the House and Senate Leadership, and Virginia’s business leaders. The Committee plays a critical role in the bi-partisan process of revenue forecasting. Each year, Lt. Governor Bolling has been invited. Each year, he’s failed to show up-including the latest meeting, held yesterday in Richmond. So, if Bill Bolling is so concerned about the state’s revenue forecasts, why hasn’t he bothered to actually take part in the process?" (A statement released in a press release by the Wagner campaign)

And while this sounds pretty bad, the whole issue was blown out of proportion and the information was not provided in the appropriate context. The meetings occurred on a yearly basis and were to discuss public opinion in regards to what had happened since the last meeting. They were short and disorganized with no published information.

Find out more in this article.