Politics.com
11/05/2006
By Cliff Glickman
The Cardinal Inquirer
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 5 -- This summer the Virginia Senate race was nasty, but conventional wisdom said that the Republican incumbent, George Allen, was safe and still a presidential contender for 2008.
Democratic candidate Jim Webb was running out of time to make a move. But at an August campaign stop, Sen. Allen called a Webb staffer what many consider to be a racist term, a "macaca." The Webb campaign posted a video of the event on YouTube.com, where its viewership skyrocketed. The race captured national attention, giving Webb a legitimate shot to win and striking a major blow to Allen's presidential hopes.
"That's the great thing about the Internet. If George Allen says something crazy, we can be out there the next day disseminating it to a larger public than those who were at the event or who might have seen it on the local news," said Webb online strategist Brent Blackaby.
Innovative online campaign moves like this has made Blackaby a major player on the national political scene.
Blackaby and his business partner, Larry Huynh, have built up a formidable online political consulting business, Blackrock Associates, LLC. The two have lent their expertise to campaigns such as Wesley Clark for President, Barbara Boxer for Senator (CA), Antonio Villaraigosa for Los Angeles Mayor and this election season, John Chiang for California Controller. As the Internet is used more in politics, consultants like Blackaby will likely have a greater say in how voters receive campaign information and make their political choices.
Yet Blackaby acknowledges online campaigning is just another way to engage supporters in the more traditional campaign methods like walking door--to--door and hosting house parties. "What we're doing is integrating all these different ways that people can participate, making it as easy as possible for them to feel connected to and be participants in the campaign," he said. "But I wouldn't presume to say a campaign should be run predominantly through the Internet. Technology is just a vehicle to galvanize support so you can translate it into more traditional campaign functions."
Blackaby grew up in Walla Walla, Wash., in then--Speaker of the House Tom Foley's district. He got hooked on politics early on. "I was one of those kids in Junior High who would go home after school and turn on C--SPAN, your prototypical political junkie," he said.
Blackaby planned on going to work for Foley after graduating from Harvard University. But following Foley's 1994 loss in the Republican Revolution (where the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives and many Democrats lost their seats), he instead took a job raising money for the Clinton/Gore 1996 campaign. Soon he decided to branch out from politics and entered the business world. "As someone who appreciated politics, I wanted some other base to drive from, so I wasn't doing just politics all the time," he said. "I wanted to bring another track record if I decided to enter politics later on. But I always had that political itch, whether it would have been a hobby or a vocation."
Many who have worked with Blackaby cite this business experience as a major strength he brings to politics. "Coming from a business background, Brent knows how to crunch the numbers, and can give campaigns a more complete and comprehensive analysis than they traditionally get," said Huynh. Added Blackaby: "From my time in the business world, I know how to make order out of disorder on a campaign. Campaigns, by nature, can be chaotic. Our experience can add a lot of value very quickly in that environment."
Blackaby moved to San Francisco at the height of the dot--com surge and worked for several companies, including online broker E*Trade Financial Corp. In late 2002 he was taking a break from work when Jason McIntosh, an old friend from the 1996 Clinton/Gore campaign, gave him a call about a former military General a few Democrats were floating as a candidate for President in 2004. "Looking at General Wesley Clark's experience as a career military officer, at first I said ‘No way'," Blackaby remembers. "I didn't think the Democrats would ever nominate this guy."
But the more he saw Gen. Clark speak, especially on MSNBC as a military analyst, the more Blackaby liked him. At the time, the war on terror was the predominant issue in the news. The invasion of Iraq was imminent. Blackaby saw Gen. Clark as the perfect candidate to counter what he saw as a flawed foreign policy by the Bush White House. "General Clark was a guy who could command respect on the left, middle, and right," Blackaby said. "Given what was happening in the world at that time, and how big an issue military intervention was going to be in 2004, his candidacy addressed a major weakness for the Democrats. He had the credentials, and carried himself in a powerful way that other Democrats could rally behind."
Blackaby, along with McIntosh and his future business partner Huynh, started the "Draft Clark" campaign. It was designed to show Gen. Clark he had a grassroots base from which to start a campaign. "We wanted to show him he wasn't starting from zero," said Blackaby.
The movement set up a grassroots network, so if Clark decided to run a support structure would be in place. Yet different from other traditional candidate drafting campaigns, the "Draft Clark" campaign utilized the Internet, a tool rarely used before 2003. "'Draft Clark' would have been impossible without the Internet because we had no money to organize nationwide," said Blackaby. "These were the ways we found other like--minded people, nationwide, with our limited funds."
"Draft Clark" reached out to supporters online, and initiated a localized campaign structure that made Gen. Clark's potential run viable. But the Internet was merely a way to engage supporters and voters, and Blackaby has no illusions of online replacing the old line methods. "The story of the ‘Draft Clark' movement was the Internet was used to get people organized into the campaign, but then we had to push people out into the communities," Blackaby said. "It was an organizing mechanism, but the real work was still out on the ground talking to friends, neighbors, and other people in the community."
He added: "General Clark was always reminding us that we can't just talk to each other, the people who are already sold. You have to push your message out."
The draft campaign was successful and Gen. Clark entered the race in the fall of 2003. Immediately millions of dollars poured in, and over 30,000 volunteers signed up. "Clark for President" staff are quick to highlight Blackaby's role. "Brent made a significant difference in a presidential primary, and that was pretty phenomenal," said Katie Merrill, a consultant on the Clark campaign. "'Draft Clark' was a 21st century draft campaign, and it worked. Brent understood the importance of the online part of the campaign, and integrated that success into the grassroots organizing and fundraising efforts."
It was on this campaign that Blackaby saw there was a need and a fit for technology in politics. That was when he and Huynh started Blackrock Associates, their California--based online marketing and political consulting firm. Since then, they have lent their online and political expertise to many campaigns and political organizations all over the country, and have been at the forefront of online campaigning. His work in the "macaca" incident may end up turning around the Virginia race and the leadership of the Senate. If nothing else, it gave the Webb campaign a leg up on fundraising and national press coverage.
Blackaby pointed out that Webb outraised Sen. Allen by about $1 million last quarter after the video was released online. "You can directly source this difference to the Internet," he said. "We put the ‘macaca' video on YouTube and the blogs started circulating it around. People around the country decided it was a viable option to put money into the Webb race."
Blackaby has also had to rethink online campaigning to apply it to down--ticket and smaller races that receive less media attention. "The role of the Internet changes for different campaigns," he said. "In down--ticket races with limited funds, like John [Chiang for California Controller], a lot of people will vote based on party ID with a limited amount of information. Any way you can give them incremental information might tip the balance."
As the technology matures and voters get more comfortable with receiving political information off the Internet, Blackaby's influence in politics will continue to expand. "Now everyone acknowledges they have to have someone thinking about the Internet portion of their campaign," Blackaby said. "It's gone from a quirky option to a requirement."
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