There can be no question that this year’s election campaign is the widest, most accessible election in this nation’s history. Hard-to-reach voters are being charged up, in a big way, as a result of social media efforts by individual citizens.

One obvious example of this – YouTube. Used early in the campaign by Barack Obama’s folks, YouTube was successfully deployed to build massive interest within a typically de facto disenfranchised group, America’s young voters.

The Obama campaign recognized early on that this election would be won or lost based on social media efforts; a smart move for a grass roots campaign.

While the John McCain campaign has ignored these efforts, their strategy instead was to energize a nearly as politically uninspired group, stay-at-home moms. This group is one of the largest growing groups actively utilizing social media networks to stay in touch with other moms, and stay informed.

The problem for the McCain camp, however – those who don’t support him know these social networks better and know how to use them.

Here’s a good example of these efforts at work – YouTube videos contrasting John McCain’s election promises over the years with what he has been saying recently in this campaign of “change”. These are not opinion talk pieces, but instead are a collection of network news interviews and sound bites showing how his position has changed from election year to election year. The results are explosive!

Sound bites may last for a few days, or maybe even a week, but CNN reports captured on video, held in posterity for all eternity by each and every individual who desires it through mediums like YouTube, makes for a very enlivened campaign.

All these efforts are being driven, and many developed, by self-appointed political pundits, journalists and self-made commentators like me, who desire to have their voice heard in a world that seems to drown out the every-day average citizen.

What do these changes in political campaign strategies and tactics mean? If this year’s presidential election is any indication, it will mean further degradation of a political process already wrought with negative incentives toward winning.

What used to be “stretching the truth to avoid the reality” has now become “outright lies because who cares about the real issues anyway”.

What politicians using these means are banking on is that voters won’t really care about all the minor details. Proof of this lies in the recent Gibson-Palin interviews.

Those who already liked Palin were satisfied with the results of these interviews. Despite liberal claims that Palin was unsuccessfully crammed with last-minute information and proved inept during the interviews, Palin supporters said “she did well considering.”

In other words what these voters are in essence saying is “we don’t care about all the little details, we’re just gonna vote on who we “perceive” is the most popular, or better, or who just looks more like us.”

Political research has repeatedly indicated that many individuals will vote on a candidate not because they know anything about the issues involved, but simply based on how they look, or how they “feel” about that person’s ability to do the job. This election year is pushing the envelope, and pulling voters in who wouldn’t have cared about politics at all before (not even voted) but now are fired up.

The implications for politics in this nation from this point forward loom large. Whether this election year results in a more inclusive political process, or a more dumbed down political electorate, only time will tell.

Take a look at the YouTube videos referenced above here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioy90nF2anI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtZlR3zp4c