Local Races To Heat Up This Summer

By Andrew at June 7th, 2009.

Local elections in 2009 will occur in what is generally considered an “off-year” in politics. With no federal elections this year, and following a 2 year presidential campaign season that fatigued much of the electorate, the elections for King County Executive and for Mayor of Seattle may fly under the radar.

Candidate forums held thus far have had little attendance and even less coverage. The real momentum of this campaign cycle will be picking up this summer and into the fall. When the media doesn’t cover a race as much, it leaves an opportunity for candidates to take charge of communicating with the public, especially with advances in new media.

In the race for King County Executive, Susan Huchison launched a new website , and it will be interesting to see how the veteran of broadcast news will make use on new media in this campaign cycle. So far, her website doesn’t feature links to any social networking sites, such as Twitter, Facebook or another. There is a YouTube slideshow, but it is a little underwhelming.

Every campaign should have a video that grabs a visitor’s attention. These can be useful for a campaign in executing earned media coverage, because posts on YouTube and other sites can drive up traffic to the homepage–and get coverage in the local press. An excellent example is the mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom’s HD campaign video announcing his entrance into the California Governor’s race.

Another King County Executive candidate, Larry Philips, does have a video on his website. Two other main contenders, Dow Constantine, and Fred Jarrett, also have their campaign websites up. Constantine is clearly working the social media strategy to get the word out, with links to all of the main social networking sites on his homepage. Jarrett has one for Facebook.

Overall, the candidates web presence is adequate, essentially what they need to be for a race like this, and at this point in the game. As summer rolls in, It will be interesting to watch how candidates make use of the internet in their campaigns to help raise awareness for their candidacy. Especially as they spend more face time with the public at summer events.

Tags: Dow Constantine, Fred Jarrett, King County Executive, Larry Phillips, New Media, Seattle, Susan Hutchison, Technology, Washington