Follow the Republican Presidential Nomination with Satellite Internet Service

A major debate among Republican presidential candidates just took place in New Hampshire. As is the case with most debates, there is no real objective way to tell who "won” a debate. Therefore, the real drama in a debate is following perceptions of who "won” or "lost,” since this will often inform a candidate's ability to raise money and generate excitement for his or her candidacy going forward. Thus, satellite Internet service is a perfect tool to follow all the scuttlebutt about how the New Hampshire debate performance will help or hurt a candidate.



This particular Republican presidential debate featured Mitt Romney, the one-term governor of Massachusetts; former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty; Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann; Texas Congressman Ron Paul; former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum; Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain; and former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich. With so little chance that any of these candidates will be able to best incumbent President Barack Obama in a presidential election, most of the discussion of the debate has focused on which candidate will be the most appealing to Republican primary voters.



It is particularly interesting to see how commentators will latch on to isolated comments or perceived personality traits to attempt to form a "narrative” about particular candidates. When these "narratives” are repeated through blog posts using satellite Internet service and heard over and over on television, these narratives can be extremely difficult to shake during the course of an election. For example, one of the primary narratives that is emerging about Tim Pawlenty is that he should have challenged Mitt Romney harder for his support of a Massachusetts health care proposal that in many ways resembles the health care bill proposed and passed by President Obama. Therefore, Pawlenty is already looking like a "weak” and "milquetoast” candidate, as quickly as that. Michele Bachmann, who was seen as a fringe candidate before the debate, is now ripe for a "second look” according to many political prognosticators, apparently now due to the simple fact that she no longer looks and talks like a crazy person.



The issue with this kind of coverage is the extent to which, to borrow an idea from physics, observing a phenomenon can affect it. Will the Republican electorate really be primed to give Michele Bachmann a second look just based on her debate performance, or will they only do it now because many people in the media believe that she should get a second look? In this way, it is somewhat less important for political operatives to influence what actually happens in a debate instead of people's perceptions of it. Given the speed with which news can travel and narratives can form with satellite Internet service, this kind of "second-order” communications strategy is now de rigeur. In this postmodern age, it's almost as if reality doesn't matter, but instead our perception of reality. The immersive nature of Internet service, as well as its speed, has made this state of affairs possible, and the implications this will have for future presidential elections are still unknown at this time.



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