Meet the Author

According to Garrett Graff, an author, journalist and teacher, YouTube and iTunes are the future of presidential campaigning.

Graff discussed the effect of technology and globalization on American politics as he read passages from his book, "The First Campaign: Globalization, the Web and the Race for the White House" at WBFO's Meet the Author event this past Tuesday.

Although he is only 26 years old, Graff speaks about politics with experience; immediately after graduating from college, he joined Howard Dean's campaign. Graff then became a blogger and journalist, covering politics and technology. He was an editor at the Washingtonian magazine and currently teaches Internet journalism at Georgetown University.

"I really don't know how the election is going to turn out at all," Graff said. "It looks like it will be McCain versus Obama - real star candidates with contrasting views for the future."

According to Graff, technology and globalization will play an important role in the outcome of the 2008 election and politics over the next 50 years, but the matter has largely been ignored in the United States.

"Leaders with a level of ignorance on technology issues get away with it, but wouldn't if that same ignorance was on other issues," Graff said. "It's where the most interesting stuff is happening right now."

He explained that the change to wireless engagement in politics results in people straying from the mainstream media. Graff thinks technologies that have changed since the last presidential election, such as blogs, podcasts, cell phones and personal digital assistants like the Blackberry, are to the public's advantage.

Now, online viewers can visit YouTube.com or download videos to iTunes and watch any political function on-demand at their leisure. During past elections, coverage of an event on the news was the only chance a voter had to get the information.

"Barack Obama's political speeches are some of the most downloaded things on iTunes," Graff said. "The Democrats control the Senate today because of YouTube."

Graff thinks that Ron Paul's presidential run illustrates the importance of new technology. The online support he generated took him from having one percent of the vote in the polls to tying Rudy Giuliani in votes.

Barack Obama is also raising millions of dollars online.

"The only thing keeping Barack Obama competitive with Hillary Clinton is small-dollar, online fundraising," Graff said.

The way online fundraising works is through small donations of $10 to $50 via credit card each month or even more frequently, Graff explained. This is beneficial to the presidential candidates as major dollar donors eventually max out on their donation funds while small-dollar donors can keep on giving throughout the campaign.

Graff aims in his book to engage the younger generations of voters and show them how important the recent technological changes are to politics, because he believes they will influence future elections dramatically.

"The millennial generation is the largest generation in history, even more than the baby boomers, it's an incredible force," Graff said.

Graff believes that the next president will need to address America's health care problems and reform business.

He mentioned up General Motors and Starbucks as examples of companies that spend more money on health care than steel or coffee beans, respectively. Graff believes this is the reason why GM has almost been overtaken by Toyota.

"My whole thesis in the book is that we used to have domestic issues and foreign issues and a health care plan that made sense and it is impossible to do that today," he said.