This primary season may be a signal of changes in our political landscape…

The power of the ‘long tail’ is being felt in many aspects of our lives. We increasingly want things in our life to be ‘unbundled’ – broken into smaller bits that we can pick and choose from. We Tivo television to watch it on our own terms, and prefer iPods to radio stations. We’re far more inclined to donate to very specific causes than to general charitable organizations. We buy cars today that can be personalized in hundreds of detailed ways. We are becoming a society composed of an incredibly large number of incredibly small demographics.

Often times, a demographic of just one…

This desire to personalize the world around us touches every aspect of our lives – from the media we enjoy, to the news we follow, to the faith we embrace, to the causes we believe in, to the products we consume. And to the parties and politics we subscribe to.

But that’s only a part of the story…

In past elections, it was possible for candidates to “tune” a message for different demographics. When they stumped across the country for votes, their message, language, and tone would change as they moved from area to area. They always had some common themes, but based on the audience, some subjects would be ignored or glossed over, while others would be placed front and center. They could treat each of these stump speeches as local, targeted events.

But not anymore…

In a world where everything gets recorded either officially or unofficially, nothing is local – or even private. Unlike traditional media, bloggers will compare notes and cooperate to track down inconsistencies or fabrications. If a candidate changes positions, or says something controversial, or does something that’s plain dumb, someone – somewhere – will have a record of it. It may be a grainy cell phone video from someone in the audience, or even some archive news footage that someone digs up.

And it will be viral on YouTube before a campaign can spin it…

What we are starting to witness is the nexus of two significant trends – the increasing number of narrow, ‘issue-based’ voter demographic segments, and the rapid decline of effective narrow targeted messaging.

It’s the ‘Long Tail’ meets the ‘Global Village’…

We are starting to see these elements play a big role in the contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Each side has been beaten down over seemingly contradictory stances they have taken on issues like NAFTA, immigration reform, taxes, campaign finance, or the war effort. They have been haunted by various videos from their past, almost blind to the fact that the same web tools they use to raise cash can be used to raise issues they would rather not face. Each ‘owns’ an extremely loyal core demographic, that may never embrace the other candidate if he or she wins. And party officials are becoming increasingly worried that these demographic fractures may never heal.

We see statistics after every primary contest about how a matrix of demographic combinations voted – religion, race, income, age education, martial status, and gender all come in to play. When you look at all of this in its totality, something becomes very clear.

There is no singular ‘Democratic Party’…

From looking at the conflicting and diverse interests and agendas of the various demographics that make up the party, it seems to be more of a loose affiliation of people that don’t identify themselves as Republicans rather than adherents to a broad, unifying Democratic platform. It’s not a single political body, but a small core of beliefs with many agendas in orbit around it.

And the exact same can be said about the Republican party…

At the ‘outer orbits’ of these political parties are what the media refers to as The Independents. These independents are becoming increasingly important. Neither party can win without attracting them in significant numbers. They are courted heavily by both parties and end up being the swing votes in just about every election.

And that fact isn’t lost on them…

It isn’t hard to imagine that this broad swath of voters could break off from both parties at some point if a credible political figure were to unify them into a true third party. If anything, it’s hard to understand why this hasn’t happened already. The current political parties are really just a facade masking a great deal of frustration and discontent on many issues.

They persist more by momentum than shared fundamental beliefs…

Like it has in every other aspect of society, the long tail will make itself know in the political arena. We are a diverse society confronting significant and complex issues. There is a growing consensus that our current political structure is failing us, and that the problems we face run deeper than simply the failings of one party or the other. The ideas and solutions that rise to the top of our political system are not the best our country has to offer. They are simply the ones that are least threatening to the status-quo. They are designed to sidestep any hard choices and to avoid forcing us to face unpleasant realities.

The process and outcome of this Democratic primary may force us to look more closely at these issues and decide where we will turn next for leadership. The political pundits have all said that this isn’t a campaign about experience.

It a campaign about change.

And they may have been more right than they realize…

If you needed more proof that this presidental campaign will be different from those of the past, look at this…

This is an ad that was produced by some unknown individual in support of Barack Obama, directly targeting Hillary Clinton. It is a mashup of Apple’s famous ’1984′ ad that launched the Macintosh. I’m sure this isn’t an ad that the Obama campaign would have made on it’s own, or probably even wants to have running.

But what they want doesn’t really matter in this case…

For good or ill, none of the campaigns are in complete control of their message anymore. Anyone with basic production talents can produce and distribute politically motivated messages without any support – or even agreement – from whatever campaign they feel aligned with. And the traditional print and broadcast media are no longer the gatekeepers of reach for these folks.

Reach is free – it’s now all about attention…

There are some real implications here. Having big dollars to spend can certainly help, but it doesn’t give you complete control of your message, nor necessarily connect you with the people you may want to reach with it. It simply throws what you want to say out into the market, where it quickly becomes diffuse and gets swallowed up into a big pool of noise. More importantly, it also means that even those individuals and organizations without big dollar budgets can still have a meaningful voice in the media message of any campaign or election. And this ‘secondary market’ of political activism can now survive very well without the support of mainstream political party machines. They can tap into focused demographics that are highly motivated by specific issues, and end up getting real buzz and traction.

Access to attention is now up for grabs…

An unfortunate consequence of this will probably be a rise in attack ads. This technology opens the door to smear ads and baseless acusations that could make the ‘Swiftboat’ ads of the last presidential election seem tame. No doubt candidates will be called upon to rein-in those supporters that ‘cross the line’, but without being able to leverage financial control, they will pretty much be powerless to do anything.

While truth is in short supply in any campaign, I worry that this one might be a record breaker. Passion and politics go hand in glove. Those individuals that think their candidates aren’t being forceful enough on a given issue, or striking back hard enough at a perceived attack by the oposition, can take matters into their own hands. And in that situation, ‘truthiness’ could easily win out over truth as the substance of our national discourse.

I’m sure this ‘outside political ad’ will be just the first of many to gain visibility. My hope is that future ones focus more on keeping the candidates honest, and keeping the most important issues on the agenda. The last thing our political process needs is more negativity.

It will be interesting to see how this develops…