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September 2, 2010
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Candidates turn to e-media for votes
Published October 30, 2009
With campaign Web sites, blogs, Facebook and Twitter, it’s no longer just national candidates using cyber-campaigning to win elections — as anyone following the Grayson election just has to log on to find out.
Current Grayson Mayor Jim Hinkle may not have as many friends on his Facebook page as his opponent Damon Ladd-Thomas, but the jabs between the two are coming just as fast and furious. Both candidates are also known to tweet every now and then.
In the past, candidates used Web sites to let voters know what they stood for and what talents they would bring to the table. But now with social networking making for more interactive cyber socializing, even at the local level Internet campaigning has become much more of a mudslinging match.
On his Facebook page, Hinkle has been running a “question of the day,” which subtly points out things about his opponent, such as, “How can you run for mayor when you are totally ignorant of city government, since you never attended a single government meeting prior to qualifying?” Another points out Ladd-Thomas didn’t vote in the 2006 liquor-by-the-drink referendum.
The city confirmed Ladd-Thomas hadn’t attended any previous city council meetings prior to the announcement he was running for mayor and didn’t vote in the LBTD referendum.
Ladd-Thomas has responded with a link to the city’s Web site, telling people to check the calendar of events — such as early voting times — and then pointing out the information isn’t there. He has also used it to question whether the mayor is accurately reporting how many previous Grayson mayors are voting for him. Ladd-Thomas claims two out of the four previous mayors’ endorsements that Hinkle claims in his campaign literature have actually said they would vote for him and not Hinkle.
A check with the former mayors reveals that while Hinkle claims all four verbally endorsed him at the beginning, they haven’t necessarily stuck with those endorsements. Ladd-Thomas and Hinkle both claim former Mayor Buck Brownlee verbally endorsed them but Brownlee went on record saying he would rather not commit to either candidate. Former Mayor John Wayne said he is definitely endorsing Ladd-Thomas and Doug Wilkerson and Stacy Britt confirmed they endorsed Hinkle and were sticking with it.
The closer it gets to the date of the election, the nastier the back and forth has become. But according to a September 2009 report by the Pew Internet study on the Internet and Civic Engagement, activity on the Internet doesn’t necessarily translate to votes at the booth. As an example, it cites the 2004 presidential campaign of Howard Dean where he initially appeared to blast onto the scene with his campaign manager declaring the Internet as “the most democratizing innovation we’ve ever seen — more so even than the printing press.” But that didn’t translate into the votes Dean needed to win at the polls. However, sources quoting the study point out it doesn’t take into account the effects of the social networking sites on President Barack Obama’s win in 2008 and how much the Internet had to do with the outcome.
Whether it’s the candidates’ cyber campaigning or the contentious tone of the debate isn’t clear, but something appears to be getting Grayson voters out to the polls this year if early voting is anything to go by.
By Wednesday, the gentlemanly campaign in Loganville — very little of it on the Internet, had only managed to get 20 early voters out in a city of 6,241 registered voters — not even half a percent.
On the other hand, Grayson, a city of 1490 registered voters, already had 83 early votes in, almost 6 percent of the city’s voters.
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