The most obvious outcome of the difference in exposure can be shown in the differences in funding between the two candidates. Obama managed to raise $639 million through equal amounts of donations both large and small. By contrast, the McCain campaign only managed to raise $360 million. This was, in part, due to McCain’s decision to opt into the public financing system, restricting him to $84 million of public money to fund his campaign, with no private donations accepted after the 1^st September. The gap does reflect an overdependence of McCain on traditional means of raising donations through established channels such as individual donations from Republican party members, and sympathetic business. This difference has other implications. He was not gaining visitors to his blog on the scale of Obama, and was missing out on potentially important secondary and tertiary feedback from the electorate. The ability to comment on Obama’s blog directly, or to use other aspects of social netorking like Twitter to comment about him and his policies provided invaluable feedback on policy, and allowed him to tailor his message towards the electorate.

Was the failing of McCain and his campaign team to appreciate the impact social media can have the reason why he lost the election? At first, it appears to coincide nicely, but does this stand up to closer scrutiny. McCain’s ignorance was a clever move, the sign of a shrewd operator. Obama had portrayed himself as a candidate that was modern and aware of the times. He was one of the youngest Presidential candidates in history. At 71, McCain was 24 years older than his opponent, and appeared as the grand old man of American politics, a man who’d been there and done it all before, fighting against a man who still looked wet behind the ears.

With this image in the public’s imagination, McCain’s image could have been damaged by embracing social networking. McCain using Facebook is like your grandad using it, just a little bit too scary to believe. This seems bourne out by the fact that McCain’s Facebook page has only 602,000 supporters, whilst Obama’s page on the same site has more than three million. This gives weight to the notion that Obama’s age was instrumental in gaining support from the younger half of the electorate. With this in mind, it could be argued that a stronger presence within the social networking community would not have made any noticable difference to the McCain campaign, no amount of twittering could change his age.

However, there is a flip side to this. Surely, a stronger presence on social networking sites would have emphasised his willingnesss to communicate in new ways, ensuring his appeal to a younger demographic and stealing Obama’s spotlight. This might not have won him the election, but it would certainly have gone a long way towards spreading his and his party’s appeal among a newly politicised American generation.

However, a key part of McCain’s appeal was his image as an elder statesman. An important element of this was his experience in Vietnam. Internment for five and a half years left him physically unable to move his hands above his shoulders, and severly limited his ability to use a computer. Despite this, it does not seem beyond the realms of possibility that his aides could act on his behalf. Although writing in someone else’s name does break a golden rule, his opinions could easily have dictated his musings. This might have bent the rules, but certainly wouldn’t break them, and would at least give an online presence and would provide the ‘blogosphere’ with something to talk about, and provide him with valuable feedback.

A further important point is how the Obama campaign was able to transfer the online benefits of social networking into small town America. The campaign was revolutionary in the flexibility it gave to Obama’s election offices throughout the country. People were simply told what the message was, then given free reign to pass it on. This lack of top-down control enabled word of mouth messages to be spread quickly and easily. This is in sharp contrast to the McCain campaign, which operated a much more inflexible system, relying on fewer, larger offices to get the same message across.

Perhaps we should not be surprised that the ability of social media to make a difference to the outcome of the election was extremely limited. The very nature of the internet means that people who read and commented on Obama’s blog would not necessarily be eligible to vote. Furthermore, to suggest that social media was the defining factor behind Obama’s victory would be dangerous. Doing so would ignore all other factors behind the result, from American dissatisfaction with the Republican foreign policy and a candidate committed to supporting an unpopular war on the McCain side, to a candidate that presented himself as a fresh start prepared to change America.

Faced with this opposition, it seems fair to suggest that social media was not able to change the outcome, merely emphasise the ideas that were already held by those who made the final decision, the American public.