Are Your Clients Acting Like Election Candidates?

About a week ago, a politician came to our door campaigning for a Montana house seat. He was giving a talk at the local church across the street so he was making the rounds. He seemed like a decent guy. He stood for a lot of the things I did—alternative energy, school reform, better use of the coal tax money to small business, etc. But he also brought up Social Security and Medicare. He should have left that at the church across the street. He paid no attention to the fact I was 20 years younger than his church audience. Same pitch, regardless who he was talking to.

This guy was a Democrat. Traditionally, Democrats appeal to younger voters. I asked for his card so I could check out his Website and e-mail him my blog link. He had no Website, no Facebook page, no Twitter address. He didn't even have his e-mail printed on his card. I immediately gave him back the yard sign he gave me. How could I support someone who didn't even have his e-mail address printed on his card?

Yesterday I read an article in Fast Company about the lack of social media use in this year’s election. Even though Facebook boasts more than 130 million active users in the U.S. and Twitter is sitting at about half that, many campaigns are spending less than 5% of their budgets online. Now it’s safe to say that a good portion of these users are younger, ages 18 to 40. Not only does this group use social media and online sources for their information, it’s far and away their primary source.

Are these candidates, in both parties, oblivious to this fact or do they just not care about what these people think? How do they expect any support from them? Heck, Obama rode the younger generation and text messages to the White House. Didn't this crew learn anything. Generations X and Y will come out and vote for candidates that talk to them—in the language they speak. If they don’t, they’ll stay home and wait for someone who does.