Political underdogs appeal to ‘Net-surfing voters

Martin Kuz

Sunday, March 22, 1998 | 9:32 a.m.

Criticized for running the stealthiest campaign money can buy, Kenny Guinn has never hidden his opinion that when it comes to education, he's the man.

Few could find fault with the Republican gubernatorial candidate's curriculum vitae. His past gigs include Clark County School District superintendent, UNLV president and chairman of the university's Las Vegas Foundation board of trustees. He's even earned the title of "distinguished Nevadan" from the state's university and college community systems.

Given that academic pedigree, it might come as a surprise, then, to click on to the Guinn campaign web site (www.Guinn98.com) and find enough spelling errors to make an English teacher swallow her tongue.

"Difference" is rendered "differenece." "Constant" turns into something vaguely French-sounding, "constante." At least "state" becomes another word, although it's hard to figure how Guinn "has been an integral part of every aspect of our stat..."

Such gaffes might be expected on the web site of, say, Dan Quayle, not the self-styled education candidate. But an explanation of sorts can be gleaned from Terry Murphy, Guinn's deputy press secretary, who admitted that, at the moment, the Internet is not a vital part of his campaigne. Er, campaign.

"For now, I don't want to say it's a novelty, but for us it's simply a communication tool," Murphy said.

On the other side of cyberspace floats Democratic candidate Joe Neal, the man who would be Guinn -- that is, the guy who wants to be the front-runner.

Neal's web site (www.Neal98.org), aside from an absence of spelling mistakes, features links to newspapers across Nevada and the state Democratic party, as well as the latest poll numbers. From a quick scan of his site, it's evident the underdog has the upper hand on the Net.

"The Internet allows you to run a guerilla war against a candidate, Kenny Guinn, who is running a conventional war," said Neal campaign manager Andrew Barbano, who maintains the web site. "It allows you to move very quickly and inexpensively."

Yet whether any of that cheap maneuvering will matter on Election Day is, well, another matter.

The differing approaches to the Internet taken by the Guinn and Neal camps reflect that politicians, just like real people, aren't quite sure if cyberspace is worth the trip. Everyone knows about the Net; they just don't [italics] know [end italics] the Net. To a good number of folks, the World Wide Web sounds mildly sinister, the name of some distant totalitarian regime or a new Spice Girls album.

As a result, putting up a snappy web site and carpet bombing the online hordes with e-mail may save a candidate from wearing out that favorite pair of wing tips. But whether it will offer a jolt at the ballot box or in campaign coffers is an issue that for now falls squarely into the same category as many voters: undecided.

This year marks the first time the governor's race has involved serious cyber campaigning. As Guinn, Neal and Republican hopeful Aaron Russo scramble to press the flesh the old-fashioned way, their web sites extend a virtual handshake to thousands of potential supporters -- in and out of Nevada -- that they otherwise would never meet.

The question is, will anyone care?

[DROP CAP] If the word "nowhere" didn't exist, the phrase might have become "the middle of Tonopah." Still, it's home to Bruce Allen, who likes the town of 3,616 residents well enough, even if it isn't ground zero on the campaign trail.

"Our library here is 20'-by-20', and we're 3 1/2 hours from Las Vegas and four hours from Reno," said Allen, 55. "So the Net is our New York Times, Encyclopedia Brittanica and so on."

It is also a political lifeline for the clinical psychologist and self-avowed "yellow-dog Democrat," who surfs the Net for news he can't find on TV or in daily papers. After landing on the Neal web site one evening a few weeks ago, Allen began trading e-mails with Barbano. The cyberspace exchange netted good news for the money-starved campaign: Allen and his wife, Yoko, agreed to host a fund-raiser for the state senator at their home April 5.

To Allen's recollection, Neal's dropping by represents the first-ever visit of a gubernatorial candidate to Tonopah. What makes his appearance in such a pol-forsaken place even more notable is that without the Internet, "it probably wouldn't have happened," Barbano said.

Digging up volunteers online remains as difficult as finding a politician without a past. But the Allen example hints at the Internet's potential to mine heretofore unexplored nooks of Nevada for supporters and contributions. About 10 new people visit the Neal site every day, a number that Barbano rightly pointed out "would be considered pretty good foot traffic if they were coming into your campaign headquarters."

Added Bruce Bimber, a political science professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara and director of the school's Government and Politics on the Net project: "As a supplement to (campaign) brochures hanging on the doorknob or placed under the windshield wiper, the Internet is another way to get the word out. It's an alternative to broadcast and print media at a relatively low cost."

Compared to the prohibitive price of TV ads, billboards, phone banks and bulk mailings, the day-to-day expense of maintaining a web site is less than what you paid for this newspaper. That's essential for candidates like Russo and Neal, who besides trailing Guinn in the polls are fund-raising paupers next to the $2.5 million man.

The financial gulf is at least one reason why Neal and Russo have aggressively staked out their Internet turf. Cyberspace is perhaps the only area Guinn, the establishment's candidate of choice, hasn't already claimed.

So Barbano updates Neal's web site almost daily with newspaper articles and quotes from TV reports that detail the candidate's views. Russo dishes out his opinions on issues such as storing nuclear waste in Nevada (bad) and alternative medicine (good), while also urging visitors to register in something called the Book of Liberty.

Guinn's site, meanwhile, includes an obviously dated letter of introduction from his wife, Dema, who says she's looking forward to meeting constituents "over the next year."

"If Joe Neal is going to win this thing, it's got to be by tapping untraditional sources," said Barbano, who bombards 40 e-mail lists to get the word out to volunteers. "You can't defeat a conventional army with a frontal assault."

Untraditional, indeed. What makes the Net attractive to both casual surfers and political junkies is that unlike traditional campaign propaganda, a web site doesn't clutter up the mailbox or disrupt the nightly news. It's just there, all the time, waiting to be used when people need it. More importantly, on the Net, voters receive the candidate's message without it first going through the media sieve. This is what Russo likes to refer to as "cutting the fat out."

"The less people you have to go through, the more direct control you have over information," said Russo, who plans to add to his web site (www.Russo4gov.com) as the campaign wears on. "You can reach millions of people without a network or newspaper distorting it, whether through ignorance or intent."

Neal backer and Las Vegas resident Arno Seegers put it another way. "I can get what I want straight from the horse's mouth."

[DROP CAP] Three days before the 1996 presidential election, Republican nominee Bob Dole went on a whirlwind tour of the country to dredge up a last gasp of support. What he should have done was hang out on his web site for 72 hours and answer every question voters hurled at him. That's what Jon Katz would have advised.

"It would've been a huge media sensation," said Katz, media critic for the computer magazine Wired and other national publications.

Dole didn't hop online, of course, and wound up doing credit card ads. But despite the splash a Dole-in-cyberspace gambit could have made, Katz conceded it wouldn't have affected anything where it counted: at the polls.

"The Web has incredible potential. But it's had almost no impact on politics," he said.

Perhaps the only commodity hyped more than the Internet these days is Pamela Lee. Ubiquitous as the Net sometimes seems, however, it's easy to forget there are only 15 million people online nationwide. Two years ago, for example, fewer than 10 percent of eligible voters sought out campaign material on the Net about Dole and Bill Clinton, Bimber said.

Its novelty status explains why candidates -- for now, anyway -- can ignore the Net and still be successful. The proof lies in Guinn's campaign bank account, which is bloated with donations from corporate and private contributors who likely don't care, or even know, that he has a web site. A grass-roots effort in cyberspace sounds great, but money has become the way of American politics. And company boardrooms, not Internet chatrooms, is where it's at.

"Fat cats want person-to-person schmoozing," Katz said. "You can't get that on the Web."

As donations pour into Guinn's coffers from traditional sources, it only makes sense that his campaign has pumped money into traditional advertising instead of the Net. Those billboards plastered with his 8-foot-wide smile may make hardcore liberals wince during their morning commute, but they also reach fence-sitters and moderates. The same goes for his TV and radio ads.

In short, if the web site snags a donation here or there, it's a bonus. If not, the Guinn campaign will roll on, Murphy said.

"We haven't looked at it (the Internet) as a fund-raising tool," Murphy said. "It will raise some funds, but it's more of a tool to communicate with volunteers."

Murphy doubts the Internet will significantly increase voter turnout in the governor's race. She's probably right. But the results of a recent Wired/ Merrill Lynch survey of Net users suggest politicians would do well to continue their cyberspace exploration.

The study disputes the stereotype of Net regulars as bug-eyed porn addicts and wigged-out conspiracy theorists. Instead, "the online world encompasses many of the most informed and participatory citizens we have ever had or are likely to have," Katz wrote in Wired's December issue.

Informed, participatory -- and neglected, at least in Nevada.

As yet, none of the three gubernatorial hopefuls has figured out how to engage the state's Net population. To be sure, Guinn's web site has glaring typos and limp information. But Neal's and Russo's sites don't serve as too much more than electronic brochures. Rather than entice online audiences to weigh in on their pet causes like censorship and the IRS, the sites passively restate views both men have expressed elsewhere.

Still, eight months before the election, any candidate could capitalize. And once politicians start addressing the Net masses as a distinct constituency that is wealthier, better educated and, surprisingly, more conservative than commonly portrayed, the votes and donations from cyberspace will start to flow, the Wired survey concluded.

"People online are just waiting for someone who speaks to them," Katz said. "It's ripe for the plucking."

[DROP CAP] While merely slapping up a web site doesn't necessarily translate into votes, it at least tells the likes of Reno resident Gary Pierce that a candidate knows his HTML from his AOL.

"It just shows they're not afraid of new technology," said Pierce, who has built a web site for his business, Reno-Tahoe and Las Vegas Tour Co. "They're willing to look into the future."

Next door in California -- where the future, for better or worse, usually happens first -- a portent for Nevada politics has emerged. Of 97 statewide candidates running for office this year, almost two-thirds already have web sites, according to Kim Alexander of the California Voter Foundation, an online voter information service.

Alexander founded the nonprofit, nonpartisan organization in 1994 to shed light on everything from campaign finance laws to candidates' views. Each year since, the web site (www.calvoter.org) has grown in popularity. On Election Day two years ago, thousands of voters logged on searching for last-minute help in making up their minds, an indication that a candidate's own web site could be the margin between a victory rally and a concession speech.

"You have to make sure the voters who show up on your doorstep on the Web get the information they want. If they don't, it could make the difference in a tight race," Alexander said.

No similar online voter group exists in Nevada, which makes individual web sites all the more crucial, particularly in extending a candidate's reach beyond state boundaries. Although Russo is gunning for the Republican nomination, his site includes links to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the kinds of features bound to inspire libertarian types across the country.

Barbano has played up Neal's national appeal by including newspaper articles and sending out e-mails that mention how he could become the first black governor west of the Mississippi River. The hope, Barbano said, is that "some guy in New Jersey who has a brother in Henderson will see the site, call him up and tell him about this Joe Neal guy."

And if that Jersey man instead tells his brother about that Kenny Guinn guy or that Aaron Russo guy, well, that's democracy for you.

"Anyway you look at it," Pierce said, "if you can get information off the Net and make an educated vote, that's to everyone's benefit."

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