Obama, Palin viruses duel for public’s attention

Mario Martinez

Sunday, Sept. 14, 2008 | 2 a.m.

In 2007 former cell phone salesman Paul Potts went viral. He sang the famous operatic aria “Nessun Dorma” on the “Britain’s Got Talent” TV show. Potts won first place, and a YouTube video of him went viral.

Going viral brings immeasurable exposure and fame (or infamy) in the Information Age, carrying infinite value because it creates a public buzz that Madison Avenue can only envy. So how was Potts able to go viral? And what does going viral have to do with the presidential race?

First, let’s start with the necessary ingredients for going viral. Something (or someone) goes viral on the Internet when the psychological conditions for good old-fashioned curiosity are met.

The conditions for curiosity are met when two seemingly disparate conceptualizations are juxtaposed, creating a combination of intrigue and confusion. The observer unconsciously seeks to resolve this intrigue and confusion by searching for any and all information that will help put the matter to rest.

So now we know why Potts went viral. Potts is a humble-looking chap who, upon first impression, would not be expected to bring tears to your eyes by singing Puccini. Potts’ appearance did not jibe with the public’s perception of what he was capable of doing.

The public’s curiosity was piqued, and Potts went viral. Today, Potts is living his dream of singing opera, all because he went viral.

The second and more interesting question: What does going viral have to do with the presidential race? The answer: quite a lot. And I might be so bold as to claim that it is only by going viral that one candidate surged into the public conscious, while another was able to create his own virus and draw even in the polls.

The fate of the presidency may well rest on whether one candidate (John McCain) can maintain his current virus or the other (Barack Obama) can weaken it or maintain his own.

Obama went viral sometime in 2007, riding the crest in early 2008. Obama presented somewhat of a conundrum to the public at large. People, whether they are conscious of it or not, still carry with them stereotypes based on one’s general attractiveness and, yes, skin color.

Malcolm Gladwell has written eloquently about this persistent fact, and there can be little debate about it despite our individual or collective denials that we are beyond that now. In Obama, we are presented with a charismatic black man whose eloquent speaking ability is, quite simply, mesmerizing.

Add to this the Internet depictions of Obama at Harvard, and we must reconcile our past stereotypes with the possibility of his occupying the Oval Office. That picture created a great public curiosity, which inevitably led to Obama’s going viral.

The tenacious Hillary Clinton fought hard to weaken the Obama virus, but the viral effect would not be eradicated, and it propelled Obama to his historic Democratic presidential nomination.

The instinctual McCain was surely at his wits’ end, trying to figure out how to stop the Obama virus. In Sarah Palin he found a counterattack. Palin has gone viral because the conditions of public curiosity have been met, though through different means for men and women.

Palin’s attractiveness does not mesh with the stereotypes of what men think a vice president should look like. She is quite a contrast to Dick Cheney.

One can also find pictures of Palin proudly presiding over a freshly killed caribou. Attractive woman kills caribou and wants to be vice president — men’s curiosity is piqued. Women, on the other hand, view Palin not for how she looks but for who she is.

She is a mother of five, struggling with challenging family issues, working as a governor, and running for vice president — women’s curiosity is piqued. The combination of these conceptualizations is predictable: Palin has gone viral.

Elections are serious business, so we may wish to deny that viruses influence our political choices. But going viral does matter, and to influence the public one must capture first the emotional and then the rational attention of those whose approval they seek.

Obama is now deploying his formidable intellectual capacity to the business of policy solutions in areas such as education and energy. Those are the things that we claim really matter when we go to the polls.

McCain is currently focusing on the wave of the Palin virus. Those are the things that we claim do not matter when we go to the polls. The point is not whether Obama’s policy positions are better than McCain’s, for we will have the opportunity to hear the debates to level that decision.

What is clear is that each camp is taking a different strategic direction in the final stretch of this intriguing campaign season. Obama’s original virus captured people emotionally, but will that emotion, complemented by his rational attention to policy detail, be enough to overcome the current Palin virus?

Mario Martinez is an associate professor of higher education at UNLV.