Democratic US President-elect Barack Obama is not taking any chances with applicants. For those that have kept track of the campaign for Senator Barack Obama of Illinois (he is set to resign his Senate seat on Sunday in preparation for the transition), it did a good job of utilizing the capabilities of the Internet. This was one of the things that played well for Obama.
However, it did not play well for then-Democratic co-frontrunner Senator Hillary Clinton of New York during the Democratic primary nor did it play well for GOP nominee Senator John McCain of Arizona in the general election.
During a meeting of the Republican Governors Association on Wednesday, November 12, in Miami, Florida, Frank Luntz addressed the Internet problem. He compared the technology advantage between Obama and McCain. Luntz said that Obama had millions of e-mails stored and added that McCain did not know how to use a BlackBerry.
This shows that the Obama campaign knew how to use the Internet to its advantage. It plans on utilizing the full power of the Internet when Obama takes office in January 2009. While the Internet comes with advantages, there are risks in which need to be looked out for.
Applicants will be required to fill out a nine-page questionnaire on their Internet history. They will be required to disclose information from Facebook, MySpace, AsianAve, Migente, Black Planet, CNET, YouTube, blogs, online journals, etc. It asks for each post that the applicant has made on such websites. This is many pertaining to posts and comments on such websites.
In a nutshell, Obama administration wants to know the applicants’ Internet history. This may be a plan to avoid the situation when then-President Bill Clinton appointed Lani Guinier as assistant attorney general.
It was revealed that Guinier was in favor of racial quotas. As a result, Clinton withdrew his nomination of Guinier.
So far, this questionnaire is aimed to avoid unseen problems that could potentially pop up.
However, this questionnaire could potentially draw fire as a result. At the same time, this could be perceived as playing it smart as well. From what it is initially designed to do, it may seem that Obama is preparing himself for when opponents decide to “criticize” and “attack” his nominations upon entering into office.