Here it comes.  Obama’s vicotry is already reflecting on election in other parts of the world.  In Israel, not only the fact of him being the next US president is now integral part of the election campaigns of all parties (HE), but his way of running campaigns is also making its debut.  I call it the “Obama Effect”.  It refers primarily to two components - the rhetoric of change and the use of information technology, particularly the web 2.0-ish aspects of it, in the campaign.

I may talk about the rhetoric of change on a different occasion.  Now I would like to make a short note about the second point about the use of technology.  I wrote earlier about the new Likud website and this news has actually made it to New York Times already (not from my blog of course :).  However, this is not all.  Obama Effect dribbles down to the primaries season, which the Israeli parties are going through now, before they depart onto the national battle.

Michael Eitan, a Likud MK, has launched an-Obama inspired campaign for his primaries.  The campaign is called “To prove that it can be done differently” (my unprofessional translation) (HE).  Eitan’s idea is to have a transparent, grassroots oriented primaries campaign, including collecting donations on his website.  You can see how it links to the rhetorical part of Obama Effect by emphasising the change, even if using a different vacabulary. I have not seen other politician doing this, except for the new Likud website, but that is in a different league.

Eitan’s example is particularly interesting, as the primaries are traditinoally viewed in Israel as rather dirty and internal to the parties processes.  By opening up the black box of primaries to the broader public, and by reaching out to people beyond the party lines, Eitan is already dong things differently.  It will be interesting to see how it eventually works out, particularly in light of his party-boss taking the Obama-style campaigning really seriously this time.  So, far Eitan received NIS 6,500 in donations (around US $1800) from 54 people (HE), but I don’t know if it is considered a lot (I guess not that much).  Nevertheless, I think it is more than any other politician in Israel collected online for his primaries.

I am sure there are more instances of Obama Effect to come and I wonder if people in other parts of the world observe its instances.