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"We\u2019ve all become accustomed to the presence of social media in American politics, but few, if any, could have predicted the rise of Reddit as a force in the coming cycle of elections. Here at TNW we have covered the topic a number of times, openly asking if Reddit is to take a role large enough to merit scrutiny in the current election cycle. We\u2019re ready to call it: yes.\r\n\r\nPerhaps no more indicative of this is the candidacy of Rob Zerban, a candidate for Wisconsin 1st congressional district. Why Mr. Zerban, and not a race from a larger, more heavily populated state? The story begins with Paul Ryan, and the general animus that Reddit has for his policies. But that\u2019s only the half of it, as Zerban is also staunchly opposed to the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, which Reddit itself is virulently opposed to.\r\n\r\nEven that, however, doesn\u2019t explain the media coverage that Zerban has received in the last several weeks, with a great many of those stories mentioning Reddit. It\u2019s a tale worth telling, so we called up the man himself, and had him tell us the story. Of course, we\u2019re retelling a story told to us by a politician, so keep your de-rosifying glasses handy. Let\u2019s go.\r\n\r\nZerban raised slightly more than a half million dollars for his campaign in 2011. That\u2019s a tidy sum, but not an eye raising quantity; politics in the United States is only becoming more expensive. However, some 220,000 of that final tally came in the last calendar quarter. And of that 220,000 more than 15,000 was raised in just a matter of days.\r\n\r\nYou can call that the Reddit effect.\r\n\r\nIn our interview, Mr. Zerban noted that he has always taken the time, through his entire campaign, to talk to both volunteers and supporters. \u201CI\u2019m always asked,\u201D he told TNW in describing his phone calls, \u201Cis this really you?\u201D That level of granular interaction led to his holding an \u2018AMA\u2019 on Reddit. The acronym \u2018AMA\u2019 stands for \u2018Ask Me Anything.\u2019 Essentially, Zerban unfolded a chair, sat down, said hello to the Reddit community, and took its questions en masse.\r\n\r\nWhat followed was shocking, Zerban told TNW, as the queries and posts poured in by the hundred. It was a much larger reaction than had been anticipated. Zerban was not phased: \u201CIt was incredible.\u201D In some ways it was a perfect storm: a personable, anti-SOPA candidate running against the disliked (by Reddit) Paul Ryan answering questions as they came. It went on and on.\r\n\r\nTwo days later, Zerban went back to thank Reddit for its sending him over 15,000 dollars in that 48 hours. At that point, he also noted that his campaign had signed up \u2018hundreds\u2019 of new volunteers. In short, a candidate that was relatively unknown became a common name to many, raised funds at a sharply elevated rate, and found a first spike in search volume.\r\n\r\nYou can read more on the SOPA bruhaha that Paul Ryan, Zerban\u2019s incumbent competition here, but we bring you this story to show off just what Reddit can now do: change the national political discourse. Zerban has managed to make his race with Ryan, a very well-funded and if polarizing, certainly eminent figure in American Politics, into a real run. I suspect that this is only the first salvo; Reddit, as a community, is learning that when it throws its weight and cash around, it can have real impact. Once the process is tuned, who knows what it might accomplish."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2012/01/17/how-reddit-turned-one-congressional-candidates-campaign-upside-down/>