The Pretoria News is currently running one of my articles on South African politics. A sample:

Clever marketing has the potential to act as a force multiplier, levelling the political system and allowing smaller parties to compete on a more even footing with the ANC. But there is also some danger here that parties may delude themselves into thinking sophisticated marketing is a substitute for good policy ideas and a coherent political philosophy.

Much of the commentary written about the Obama campaign has already fallen into this trap by emphasising the campaign’s more superficial aspects: the use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and various other tech-savvy means of organising supporters and raising funds. These things are interesting, but they are secondary to the central story of the Obama victory, which is that policy matters. Obama won because he correctly identified the issues that voters most cared about, and offered policies that assuaged their anxieties.