Today’s Obama election victory is hailed as transformational and of course it is if we compare his likely presidency with the previous incumbent.

An immediate question in New Zealand will be how this might translate for the fortunes of the political parties in our own election? But let me start with a short analysis of some of the big communication’s lessons.

Barack Obama and John McCain showed that social media is no passing fad. Both candidates embraced blogs, social networks and web video. Obama’s campaign went much further and created its own social networks that raised money and secured crucial support.

It might also spell the end for the big formal political speeches so popular with our own politicians. Obama in particular showed how symbolism could be presented without embellishment to touch people where they were thinking and feeling. Of course much of Obama’s speech making sounds like high-flown rhetoric to us but there is no doubting his impact on the emotions of those ‘who wanted to believe in hope’.

Obama also showed that we should never be afraid to try something new and to take risks. This is certainly something lacking in our own leaders’ debates and contributes to the ‘turn-off’ factor experienced in much of the campaign generally.

Of course one important lesson is that it helps to have millions of dollars to spend on a campaign. Let’s not go down that track.

So what of the implications for our own election?

On face value one could say that it will assist National – their campaign seeks ‘change’ as Obama’s did so successfully. Added to this is the curiously symbolic impact of colour – blue is the Democrat’s colour and red is the Republicans.

But there are few other parallels. The Bush administration has become the most deeply unpopular in recent memory. That certainly hurt McCain and assisted Obama.  But Helen Clark is no George W Bush and her approval ratings have never fallen far behind John Key’s, even after nine years in office. And Obama and the Democrats represent the centre left of US politics, as New Zealand Labour do here.

A great truism of life is that anyone can be a hypocrite…and we all are!

But I’m intrigued by the anonymous comments from those affronted by the Labour ads produced for the current campaign. Is it because they disagree with the messages? Probably, but in nearly all cases they’re attacked on the basis that they attack! Do you get the irony in that?

But I guess if I’m not inclined to rise to the bait on much of this, I certainly have an observation about where the world seems to be heading. I suspect that many people who spend all their time bombing blog posts are life’s ‘observers’, rather than ‘participants’.

Yes politicians can be boring and duplicitous, advertising can be staid or lacking cut-through, and it’s fair to offer criticism. But rare is the person who actually stands up to do things, who is prepared to put their name to it?

Have you noticed how rugby ground spectators these days are subjected to a commentary of the match – “that was a superb try by Freddy Steady in the right hand corner”? Guess what, I could see the bloody try and I’ll decide for myself if it was ‘superb’ or not! Also, I assume that I’m not alone in thinking that if I wanted a commentary, I could have stayed home, saved the cost of a ticket and watched it on TV where I could at least turn the sound off.

This morning I watched TV One’s Agenda programme with coverage of the election. They introduced an academic ‘marketing expert’ who will “tell you how to assess the advertising campaigns of the political parties”.

Of course I was keen to hear what the expert had to say, given that I’m responsible for one of the major parties ad campaigns. But sadly the analysis lacked any, well…analysis! Apparently the ‘Greens had the best billboards’ and the Labour Doubletalk John John TV ads would be ‘unlikely to swing undecided voters’. On both counts the commentary was not supported by any explanation, other than what seemed to be simply personal opinion.

If on the other hand the commentator had said that the Green’s billboard was great because of its simplicity and directness, which is helped by the party’s single issue position, I might have learnt something. And if he had given an analysis of the undecided vote and their hot buttons, which apparently are to show no interest whatsoever in John Key’s double talking, I could have had a eureka moment, or something to debate to myself.

Why can’t media commentators critique by taking the trouble to think through the issues and by producing a bit of useful evidence for their views? Otherwise, readers and viewers might just use their own brains to come to their own conclusions…god forbid.

Maybe we should be more worried about nanny media than any nanny state?