MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Obama’s “on line” strategy to promote Lula da Silva’s successor

Dilma Rousseff, a successful candidate or a “digital strategy” experiment

Brazil’s President Lula da Silva ruling Workers party has been in consultations with the communications team that worked with US president Barack Obama, with the purpose of helping design its campaign for the 2010 presidential election.

Leaders from the Workers Party met with Ben Self from the Blue State Digital agency, the brains and architect behind the successful digital publicity strategy displayed by president Obama during his 2008 campaign.

According to O’ Estado de Sao Paulo, Lula da Silva’s party is intent in mounting a propaganda strategy through Internet to promote the most certain presidential postulation of Dilma Rousseff, currently cabinet chief, and who Lula da Silva has virtually hand picked as his successor.

Rousseff currently is far behind in public opinion polls’ vote intention to Sao Paulo governor Jose Serra, leader of the opposition Brazilian Social Democrat party, PSDB.

The Brazilian congress recently approved legislation which allows presidential hopefuls to air political publicity in internet.

Obama’s “on line” strategy has been closely followed by Lula da Silva and his advisors who last week inaugurated the president’s own blog with incredible success.

Brazilian analysts and politicians, even from the opposition, admit that Lula da Silva is a “born communicator” which has become a “phenomenon” and “case study” because of his plain, straight, easily understandable style which reaches all segments of the population, even the humblest.