Even before the vote was finally cast, the spokespeople for the various parties entered into the election process.
Once upon a time, before the days of smartphones, speakers would spread their word to party reporters via pager messages, may they rest in peace.
The speaker would call the dispatcher, read him a pre-written message, and the dispatcher would distribute the text to the journalists' dispatches. About ten minutes would pass between the event and the response. An eternity in today's terms. The 2015 elections, just like the rest of the events in our small country - are happening today on WhatsApp.
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The government has not yet fallen, the Knesset has not yet been dissolved - but the party spokesmen have already understood which way the wind is blowing.
Last week, the various speakers rushed to inaugurate festive WhatsApp groups for the election, through which they drip instant messages on an hourly basis. Each speaker and his own WhatsApp group, each speaker and his own flasher.
Netanyahu attacked Lapid, don't say "Jack" and here's Lapid's response. Lapid comes down on Netanyahu, you didn't have time to blink and the Likud spokeswoman is already responding.
The area must not be abandoned, we must determine the media discourse, and if not determine it, then at least influence it.
There is this talk among politicians, consultants and journalists: What will the election be about? Will it be about security or the economy? In short: What will be the agenda? In practice, to borrow from John Lennon, an election campaign is what happens while reporters are wondering what the election campaign will be about.
When the public is asked in polls what the decisive consideration is in deciding who to vote for, the most popular answer is always: economic and welfare issues. The wise immediately stand up and explain: Only in polls do they say that the economy will decide the vote, in reality, behind the curtain, security determines.
The truth is, there is no legality: the previous elections in January 2013 were held two months after Operation Pillar of Defense in Gaza, but their agenda was derived from the social protest that took place a year and a half earlier in the summer of 2011.
The previous election, in February 2009, took place when the world was reeling from the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and the United States was preparing for the worst financial crisis in decades. But in Israel, excited by Operation Cast Lead, which had ended two and a half weeks earlier (in January 2009), they voted for security, and elected Netanyahu.
If once talented campaign managers were able to influence public discourse, today it is much more difficult. Ehud Barak's election advisors turned the 1999 election campaign into a long, drawn-out debate about the fate of the "old woman in the hallway" (until their man won the election, and immediately abandoned the old woman in favor of failed negotiations with Assad Sr. in Syria).
There is a significant difference between what was then and what is happening now: Today, in order to remain relevant, the campaign has to subordinate itself to the agenda. Until a few years ago, the agenda was set by the campaign. Netanyahu can talk about Iran and ISIS from now until March 17, but with voters preoccupied with housing and property, that won't help him.
Yesterday, the prime minister waved his new economic flag: zero VAT on basic goods. Just a month ago, he called on the finance minister to eliminate tariffs on imports, thereby lowering costs; now that he also serves as finance minister, he already has a new plan.
Netanyahu's involvement in this arena is an interesting development. He understands that this time Iran alone will not help. In the previous elections, he ignored the cost of living and was rewarded with 19 seats from Lapid. This time, that is exactly what he will try to avoid.
In the age of social media and instant messaging, there is no way to dictate what the conversation of the election campaign will be. The agenda is no longer set by a group of reporters connected to party spokespeople on WhatsApp, but by a discourse that grows from below, from Facebook and Twitter, until it penetrates the establishment media and reaches politicians.
The only way for a politician to de facto set the agenda is to influence it through his executive role. War, for example.
We can only hope that we will manage to avoid this in the next three months; and also in the years that follow.
• The writer is Channel 10's political correspondent.
