online

2008 candidates online - Winners

The 2008 Elections are really the first to be dramatically affected by online and social media. The major media really can't dominate as much as in the past, and many internet users are getting information and even interacting online.

Is your favorite candidate willing and able to interact online? If not, this may be the last election for your favorite guy or gal. I am willing to predict that social media and online interaction, online fundraising, and blog style communication will not go away, and will be the trump card in the future for many elections.

Barack Obama was really the break-out story in all this. I may not want him to be President, but am very willing to allow that he's "changed" the rules of the game in this arena. My hope is that in the final 30 days of this election, when more than half the public is interested, that John McCain's team will step up and join the 21st Century.

The writers of Wikinomics have been following this paradigm shift all year:
 

One would have thought that after all the stories about how Obama's online presence was key to his triumph in the Democratic primaries would have led McCain's team to focus on this... but apparently not.

Side note: for previous coverage of the role of wikinomics in this race, see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. (I'm always willing to let those I source get a bunch of inbound links, I read them, so I hope you will too)

It's time McCain team. Please, from one social media amateur to a professional campaign team, join the rest of us out here.

Now a challenge to McCain, and in state and local races too, supporters ... get online, go social media, say what you think and engage the conversations. If you just watch the liberal elite internet types dominate the new mediums, then you'll just be complaining about the "liberal media" next year again. This media medium is wide open and easy to dominate quickly. Get online for the next 25 days.

I have a brief break at the airport on my way back from RightOnline, a conservative summit focusing on technology and new media for the Right, sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, the Sam Adams Alliance, and the Leadership Institute. It was a solid conference, featuring some excellent keynotes by Barry Goldwater, Jr., Michael Steele, and Robert Novak.  Also featured, and perhaps even most prominently, was commentator Michelle Malkin.

As a quick aside, it was a very good conference.  There were a lot of excellent discussions – including a lot of throught-provoking analysis by The Next Right co-founder Soren Dayton – and generally speaking, I felt that the conference offered a lot of useful information for people right of center who are trying to get involved in the new media world.

At most of the conference, the discussion focused on how the Right desperately needs to catch up with the Left at many levels – grassroots organization, appeal to young voters, and most importantly (at least in terms of the focus conference), technology and new media.  After a great deal of discussion on the first day of the conference as to how the Right can catch up technologically, Michelle Malkin, one of the keynote speakers on day two, threw a huge curveball.  I didn't write down the exact words that she said, but this is more or less her statement:

"Conservatives aren't actually behind technologically, we're just doing it differently."