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Someone just has to do it

Submitted by Tom Readmond on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 15:33
in

This is a very worthy point and one worth pondering. -Patrick

We spend a lot of time here and on other blogs lamenting all the progress the Left is making on the web, and how many Republican candidates don't "get it."  I personally have experienced this when dealing with a number of campaigns, and I've come to a realization.

Lots of Democrats didn't "get it" either, until Howard Dean came along.  And then, many still didn't get it, because his poor showings in the 2004 primaries were justification that at the end all this stuff didn't translate into electoral success.  But MoveOn.org enjoyed a resurgence largely thanks to the Iraq War, and Barack Obama raised untold millions and slayed a dragon for his party's nomination.  Now, lots of them "get it."

On our end, we have a lot of wonderful people blogging about the need for the Right to get moving, but we don't have a success to point to as evidence that the party and ideological elites will understand (see my earlier posts about our ideological elites being Reagan and Goldwater-era holdovers).  Someone is just going to have to do it, the same way that Howard Dean and Barack Obama did.

On the activism end, sites like this are a great start, but so much of these sites are inside baseball, and not grassroots.  There is going to need to be a push on a single hook issue (the 111th Congress will no doubt provide many opportunities) that engages not just political junkies, but truck drivers and secretaries.  And again, someone (probably not a political professional) will need to just do it. 

So, let's get to work.

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Comments

Here's your issue: Gas

Submitted by GOP_Rebel on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 15:44.

Every secretary and truck driver is certainly feeling this pain.  I work at a corporation that has put the focus on face to face meetings in spite of the fact that we've had technology in place for years to telecommute and teleconference effectively.  Suddenly, now, for the first time EVER, we're starting to see a push for employees to from home 1-2 days a week.  Why?  Because of the absolutely outrageous cost of fuel.  When it's responsible for shifting an entirely monolithic corporate culture, that's now I know this issue has reached critical mass.

John McCain and the GOP have got to lay the blame for rising gas prices on the Democratic suicide pact to block alternative energy (think:  windmills and the Kennedy NIMBY reaction), block nuclear power plants, block coastal drilling, block oil shale extraction, and of course block drilling in ANWR.  Then John McCain and the GOP must, and I mean absolutely must, win back the trust of the American public by promising to undo this damage at once.  They should start proposing legislation now.  And every Republican legislator who voted for Farm Bill subsidies and Ethanol should be inundated with phone calls and emails between now and November telling them to either shape up or ship out. 

5 stars.

Submitted by Patrick Ruffini on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 16:17.

Operatives aren't stupid, but their field of vision of limited to implementing what's worked under their watch. I see this all the time. Political pros will invariably pick out an example of something that worked on the last campaign they worked on and run with it again. Worthy ideas, particularly those from the other side, aren't even on the menu because they haven't been tried before.

So, stuff that should be basic, like email lists, tend to get overlooked. Even though, as far as online stuff goes, email is the most basic, predictable thing you can do. But virtually no one on the right has had the experience of organically growing a list from 0 to millions like MoveOn, Kerry, Hillary, Obama, etc. they feel less comfortable with it. Even though it's not rocket science! Put up a splash page, do petitions, focus your asks around recruitment and not just money and you could easily have a list at 2-3x its current size.

When Republicans campaign manager types talk about email, it's largely, "How many lists can we rent/buy?" In other words: direct mail. That's the paradigm because it's what worked for them.

If we really want to be successful, we can't limit ourselves to just the ideas we've personally tried before, or only those that our party has tried. Ever wonder why all the GOP campaigns send stupid "Weekly Update" emails on Friday at 5pm? Because one GOP campaign and all of the others just had to follow suit.

That's why we need to study, on a minute, detailed level, exactly what Obama is doing. We may not be able to bottle up all the organic energy that exists on their side, but that doesn't mean that the tactics they are using to maximize that energy are invalid.

 

Splash pages, transparency, deadlines, and all the things that fuel strong online fundraising are not just Democratic or insurgent ideas. They are good marketing, plain and simple.

It seems like you HAVE studied it Patrick.

Submitted by St. Louis Conse... on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 18:08.

Why don't you and your tech-savvy conservative friends launch something.  I'm down!

I agree with you in that these viral networking sites are the wave of the future in politics and fundraising.

Amen

Submitted by Tom Readmond on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 16:27.

I've personally experienced this, on campaigns that shall remain nameless.  They're run by people who cut their teeth on direct mail in the 80s.  They're not blind, so they see the need for a website, but they think all they have to do is put up a 2004-style website with a contribute button and the money will roll in. 

I for one can't WAIT until the Obama staff start writing their books (sort of an updated version of Joe Trippi's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised).  I also recommend Mousepads, Shoe Leather and Hope, which just recently came out, featuring essays by people involved at every level of the Dean campaign.

Bottom line, though, some candidate is going to have to step forward and take a chance, hiring a campaign manager who hasn't been running traditional campaigns for 20 years.  Most likely it will be a candidate who is young and/or has no chance of winning so he has no choice but to hire a non-traditional campaign staff. 

So who's going to be the guinea pig?

There's no 'umph.'

Submitted by frashure on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 17:39.

This election cycle looks to be very bleak for Republicans, and even worse for conservatives. Take Virginia, for example: We flooded the state convention in support of Bob Marshall, a true showing of grassroots, yet we are stuck with the Establishment Republican Jim Gilmore. That was Virginia's one hope of a energetic resurgence in the grassroots conservative movement. I for one will have a tough time pushing for Gilmore, and an even tougher time doing so for McCain. I was hoping to have an opportunity to put all of my energy, that would have otherwise been wasted by not campaigning in the presidential election, into the US Senate race to defeat Mark Warner. Alas, it looks like I'll merely be rallying against the opposition - from my keyboard.

Open discussion...

Submitted by Darvin Dowdy on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 18:30.

[On the activism end, sites like this are a great start,...]

unless free and open discussion is suppressed.  Comments omitted or deleted just because they don't fit into your little box of ideals.  Then a site becomes boring and is reduced down to a mutual admiration cult between a few.  Loses its dynamic.

Allow free,open and clean expression even if you don't agree.  Or suffer the consequences of diminished traffic.  Its a fact.  Certainly accomplished individuals like you wouldn't feel so threatened by  mere words/views that you would have to omit/delete them in order to protect yourself.  DD

 

Darvin,Certainly

Submitted by Tom Readmond on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 18:36.

Darwin,

Certainly accomplished individuals like you wouldn't feel so threatened by  mere words/views that you would have to omit/delete them in order to protect yourself. 

I certainly hope you weren't aiming this at me (since you quoted from my post).  I'm just a regular user like you -- my post was promoted by the mods.  I don't have the power to regulate anything here.

single hook issue

Submitted by Jon Sandor on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 18:55.

There is going to need to be a push on a single hook issue (the 111th Congress will no doubt provide many opportunities) that engages not just political junkies, but truck drivers and secretaries.

 

It's not hard to find such issues. Immigration and free trade come to mind. The problem is that the Republican Party leadership are on the wrong side of these issues. As you say;

 we don't have a success to point to as evidence that the party and ideological elites will understand

 

Well, we do. But the success was the defeat of the comprehensive immigration reform bills, and thats not the sort of "success" the party leadership likes to see.

 

I was always of the

Submitted by Tom Readmond on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 19:03.

I was always of the impression that the defeat of the immigration bill was driven more by talk radio than the Internet.  However, I don't have specific knowledge on that one so I'll cede that.

My point wasn't about ideology -- it was about technology.  I think there's LOTS of issues where the grassroots can and do speak out.  What I was saying was that someone will have to have a major fundraising success and energize the grassroots using the Internet to send a signal to elites in the party that we should be heavily investing our time in embracing technology. 

I wasn't talking about convincing them on issues, although your point is well taken.  I was talking about convincing them on technology.

Talk radio, technology, and issues

Submitted by Soren Dayton on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 20:02.

I certainly agree that talk radio was the main driver on the immigration fight. I would point out that there's a reasonably good feedback loop between talk radio and blogs.

I doubt that we are going to get that party elites to invest in technology. Some outside donors have to fund it. The people that converted the lefty netroots from an organic to an organized operation were donors who wanted to drive the party in a direction and were sick of the established Democratic apparatus. I suspect that something will be necessary for us.

As for issues, I am uncertain. My sense of the issues ... I don't know.

technology, schmechnology

Submitted by Jon Sandor on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 19:16.

Unless we've morphed into the left even more than I thought, we don't believe that the medium is the message. I despair of those Republicans who think that the road back to power involves mastering Web 2.0 or Twitter. If what you are selling is unpopular, then a louder and better megaphone is only going to convince more people NOT to support you.

 

First, the GOP needs a message which does not cause people to recoil. Then it can worry about what magic tricks to use to get that message out.

 

someone will have to have a major fundraising success

 

Strictly speaking, I'd say we have a number of people having major fundraising success. The problem is that they are working a cross purposes. So the RNC is at cross purposes to the CFG and both are at cross purposes with the Ronulans, to take just three of the many different factions.

Jon, I don't think it's an

Submitted by Tom Readmond on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 19:36.

Jon, I don't think it's an either-or issue.  I'm just as frustrated as you are at how badly our party has been led astray by its "leaders."  I do NOT believe technology of any kind is the way back to power.  Even if we had a flawless, well-oiled web operation, I do not believe it would do us any good without returning to our conservative roots.

However, I've also worked for solid conservatives who are at a money and/or name recognition disadvantage that could be overcome by savvy use of technology, and can't get through to their campaign managers, who are hopelessly behind the times, that this is what they need to do, just like the conservative movement made savvy use of direct mail.

My concern is that while we ignore the Internet as an organizing and fundraising tool, that 15 years from now, even if we've been successful in returning to our conservative principles, that enough people will have died off, while enough people who grew up getting most of their information online will now be a major portion of the electorate, that we'll be behind the curve in reaching those voters.

I think we need to worry about all of these things.  Clarifying our principles and crafting a message are extremely important.  But smart use of the same media the American electorate depends upon is still necessary to win elections. 

So which is it?

Submitted by davidfarrar on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 20:59.

You start off by saying ..."I do NOT believe technology of any kind is the way back to power." And end by saying,"But smart use of the same media the American electorate depends upon is still necessary to win elections."

At present more people are connected to the Internet than subscribe to their local newspapers. In 15 years, that number will only be bigger. Politics is the art of communicating.  We can design an effective one-on-one mass communication web design that will focus political support to win any election, any where at any time.

I also happen to think you are somewhat off the mark when you say, "Even if we had a flawless, well-oiled web operation, I do not believe it would do us any good without returning to our conservative roots."  I suppose here we had better agree on a common definition of "Conservative roots" if we are going to pursure this thread discussion. Because from where I stand, the Republican Party should be devoted to empowering the People, instead of trying to politically control and manipulate them for other purposes, which usually turns out to be to the benefit of special interests and not to and for the People.

As someone here in this forum once said, the majority of the voting public is right of center naturally. So all we have to do is design a web presence that will naturally give the "People" their own, political voice and they will move whatever is in their way to get to the right.

Tom, there was a time when I thought that all I needed to get by in life were the opinions of honorable mean and the ungrudging love of a beautiful woman. Now I know that all I really need to get by is just a few good code writers.

 ex animo

davidfarrar

We Need Help

Submitted by Jeff Roberts on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 19:18.

It's so frustrating how our side is so oblivious to the direction the new media is moving, and how we're not using some amazing tools at our disposal.  One would think the internet would be a perfect fit for conservatives, with the mainstream media unwilling to give conservative's a fair shake, we should own the internet like we own talk radio.  One major problem is our demographic, the younge and web-savvy tend to be liberal, and our "older" pols tend to rely on older technology, like direct-mail and expensive tv ads.

We need to figure out a way to better organize and come together.  Conservative's are great at pontificating and defending our ideals, but our activism via the web is just awful.  About the only website I can think of that has both commentary and activism is RedState.com, and honestly I am so turned off by that website from their childish, heavy-handed editors and moderators that I rarely even stop by there anymore.

The left's web community, however, is like a well-oiled machine when it comes to specific activism.   If their is a vulnerable Republican, even in deep-red states, they concentrate all their efforts into getting the Democrat elected, even if it's not always a perfect ideological match.

We've identified the problem, we know where we are lacking.   I'm all ears about solutions to our problem.  Is it money? Organization?  Personnel?  I know we need to come up with something quickly, as we're getting smoked by Liberals.

Candidate Websites

Submitted by kmorrison on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 20:12.

I've been putting together a list of local Republican candidates and their websites at Local Republicans.net, and a few things stood out.  First, there are still too many candidates without a website.  It's not a huge number, but this should really be a no-brainer at this point. Second, a good number of incumbents don't have a campaign site, instead relying on their house/senate site neglecting the benefits that could come with a campaign site.  Third, candidate sites at minimum should have clean graphics, a means of donating, and an email sign-up.  A majority of sites meet the minimum standards, but certainly not all.  The worst cases were two times when I Googled a candidate a found their competitor, but not the actual candidate.  However, on the plus side a majority of candidates have decent sites, a fair number have very good sites, and a handful have excellent sites.  So there is some good out there, even though it is frustrating to see forward progress come so slowly.