CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
Feb. 17, 2009 – 5:26 p.m.
Republicans Prep the Portals of Online Organizing
By Emily Cadei, CQ Staff
Republicans already are gearing up to regain lost ground from the 2008 elections, with a plan to level the digital playing field and fight the Democrats precinct by precinct and byte by byte.
That was the overarching theme Feb. 6 at a hastily organized “Tech Summit” held by the Republican National Committee, which brought party activists and strategists together to present ideas on how the RNC can better use available technologies to engage voters.
Under new Chairman Michael Steele, the GOP has embraced new technology as part of its rehabilitation efforts in the wake of the disastrous 2008 election.
Close to 300 people took part, with hundreds more joining online. The summit featured a steady stream of speakers, each sharing their thoughts on everything from online marketing to political text messaging to social networking.
“Bottom line is, if we haven’t done it, let’s do it. If we haven’t thought of it, think about it. If it hasn’t been tried, why not?” Steele asked in a speech that verged on a sermon. The audience at the Capitol Hill Club responded with vigorous nods and occasional murmurs of “Yes!”
“The goal,” said Steele, “of bringing the party into the 21st century is all that and then some.”
Steele and his fellow organizers made sure to emphasize, however, that signing up for accounts on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube is not a solution in and of itself.
Rather, these online networks are tools to facilitate a new way of organizing, which President Obama capitalized on so successfully in his 2008 presidential campaign.
One of the key’s to Obama’s victory, Republican strategist David All said, was the Web-based social network My BarackObama .com, which allowed supporters “to self-organize, track tasks, recruit friends and volunteers, train, connect, raise money, and turn out the vote on Election Day.”
Added Michigan Republican Party Chairman, Saul Anuzis, “Obama did not create anything new, he took advantage of the latest technologies and integrated them into his campaign.”
Anuzis, who is serving on Steele’s transition RNC team and is a leading technology evangelist in the party, lamented that Republicans have failed to adopt these same techniques because it goes against their nature.
“We move slowly, we are methodical, we’re careful,” he said. “The idea of an open source, open to the public, open to the press technology summit . . . is unfathomable to many.”
But, as Steele, All and Anuzis all emphasized, opening up the process and listening to the grass roots of the party is at the heart of successful online organizing.
That point was echoed by the “Rebuild the Party” movement started by a group of Republican online strategists led by Mindy Finn and Patrick Ruffini, who both spoke at the summit. In a “10-Point Action Plan” circulated during the RNC chairman elections, the group wrote, “With our power in Washington waning, our grass roots are the source of our greatest strength ... To revitalize ourselves, we must invite the crowd back in and tap their energy and creativity.”
The Internet should be the RNC’s No. 1 one priority, they argued, but the strategy is bigger than just creating an online presence. “It’s about recognizing that in a people-powered era, with the power of technology-empowered grass-roots movements on the rise — everything about the way we mobilize voters changes.”
The question for party organizers now is how to put these grand ideas into action.
The next step for the RNC, Anuzis said, is to take the suggestions presented at the summit, put them online, and “start a national discussion.”
From there, the committee hopes to build an open-source, online platform to serve as the party’s Web hub. Anuzis used the example of Apple’s iPhone, which allows independent developers to build compatible applications, as its design model. The hope is that state and local parties will then be able to plug into the same platform, and the entire party network can link up with activists and voters around the country.
Said Anuzis, “We’re going to try ... and create a platform that allows for everybody to [take] part.”
Comments
Chucklehead Repugs: Always a day late and a dollar short, and NEVER with any new ideas. Enjoy the political wilderness, wingnut chumps!
The new world of Twitter is like the wild West. Ultimately, Republicans win because they have better, non-Marxist ideas about how the world works in real life. The good news is that the new technology allows fresh ideas to appear that bypass the screening of our out-of-touch, politically correct mass media.
Let me see how did Gulliani put it at the republican convention "He was a community organizer..." (laugh laugh laugh). In fact, you all laughed in chorus. My what a difference an election makes. Just goes to show you the elders aren't always out of touch - HE WHO LAUGHS LAST - LAUGHS BEST
Two comments: (1) EFFECTIVE GOP organizing on the Web would make it harder to gain the Democratic majority that's required to (a) achieve good policies in D.C. to help the nation; and (b) give the Dems in the Senate some backbone, AND..... (2) EFFECTIVE GOP organizing on the Web could well drive the GOP to the center, depending on whether moderates are motivated enough to participate, and thus contribute to reasonable policies from Congress....BUT.... (3) It's highly doubtful that the GOP can muster the creativity to beat the Dems. GOPers simply do NOT think "outside the box," since their orthodoxy generally requires them not to think and to ignore the rest of the world that disagrees with them or has different perspectives. 'Twill be interesting to see if anything comes from this. I, personally, don't think the Dems won this time because of superior Web-based organizing. I think that the American public was simply so fed up with being ripped off by the GOP and Wall Street and so disguated with the effort to destroy the Constitution and enforce retrograde morality on American citizens that the PEOPLE drove the technology and CREATED the Obama candidacy. Obama's not a miracle worker, though he's good. WE'RE the miracle workers....and we certainly need to keep WORKING.
"The new world of Twitter is like the wild West. Ultimately, Republicans win because they have better, non-Marxist ideas about how the world works in real life. The good news is that the new technology allows fresh ideas to appear that bypass the screening of our out-of-touch, politically correct mass media. " Uh-uh. This time it's the message and not really the medium. The majority of the public doesn't want what the GOP is selling and they'll have to heavily polish a turd to get any interest in it. "Change" wasn't just a campaign gimmick, it was something people really wanted last year.
The problem the RNC has with mobilizing the grass roots is that they basically have to engage the populous by using lies. If you tell people that you plan to take their money and give it too the people who already own most of the country - folks just won't want to work for that. Ergo they must try to sell a myth and hope people don't see what's behind the curtain. Obviously they have enough money to produce a good PR effort, but are the people dumb enough? They have to hope so.
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