How Conservatives are Losing the war on the web

[David]

Deserves its own thread. As I have said, this is critical to fix. Conservatives need a "Moveon.org." type website. Make that about ten Soros helped launch Media Matters and Huffington Post. We need to find our Soros.

Wash Post

SOURCE

[Rafael]

Originally Posted by David

Deserves its own thread. As I have said, this is critical to fix. Conservatives need a "Moveon.org." type website. Make that about ten Soros helped launch Media Matters and Huffington Post. We need to find our Soros.

Wash Post

SOURCE

The Democrats' favorite criminal!

[speaktothesky]

Conservatives, had Mr. Coors and the R. Mellon Scaife guy.
Bill Gates might still be up for grabs, no he sold his soul now too....

[Rafael]

Originally Posted by speaktothesky

Conservatives, had Mr. Coors and the R. Mellon Scaife guy.

Had???

Bill Gates might still be up for grabs, no he sold his soul now too....

Whatever are you talking about?

[David]

Here we go. Some of the folks are on the case. Good piece.

Republicans Seek to Fix Short-Sitedness
By Jose Antonio Vargas
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 25, 2008; C01

At 6:50 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 6-- less than 44 hours after the GOP lost the White House and more seats in Congress -- RebuildTheParty.com went live.

Founded by two young party activists, Patrick Ruffini and Mindy Finn, the site proposes to start by rebuilding the often marginalized conservative blogosphere. Its mission statement, a 3,200-word, 10-point manifesto, is aimed at Republicans in general -- and more specifically at whoever takes the helm of the Republican National Committee in the next few weeks. It's signed by a Who's Who of the online conservative grass roots -- the "rightroots" -- most of them in their 20s and 30s, many frustrated by the current state of the Grand Old Party that seems just that: old and out of touch.

"2008 made one thing clear: If allowed to go unchecked, the Democrats' structural advantages, including their use of the Internet, their more than 2-to-1 advantage with young voters, their discovery of a better grassroots model -- will be as big a threat to the future of the GOP as the toxic political environment we have faced the last few years," the site proclaims.

Within a week, Ruffini and Finn say, about 4,000 people signed up on the site and endorsed the plan. Many submitted their own ideas and voted for their favorites on the site's open platform, Ideas.RebuildTheParty.com. Any day now, the site will turn into a virtual think tank, bringing together other online activists from inside and outside the Republican Party infrastructure.

Ruffini, 30, is a veteran online political operative who worked for President Bush before heading the RNC's Internet department and advising Rudy Giuliani. "Maybe I'm being too optimistic here," he says, "but I think this period we're going through right now will be seen as a reawakening of not just the rightroots but also the Republican Party."

"The Republican Party cannot reboot if it's viewed only as a party of old, crusty white guys," adds Finn, who started a Washington-based online consulting firm with Ruffini last summer. At 27, she is also a veteran online operative, having served on President Bush's eCampaign team in 2004 and supervised Mitt Romney's Web strategy. "We need to face 21st-century politics with 21st-century tools."

Different Centuries
The right owns talk radio; the left owns the Internet.

For years, that's been the simplest way to explain the online gap between the two parties. "Of course Republicans are behind online," says Newt Gingrich, arguably the Webbiest of the party's elder statesmen. American Solutions for Winning the Future, a group Gingrich founded, uses the Internet to harness grass-roots energy on issues such as oil drilling. "When one of Obama's senior online advisers is the co-founder of Facebook, when Gore sits on the board of Google and Apple -- well, let's just say the Republicans are not in the same century yet, okay?" (Actually, Gore is a senior adviser to Google, but Gingrich's point stands.)

Examples of the gap abound. State-by-state online activism was an integral part of the Democratic National Committee's 50-state strategy, something the Republican National Committee does not have. A handful of congressional districts could have easily gone Republican, Ruffini says, if more conservative bloggers had helped to raise money and to get boots on the ground. "But as it stands, most bloggers in the right see blogging as a communications medium," Ruffini says. "Bloggers in the right need to look at what the bloggers in the left have been doing and learn to be activists, too."

Some of the bloggers Ruffini is targeting write on such sites as RedState.com and TheNextRight.com, which he co-founded. They understand where he's coming from. Many even signed up on Rebuild the Party, including Erick Erickson, RedState's managing editor. Erickson says conservative bloggers are more concerned with debating policies and ideologies than with how close "a particular race is shaping up in this or that congressional district." In the past three years, however -- especially in the six months leading up to the election -- that mindset has started to change. "There's been a real shift to not just focus on national races but local races, too," Erickson says. "But it takes awhile for the ship to turn."

SOURCE

[speaktothesky]

Originally Posted by Rafael

Had???



Whatever are you talking about?

Yes "Had", when is the last time we have heard from these two?
Mr. Coors destroyed his family and I don't know where RMS disappeared to.

Bill Gates used to stay out of political things, hence "up for grabs", but now he actively supports UN and other socialist causes = sold his soul.

I thought perhaps these were know things?

I hope that clears up what I was getting at.

[Rafael]

Originally Posted by speaktothesky

Yes "Had", when is the last time we have heard from these two?

Mr. Coors destroyed his family and I don't know where RMS disappeared to.

So? What does this have to do with "having" someone?

Bill Gates used to stay out of political things, hence "up for grabs", but now he actively supports UN and other socialist causes = sold his soul.

Bil Gates opposes capitalism? You seem to be with the liberals by promoting the idea that conservatives are selfish. Spending his own money to benefit the needy is hardly leftist. Gates paid the expenses for an entire year for a worthy girl to go to my school. I'd be very surprised to find out that Gates was using your money.

[Irish flu]

Originally Posted by speaktothesky

Conservatives, had Mr. Coors and the R. Mellon Scaife guy.
Bill Gates might still be up for grabs, no he sold his soul now too....

What, the devil done got Bill Gates? I missed that, fill me in please.

[dcannady]

Originally Posted by Irish flu

What, the devil done got Bill Gates? I missed that, fill me in please.

Microsoft had no lobbyists in Washington for many years. Then, when Congress started in on them for being so successful, they sent in some lobbyists and greased some palms. Presto chango! No more congressional hearings!

It's a magic formula that the most successful companies, now, are the ones with the strongest presence in Washington. But, if you don't play the game, you get to attend "hearings". It's very reminiscent of the way the Black Hand used to do business. It's called the protection racket.

[Rafael]

Originally Posted by dcannady

Microsoft had no lobbyists in Washington for many years. Then, when Congress started in on them for being so successful, they sent in some lobbyists and greased some palms. Presto chango! No more congressional hearings!

It's a magic formula that the most successful companies, now, are the ones with the strongest presence in Washington. But, if you don't play the game, you get to attend "hearings". It's very reminiscent of the way the Black Hand used to do business. It's called the protection racket.

[speaktothesky]

"Had" as in previously on their team, now not so much.

No, you are right Bill uses his own money. He does many laudable things.
However he is now supporting the UN and many of their arms, their stated goals are in direct conflict with what conservatives stand for. Much like Ted Turner, who uses his own money, but what he does with it can be a little scary.

FYI I never said Bill Gates opposes capitalism, but I would not be suprised to see him use govenment to get what he wants either... I'm just saying....

[David]

Mark McKinnon is correct. Our time in the wilderness is a time to get our tech act together.

The Problem With the GOP Is... Me
by Mark McKinnon
December 23, 2008 | 6:05am


There are too many of us white, out-of-touch, out-of ideas guys and we're running the party into the ground.

The problem with the Republican Party is there are too many woolly mammoths like me wandering around. It’s time to kill us off. Just slaughter us all. Drive us into the tar pits and move on.

Republicans working in leadership and the trenches are largely old, white, male, out-of-touch, out of ideas, technology averse, and living in the past.

One of brighter pundits on the right these days who recognizes the problem is Jennifer Rubin of Pajamas Media, who writes: “There is not just an intellectual dilemma for conservatives—which keeps pundits bickering about the meaning and direction of "conservatism"—but a realization that the organizational and technological advantage which conservatives enjoyed for nearly a generation has been matched or exceeded by the other side. One can quibble that the liberal opposition is not an intellectually robust or coherent one, but it is a darn successful political force which has swept to coast-to-coast wins in two successive election cycles.

The problem with the Republican Party is there are too many wooly mammoths like me wandering around. It’s time to kill us off.

“As for conservatives, the existing institutions don't quite seem sufficient to the task of growing the party, developing new talent, and incubating new ideas. Perhaps what is already there can be enhanced, but it may be that entirely new groups must be created to rebuild and revitalize a movement that is not just intellectually depressed but organizationally weak. So, while pundits already obsess over the next presidential nominee, a better question is: who will be the next Paul Weyrich?

“The identity of the individual or individuals is not clear, but the need is apparent.”

I was struck recently thinking about most of the people I know working in the Republican Party. I realized almost everyone is 50- or 60-something. And then there seems to be a huge generational gulf. There just isn’t much of a farm team people in their 30s and 40s toiling in the GOP consulting trenches. That’s the bad news. The good news is that I see the Moses’ that will lead the GOP out of the desert. And they are very young, very smart, very brash, and they are change the GOP can believe in.

These young Turks have fire, passion and moxie. To wit, one of the brighter young lights, Jon Henke, cofounder of TheNextRight.com:

“For a variety of reasons, Democrats are substantially ahead online. Some of those reasons come down to the cyclical political dynamics, but the Right also has not kept up with the emerging possibilities offered by technology. The Right has gotten complacent, bogged down at the political margins, path-dependent on the tactics and messages that it learned decades ago.

“The most important component of a revitalization of the Right will be new ideas and a more compelling agenda, and we are a part of that discussion. However, when that energy emerges, the Right needs to be ready to capture it. That means we need to develop ideas and tactics for how to use technology, both to get the movement focused on the internet as a powerful tool, and as a means of getting the Rightroots engaged and participating.

“We also need to dislodge some of the entrenched bureaucracy and traditional elements that have become chokepoints—barriers to innovation. We are trying to get the Right and Republicans to let go of some traditional campaign, communications and organizing frameworks, and replace them with the more decentralized, collaborative, and long-tail approach that the internet allows.”

The spark in Republican circles is coming from young activist warriors like Patrick Ruffini and Mindy Finn, partners in the firm Engage who 44 hours after the Democrats decisive victory started Rebuildtheparty.com, a robust site with a 3,200-word, 10-point manifesto, which has created a firestorm of energetic response and 7,000 sponsors.

Smartly, Rebuild recognizes that the future is outside the beltway. Says Ruffini, “Part of the ethos behind this effort is that we don’t need the mucky mucks in DC. We can do this on our own. Keep it going. Provide a resource for best practices for campaigns and state parties. The internet allow us to do create a virtual think tank for new ways to do campaigns.”

And from the Rebuild site: “2008 made one thing clear: If allowed to go unchecked, the Democrats’ structural advantages, including their use of the Internet, their more than 2-to-1 advantage with young voters, their discovery of a better grassroots model—will be as big a threat to the future of the GOP as the toxic political environment we have faced the last few years.”

Other young names to watch include Michael Palmer, Robert Bluey (Heritage Foundation), David All, Matt Lewis (Townhall.com), Darrell Jordan (HipHopRepublican.com), Moshe Starkman (TYNetwork.com), Chris Malagisi (Leadership Institute), Princella Smith (Republicans Helping Republicans). And while my old compatriot media gunslingers and I are sitting around still trying to work our VCRs, a new generation of young media wizards with Macs and cameras strapped to their backs are coming over the hill: Justin Germany, Matthew Taylor, and Laura Crawford.

A little time in the desert will be good for the GOP. A good thirst will weed out the weak and remind the party how refreshing and reinvigorating the cool water of new ideas and new blood can be.

As vice chairman of Public Strategies and president of Maverick Media, Mark McKinnon has helped meet strategic challenges for candidates, causes, and individuals, including George W. Bush, John McCain, Charlie Wilson, Lance Armstrong, and Bono. McKinnon is co-chair of Arts & Labs, a collaboration between technology and creative communities that have embraced today’s rich internet environment to deliver innovative and creative digital products to consumers.
URL: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-a...e-gop-is-me/p/

[seattlegal]

The "old farts" in the GOP are not the problem. I think one major problem is the efforts by some to suppress grassroot movements within the GOP. (The grassroot movement surrounding GOP "old fart" Ron Paul comes to mind...)

What in the heck does the GOP expect when they stamp out grassroot movements and then complain about the party losing its cohesion and then starts falling apart? One thing I do know, the "diet democrat" flavor the GOP has taken on is not very palatable. {Speaking of unpalatable "diet democrat," Mark McKinnon has that taste with his social engineering-esque angle in the above article. Yuck! }

[schaabdl]

Keep It Simple Stupid still works. I know we see the flash of BHO but once substance is needed, he will flame out, become boring, "so yesterday." The conservative-libertarian message is still there, unchanging, but needs to be presented coherently. The GOP is wrong in so many areas beginning with how they select their nominee. When the process allows a "28-30%" candidate become the choice, then there is something wrong with the process.
***
It is also not an age thing. I believe that IF I were inclined, that I could make a savvy run for a Congressional seat using basically the web (59 come 2010). Why not (wife is dead set against the idea) and I begin with a financial disadvantage, especially if the 80+ year old incumbent continues or as rumored, somehow bequeaths his war chest to his son.
***
We need a consistent message, a VIBRANT messenger, and someone with a pair who will call the MSM and opponents on the carpet when the lies flow. JSM was such a wuss and he attempted to muzzle the governor that the GOP got the licking it deserved. We need the message with a good Internet foundation and candidates who can live / support the message.

[David]

Ralph Hall. The oldest man in the House.

[schaabdl]

Originally Posted by David

Ralph Hall. The oldest man in the House.

Excellent, Mr. Gold - but he never has had a primary opponent both as a DIM or GOPer worth much. This past cycle he had a couple of RINOs (my opinion). He also has a large war chest. I can at least say this much for him and his staff, he has a 90%+ response rate to my inquiries. Senator Cornyn is a bit over 85% and KBH is in the low 30s!

[David]

"In this Internet era, it's not enough to run a campaign; you need to lead a movement," Mindy Finn, a Republican online political operative, told me less than three days after the election. "That's what Obama did." Finn, 27, worked on President Bush's eCampaign team in 2004 and supervised former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney's Web strategy. She worries that, unlike its Democratic counterpart, the Republican establishment hasn't fully grasped the ways the Web is revolutionizing politics. "If you look at their site," she said of the Obama campaign, "their online videos, their online ads, everything they did, it wasn't about 'me, myself and I.' It was about 'we' and 'us.' "

It was, in essence, about you.

SOURCE

[schaabdl]

Can't disagree with Mindy Finn - the message has to reach the masses in some moving manner. We may balk at such terms as "change" and "hope" but that is exactly what the people wanted to hear this time around. No once could get BHO off that message. However, it may be a message that comes to haunt him and it already seems to be taking a bit of a toll - he may age before taking office!
***
A campaign must have a message and a policy focus. The GOP tends toward the latter, Many on the left also tended toward policy with an attack on GWB. BHO came with a message and just enough policy to entice voters. I will still hold off my final judgment but I am still predicting this will be closer to Carter II than Clinton III.

[FoundingFather]

Originally Posted by schaabdl

Can't disagree with Mindy Finn - the message has to reach the masses in some moving manner. We may balk at such terms as "change" and "hope" but that is exactly what the people wanted to hear this time around. No once could get BHO off that message. However, it may be a message that comes to haunt him and it already seems to be taking a bit of a toll - he may age before taking office!
***
A campaign must have a message and a policy focus. The GOP tends toward the latter, Many on the left also tended toward policy with an attack on GWB. BHO came with a message and just enough policy to entice voters. I will still hold off my final judgment but I am still predicting this will be closer to Carter II than Clinton III.

I also agree, it's come down to using whatever media is at your disposal better than your opponent. Went from stump speeches, to radio, to TV, and now to the internet. I'm excited at the possibilities.

[David]

This must be corrected.

BREITBART: No magic Internet button for GOP
Andrew Breitbart

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

After the 2004 election, much was made of Joe Trippi, Howard Dean's campaign manager and Internet guru. Mr. Trippi is credited with using social networking tools to hook up supporters and to drum up excitement and campaign cash for Vermont's then-little-known former governor.

His book "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything" capitalized on Mr. Dean's meteoric yet short-term rise at the hands of a previously competent yet little-known Democrat apparatchik who became an Internet legend for almost getting the dark horse over the primary finish line.

"The Howard Dean campaign was a dot-com miracle," Mr. Trippi now tells audiences for a handsome price.

But Mr. Dean's story was also the ultimate dot-com crash: "And we're going to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan, and then we're going to Washington, D.C., to take back the White House! Yeeeah!!!"

The "Dean scream" lives in infamy on YouTube. Live by the Internet, die by the Internet.

Now Mr. Trippi gets paid a lot of money to tell clients something that millions have known since the mid-1990s: The Internet is a big, big deal.

The last election cycle bore more online fruit for Democrats.

"Obama is really Howard Dean 2.0 when it comes to online fundraising," said Phil Tajitsu Nash, who runs Campaign Advantage, a company that makes Web sites and develops Internet strategies for candidates.

So it's understandable that Republicans are green with envy and scratching their heads wondering why the Internet works for Democrats but doesn't work for them. The simple answer:

There is no technology that can help overcome the left's current online dominance.

There is no wizard in Silicon Valley who can make things better.

There is no Joe Trippi who can take an obscure Republican and push him to victory using online tools past, present and future.

Facebook won't do it. Twitter won't do it. Countering Soros and MoveOn .org won't do it. And mimicking Kos and Arianna won't do it.

Sorry, Republicans, there is no magic Internet button.

The Democratic Party resonates on the Internet because it resonates in pop culture. The Democratic Party resonates in pop culture because it has been committed to dominating it for over a generation.

Democrats are celebrities, rock stars, magazine covers and stadium concerts. Republicans are a small list of famous people who have to make public excuses for their affiliation.

Democrats throw parties, get models to show up, and Red Bull and Stoli pick up the tab. Republicans feature a no-host bar hoping an astronaut from the Mercury mission stops by.

Democrats pull off a star-studded, entertainment-laden Obama acceptance speech at Invesco Field. Republicans get a black dude to wear red, white and blue and perform a 1985-era patriotic rap song dressed as Uncle Sam.

The spectacular Will.I.Am song and video, "Yes We Can," could not be duplicated by Republicans if T. Boone Pickens airdropped his fortune on the RNC headquarters.

The Mac versus PC advertising campaign best sums up the stark divide. Only it's much worse.

What the Republican Party needs to do now is figure out how to make up for 40 years of ignoring the net effect of film, television and music, and the youth culture that goes along with it. When will the people who make the big decisions and write the big checks realize the AM radio band is not enough?

As I've written and stated many times, college Republicans and other young conservative activists need to go Hollywood - in mind, spirit and even in location.

Retiring military personnel hot off of war duty need to head west to secure the Los Angeles front.

Producing screenplays - not legislation - is the answer. Performing songs - not whining - is the plan.

Simultaneously, closet conservatives in Hollywood need to come out and run for office. They have the requisite communication skills to compete in the Obama age.

The conservative movement has the best product to sell in the history of the world: freedom. The side that promotes freedom has the best writers. It has the best think tanks. Its Web sites have all the right social networking tools, and there's no shortage of 527s on its side, either.

And while our politicians are imperfect, they are manifestly less corrupt then their Democratic Party peers, and at least stand for something other than obstinate oppositionism.

Yet we are still deep in a hole and digging deeper.

If you are a bigwig in the movement and have begun paying a guy a lot of money to help you figure out the Internet, stop now.

The Joe Trippi of the Republican Party is the person who can make it cool to be a conservative. And only when that happens will Americans begin to start pressing the magic Internet button for our side.

Andrew Breitbart is the founder of the news Web site breitbart.com and is co-author of "Hollywood Interrupted: Insanity Chic in Babylon - the Case Against Celebrity."

SOURCE