Movements versus campaigns and parties

May 27, 2007 – 2:46 pm

Patrick Ruffini argues that the GOP has the right model for online activism:

I can sing chapter and verse on why our model was better. Lateral communications (or community building amongst supporters) is a worthwhile goal in itself, but often gets confused with what it takes to do GOTV in the final days of an election. That’s when you want a unified message, and you don’t want canvassers coming up with their own talking points. The end result of that strategy is Dean in Iowa.

I am torn on this question. On the one hand, the GOP online effort did convert better to GOTV, and winning the 2004 election. But there is another question about long-term investment. Indeed, the underlying question is apples and oranges. Campaigns versus movements.

In 2005, the Dean list and community was converted into an unprecedented grassroots candidacy for DNC chair. And the Deaniacs took over state parties and county parties around the country. The Deaniacs lost the 2004 primary campaign but may yet transform their party over the long-term. That’s a movement, not one campaign. And, over the long-term, movements have a lot more power. In short, the online left is solving a different problem than the Bush campaign was. The online left is trying to change their party, not elect candidates.

Now look at what Patrick says:

Did we sustain it? Well, that’s a fair question. The Bush list did continue on at the RNC. We did parties. We activated the base on key issues. That’s a greater continuity of effort than we saw on the other side. Terry McAuliffe famously boasted of wanting to bring all the Democrat candidate email lists in-house to the DNC. In the end, not one obliged, not even John Kerry. He kept his own list, blasted to it regularly during the 2006 elections, and as Chris Cillizza has been fond of harping on, that 3 million list alone was probably the only reason he could be considered viable for 2008.

MoveOn and Dean for America, rebranded as Democracy for America, did continue to activate with their 3m list. And they don’t have to take orders from the party. To them, candidates are a way of effecting policy changes, not the objective in-and-of-themselves, like they are for a party committee. Whatever candidate we nominate in 2008 is going to have a different coalition. Will the Generation Joshua guys show up for a Rudy Giuliani, a John McCain, or a Mitt Romney? I kinda doubt it.

I continue to believe that the right way to understand the online left is not as a party, but as a movement. Their historical antecedent is the New Right, using direct mail, the new technology of the day, to raise money and deliver message. In essence, the new technology is being used to expand the power and size of a part of the coalition that hasn’t had a seat at the table of the Democratic Party. For example, the Rock-the-Vote voter registration engine:

What’s happening this cycle could be ground-breaking, in that Rock the Vote is building a voter registration engine with an API anyone can innovate on top of.  Groups and individuals will be able to capture the number of people they register, the data of the people they register, and the contact information of those they register.  This means that, unlike with a standard voter registration download form, the person who asked you to register, presumably someone you trust, will be reminding you to vote.  That’s a big deal.  They will also be able to get credit for registering you to vote, since the voter engine will let people see how many people have registered through a page.  It’ll be kind of like Actblue, for voter registration.

This doesn’t help parties. Parties have voter registration lists. They keep them (kind of) up to date. This helps the interest groups, outside organizations, and movements.

The online left is a movement to reinvent and renew the Democratic party. The question for the GOP is whether we need something similar. A newly organized coalition, etc. I think that the answer is "yes." Perhaps Patrick disagrees with me?

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Ron Paul Diggers think they “won”

May 16, 2007 – 11:48 am

Wow. Check this out:

Hey, Diggers. This conservative blog is lying about Ron Paul in two ways:
1. It says Romney won the text message vote (Fox News is lying about this as well).
2. It says Ron Paul was crushed by Guiliani’s answer.
This blog allows comments, so let them hear you!
http://eyeon08.com/

Neat!!!

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What the “Left’s New Machine” has to teach the right

May 7, 2007 – 9:51 pm

A number of people have asked me what I think of Jon Chait’s TNR article, "The Left’s New Machine." Here are my thoughts. I just finished reading Kos and Armstrong’s Barbarians at the Gates this morning. So I may merge some thoughts together.

First of all, this has tended to be discussed in the context of the "netroots", as a technological phenomenon. This is wrong. This new phenomenon is about changing and activating constituencies.

Second, the netroots activated people who were not part of some activist class. The labor movement has plenty activism outlets. The black and hispanic communities have them too. The netroots identify with the Democratic party before they identify with an interest group. They are Democrats because they are progressives. And progressives haven’t had an outlet. The netroots gave it to them. (In some sense, the internet is the 2000s version of the 1970s direct mail)

Third, because they are more interested in the Democratic Party than some interest, they can focus their energy on elections and the big defining issues, like the war, rather than petty infighting.

I do believe that there are lessons here for the right. One of them may be that Republicans have taken the character of interest group factionalization. There was a day when being pro-choice was the main test for moderation. Now there are taxes, abortion, marriage, the environment, campaign finance, Iraq, Iran, and so many more issues. Each of them is associated with an interest group, a donor base, etc.  Do Republicans have to shift from infighting to winning elections?

Another question is: Is the Republican Party ready to change its coalition at all?

Another question is going to be, from whom does the energy come? One option would be activating the elderly. Another would be college students.

And, of course, what tools do we use to reach them?

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Majority Accountable Project

April 28, 2007 – 6:25 am

Last week, I wrote about the Dems use of technology. On Tuesday, I learned about the Majority Accountability Project. One of the people at that presentation said something to the effect of, "This is the first good idea that narrows the gap between the right and left online." I think that this is right, and I think that there is much to learn from that statement.

What is MAP? MAP a research operation dedicated to spreading the message that the Democratic Congressional majorities will not uphold their commitments to the American people, and are therefore unsuitable to lead Congress. There are three components to this.

First, it MAP is a research operation dedicated to spreading a message. It is not a fancy technology. Still, the most powerful tool that the online right has is the Drudge Report which is run with mid-nineties era technology. (the 2007-era features just make it profitable!) Ultimately, the video and Web 2.0 features have at best marginal value. If MAP has an impact, and I suspect it will have a large one, its impact will be solely due to its content. Remember: content is king.

Second, MAP intends to spread a partisan message: that the Democratic Congressional leadership will not uphold its commitments. Most of the blogs on the right are, ultimately, intended as personal reflections about what is going on. There is neither a message nor an attempt to stay "on message". The right blogosphere has been effective at moving messages when there is a clear focus, such as electing George W. Bush and defeating John Kerry. Most of the rest of the time, it has been unfocused, unlike much of the infrastructure of the left which has had (and to some extent still has) a clear purpose.

Third, and somewhat corollary to the second point, the partisan message has a clear electoral instrumentality. MAP intends that the information it produces will be used to defeat Democrats in elections. I can think of very, very few websites on the right that are not run by a candidate, PAC or party committee that have that kind of agenda. But there are clearly quite a large number on the left.

I would also make a fourth point. MAP was conceived by political operatives to achieve a political objective. This is not quite a rehash of other points. Perhaps Redstate is the only major conservative website that is run by political operatives. (perhaps Newsbusters too?) However, Redstate’s impact is well out of proportion with its readership because it is relatively focused.

In the end, MAP will be the TPM Muckraker of the right. That’s a good sign.

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More on technology and the right

April 19, 2007 – 1:45 pm

David All, Michael Turk, and Patrick Ruffini, have all weighed in in the latest round on technology and the GOP. David is a web 2.0 proponent. Michael has a different take:

This is illustrative of a larger problem the GOP has. This is where I part with David on his belief that a party-sponsored web 2.0 infrastructure will bridge the digital divide. I believe that divide is a function of a much deeper distrust of letting the message go. If the GOP is going to be successful online, we cannot wait for the party to do it.

As the Democrats have shown, this will need to be organized by those in the party who get it. We will have to drag the party apparatus, kicking and screaming, to the dance.

And Patrick recommends a different tone:

So, if you’re not satisfied with how things are going online — well, guess what, this isn’t TV where you need a few million bucks to get your message out. You don’t even need $100,000 to hire some corporate Web developer to build your big community/fundraising/activism site. Build it yourself. Do some rapid prototyping, get a beta out there, build an audience, and then go in for the political equivalent of secondary financing (ask your list for money).

What I’m describing isn’t some leftist communal pipedream. It’s how Web 2.0 startups in Silicon Valley work right now. If you want to realize the benefits of 2.0 you’ve got to play by the rules of 2.0.

Patrick nails it. Build it. I tried that whole Silicon Valley thing. I didn’t make much money, but I got a boatload of VC investment. I learned a lesson from that: Figure out what difference in the economics you are providing. You will make money and make a difference there.

In some sense, the tech boom of the late 90s was about getting information to consumers, and in that sense, the permanent campaign was just exploiting that. This was facilitated by cable TV, a 24-hour newscycle, etc. The technology made it easier to get your message out all the time.

Now Web 2.0 adds an idea: the consumer can talk back to you (or someone else). The obvious lesson for politics is that we should be making voter-to-voter and voter-to-influential contact easier. The time and money costs are dropping. In other words, technology should make activism easier. The RNC’s research, conveniently, pointed out that voter-to-voter contact will turn out bodies. And voter-to-influential contact is lobbying. We are just talking about expanding the scale.

The obvious modern corollary to the permanent campaign is permanent activism.

I am a political junky. I wake up in the morning with tons of email and stuff in my RSS reader. Why don’t I have a menu of options every morning to "click here to stick it to Nancy Pelosi" or "click here to tell a reporter he is missing or misrepresenting the story" and "click here to share with your friends"? It is easy now. Really easy.

So where is it? And the party doesn’t have to do this. The 501(c)(4)s and 527s should be doing this. The party is, and should be, a lagging indicator of trends because it spends precious hard money. What it does should work. Patrick is right. Build it and they will come.

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The blogosphere, Obama, and the media

April 19, 2007 – 9:01 am

Marc Ambinder writes, in response to Matt Yglesias,  that Hillary Clinton is "not doomed! Yet!" and discusses her relationship with the blogosphere. The fundamental question is "does Hillary’s failure to catch on in the lefty blogosphere mean that she is doomed."

Marc describes one way of answering the question:

In the sense that the blogosphere is a self-contained constituency, and it is, even if its range spans across several other identity groups, one would need to demonstrate not only that Demcorats read blogs, or that blog-readers vote, but that blog-readers are somehow more accurately aligned with actual primary voters than other constituencies.

In other words, Marc argues, are blogs representative of the party as a whole, or are they merely a faction of a highly factionalized party? I am constantly reminded when I read lefty blogs that they seem socio-economically-located (more wealthy, more white, etc. than Democratic coalition) I was reminded of this again in Harold Meyerson column in today’s WaPo:

For the Democrats, the contest is settling into a pattern set four decades ago: primary-season class conflict, in which one candidate appeals to a younger and more upscale electorate by talking about political reform and other chiefly noneconomic concerns, while another emphasizes pocketbook issues to the party’s working-class voters. In primaries past, the upscale-reformer role has been embraced by Eugene McCarthy, Morris Udall, Gary Hart, Paul Tsongas, Bill Bradley and Howard Dean, while the part of the more populist bread-and-butter battler has been played by Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, Richard Gephardt and John Edwards, among others. This year’s upscale reformer, as Ronald Brownstein keenly noted in his Los Angeles Times column last month, is Barack Obama.

I would add a biographical point about Obama. He was elected to a black state Senate seat in Chicago with most of his energy coming from students at the University of Chicago, my alma mater. His biography and district (Hyde Park, the University’s neighborhood, is an upper-middle class black neighborhood into which a 12,000 student university has been inserted) allowed him to reach into two dissimilar parts of the Democratic coalition. In some sense, Obama is more of a Paul Wellstone than a Mondale or Humphrey.

I suspect that the blogs are less important in the sense that they represent voters and more in the sense that they, as Marc notes, have come to dominate opinion formation in the party, an undeniably elite project:

It seems to me that a more satisfying and ultimately more precise way to describe the power of the Democratic blogosphere is to characterize them as the "leading edge" of base opinion. In the same way, national presidential preference polls, which Hillary still tops, are trailing indicators.

I would make the broader point that the rise of the blogs is contributing to the strength of the upscale reformers in the Democratic party apparatus, already in many ways dominant. Howard Dean, the upper-class pro-NRA, pro-deficit reduction, candidate for President rode them to the DNC Chair. And the media, especially the national elite media, shares socio-economic roots with the blogs and this wing of the Democratic party. No wonder they are the media phenomenon. That’s almost the entire echo-chamber of the left.

Note that, in many ways, the mainstream righty blogs have a similar structure and socio-economic relationship with the media. Hugh Hewitt is a Harvard educated law professor. Glenn Reynolds is a Yale educated law professor.

Back to the original point about Clinton. Bill Clinton was clearly an ally of the reformers in many ways, but he was much more "with but not of" the reformers but "of but not with" the class-warriors. Bill Clinton is also not on either of Meyerson’s lists. Neither is Hillary. What to make of that?

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Another take on the right and the left online

April 15, 2007 – 9:07 am

Since I am relatively new to politics online, although neither politics nor technology, I followed the conversation last week between Patrick Ruffini, Rob Bluey, David All, Michael Turk (here and here), and Matt Stoller, with comments from Conn Carroll, with interest but I did not jump in. But between that an a conversation sponsored by Rob Bluey last week, a nagging feeling has emerged that I am going to talk about here.

It is taken as self-evident  that the right is behind on online political activism. The evidence is usually taken in numbers. More contributions, more readers, more bodies showing up in Iowa without instruction about what to do. Is that what the right should be trying to achieve? When we achieve that, have we reached parity? I do not think so. Michael Turk points out that there are real reasons why Republicans give less online.

When I worked in technology and on Capitol Hill, I was continually presented with the proposition that information (or numbers) without organization is nearly worthless. This is well known in other spheres:

Politics is sublimated war. In war, technological innovation without updated organizational innovation is almost worthless. However, organizational innovation is almost always decisive until the opponent adopts counter-strategies.

The left has better ideas about how to use technology and organize themselves. Let me give some examples:

  • TPM Muckraker. This is a website devoted to exposing corruption at the national level. That has meant, while Republicans were in charge, skewering Republicans. (Now, I grew up in Chicago, and I believe that corruption is part of the fundamental DNA of the Democrats, so don’t get harsh on me) Both the capacity and the niche provided by TPM Muckraker during the 2006 elections was phenomenal. Without that, I wonder if the Democrats would have been able to make corruption an issue.
  • Rightsfield. Several lefty bloggers are following what is happening on the right side of the Presidential election. I do not believe that neither the right nor the left has any significant blogs focused the left side of the Presidential election. But both have blogs following the right. Which side of the blogosphere is going to be better equipped, in terms of structured organization, when the nominees are selected? The left. Hands down. (I was reminded of this the other day when I was linked to by TheGarance.com, a lefty blog with a section in the blogroll, "Finding 44" in which all the sites were from the right.
  • Huffington Post’s video project. I don’t know if this will work, but it is a worthy experiment. This will destroy Republicans. Destroy.
  • BlogPAC. Fundraising is great. But remember the Edwards blogger story? Remember this post from MyDD in which Matt Stoller, mentioned above, urged readers to send letters to reporters to "fix" stories? It happened. This was a relatively minor story, in the grand scheme of things, but they were able to mobilze 1,525 people to take action against a reporter.
  • State blogs. National blogs have readers. State and local blogs do not so much. But they can define the press in determinative ways. Partly because the reporters tend to have fewer resources for state and local stories.
  • Too many other ways to mention.

The left dominates converting enthusiasm to activism online. Republicans basically don’t show up. The left dominates message control online. The right probably is better at converting activism to votes, but we are off-line too, so that’s not surprising.

Right now, the enthusiastic on the right have very little to do. They even had little to do in 2006. The options were to stew in their juices about Lincoln Chafee, ultimately, to my mind, a counter-productive activity, or talk to each other about how bad the Democrats were.

My point is not that we need to get more enthusiasm, although we do and that is hard, but rather than we need to think much more deeply about how to channel that enthusiasm in productive ways.  Once that happens, the money will almost certainly follow, especially if we are able to give young professionals, a generally busy lot who won’t go knock doors but have cash to burn, something to do.

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Do the Democrats think that they can start in September?

September 14, 2006 – 9:26 am

Sorry that I haven’t been posting so much, but I’ve been on the road.

Today’s NY Times reports on the “September Fund” will try to spend $25m in the last 6 or so weeks of the election on ads and voter mobilization. There have been a number of interesting things that have been said about this. I particularly like Hotline’s description as “shaming the donors”.

But I want to make a different point. They think that they can put together a national operation in 6 weeks? That is ridiculous. But that is what Democrats do. A friend of mine — who will go unnamed — will be traveling at the end of next week to a target state — which will go unnamed — on behalf of a 2008 Presidential hopeful — who will also go unamed — to run their field program.

His first task? Write a field plan. At the end of September. For an election in November. 2006. This is why the GOP’s technical advantages, mentioned in the NYT article, but also elaborated in, for example, Hotline’s excellent coverage of the Chafee win, is so powerful. Because the Democrats are so bad at this.

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Frist using 2008 volunteers in 2006

August 31, 2006 – 10:07 am

Bill Frist tried to take a little credit for tracking down the missing holding Senator. Note how he praises his volunteers:

Led by sites like PorkBusters, TPM Muckraker, and GOP Progress, online activists across the political spectrum have worked to clear away the obstruction against this bill through hard work and the process of elimination. While the count is still climbing, they have publicly received a response from 89 Senators regarding the secret hold - and I’m proud to say that members of my online grassroots organization, the iFrist Volunteers, have made a major contribution to this effort in calling Senators and securing their promise they have not held up the bill, nor will they hold up the bill. The growing success of this effort perfectly demonstrates the value of the database that S. 2590 would create … because it proves that Americans with a passion for citizen journalism and empowered by technology can cooperate across party lines to make a real difference.

This is a big deal. He is trying to use his volunteer organization now to help his future candidacy. (Does anyone take that candidacy seriously??) Now why is this useful?

Hotlineblog said that it is a way to “train” volunteers for 2008. I think that it is as much about using the tool to identify and reward volunteers (and maybe turn them into campaign staff). They address this more directly in their comparison of MyGOP to the DNC’s PartyBuilder:

Most important is to check out how each party gathers information about the user. The RNC has different logins for different features, such as the blog, personal homepage and volunteer recruitment center. It’s a model for different levels of engagement and getting lots of names without shoving committment into a user’s face — and typically getting a larger drop-off rate in return. The DNC takes a different approach. By singing up with Party Builder, the DNC gets basic information in the login and then collects information through the user’s profile, signed petitions, signed letters to the editor and their network/group memberships. So why do we care? These users are the party’s next loyal supporter and volunteer. And how much information the parties have on these folk will determine the strength of their online activism in ‘06 and ‘08, which is conveniently transferable to field staffs across the country.

(just to make it clear, the RNC gets this information, just differently) And that is why iFrist is so interesting. He is both getting mileage out of his volunteer base now, keeping them engaged (got a volunteer, give them something to do!), and figuring out which ones deliver and need to be promoted within the campaign. That’s very smart.

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McCain hires New Media people

August 23, 2006 – 5:46 pm

The other day, ABP was telling us that McCain got the New Media. This was in response to my pointing out that a self-congratulatory Redstate writer thought McCain was going to get rolled by the blogosphere.

Well, and you are probably sick of hearing this, McCain announced some new hires today… Hotlineblog has the details:

Over the past several months, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has quietly recruited for his presidential campaign some of the most influential online strategists in the country, including one of the main architects of Howard Dean’s pioneering website.

John Weaver, McCain’s chief political strategist, confirmed today that Nicco Mele, the webmaster of Dean for America, is among those who have committed to help. Mele’s work on Dean’s campaign, which including , led Esquire to name him as one of the country’s “best and brightest.” His firm, EchoDitto, lists more than twenty major Democratic and liberal firms and candidates as clients. Mele did not respond to an e-mail seeking immediate comment.

Also committing, according to Weaver: Mike Connell of New Media Communications. He designed, developed and managed the Bush campaign’s websites in 2000 and 2004.

They also point out:

With the recruitment of Connell, the incipient McCain campaign has pulled off a coup of sorts. It has now attracted top talent from nearly every major division of the Bush-Cheney campaign.

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