GWO Dem

Test

2006-10-28T09:38:00.000-07:00

test

The Kids Aren't Alright

2005-07-25T10:50:00.000-07:00

I figured I would join everyone else in the class and comment on Nielsen’s Usability for Teenagers. I guess it might be different if you were concerned about non-profits, but in a campaign, teens just don't matter. They can't vote; also in federal elections they can't donate. Now if there was a greater trade off, I might be more opposed, but in general I don't think there is much use in spending too much time making a campaign website appealing to people under 18. It just doesn't strike me as an efficient use of time. I think there’s really only 3 things a website can get you, votes, volunteers or dollars, and teens could only be volunteers and I think that is unlikely to happen. Any Teen actually interested in volunteering would not be discouraged by something not 100% teen friendly. Considering how tuned out they are already, it would be quite a level of interest for them to be involved either way.

2005-07-24T15:27:00.000-07:00

2005-07-23T10:25:00.000-07:00

Creating Internet Evangelists

2005-07-21T13:29:00.000-07:00

I'm reading Creating Customer Evangelists, which is about creating word of mouth buzz and the authors include their six tenants, and I thought they were exactly the type of things we have been talking about all semester. Despite this not being part of the reading, I think it is highly relevant to the course.

1. Customer Plus-Delta: Continuously gather customer feedback.
2. Napsterize knowledge: Make it a point to share knowledge freely.
3. Build the buzz: Expertly build word of mouth networks.
4. Create community: Encourage communities of costumers to meet and
share.
5. Make bite-size chunks: Deliver specialized small offerings to get
costumers to bit.
6. Create a cause: Focus on making the world, or an industry,
better.

I would add more insight, but I think it pretty much says it all.

Message Problems

2005-07-17T17:07:00.000-07:00

After watching most of the online videos from the campaigns and national committees, they seemed to follow the theme of the campaign, the DNC ones were better, but the RNC ones were constantly on message. The ones from RNC hit on two consistent themes; Kerry is an aloof flip flopper, that's it. The DNC ones attack Bush on, the economy, the environment, his military record, Halliburton, well basically everything under the sun. It was just like Kerry's campaign, no focus, the DNC is just attacking on so many fronts that it is too weak for anything to stick. Moral of the story is you need a message, and you have to carry that message to the Internet.

Responding Inkind

2005-07-16T14:32:00.000-07:00

One of the big rules of political advertising is to make sure no attack goes unresponded to on the same medium. Online videos and viral marketing can make that tough to do. In the factcheck on the Bush online video attacking Kerry shows the problem. The Bush campaign sent a misleading video to 6 million, then add to that the number of times the video was forwarded, and its even more. How does Kerry respond? He can't respond because he doesn't have Bush's list and he doesn't know who it was forwarded to. He could send it to his list, but there is probably very little overlap between the two. Beyond that, there is no accountability, sure there is factcheck.org, but it's a small site, if it was a TV ad, the mainstream media would be all over it, but now its just on the Internet. Using online videos and viral marketing you can attack your opponent basically without consequence and fear of retaliation in-kind.

Online Videos

2005-07-15T11:53:00.000-07:00

I just read the article on Online Videos and was very interested. Online videos have a lot of potential, and almost anyone can do it now because of the available technology. For better or worse they could really be more dangerous than the 527 ads now. A guy in his basement can splice together a few TV appearances of a candidate and whatever else he likes, go to a large blog like dailykos and post it and lots of people are going to see it. Those people are going to pass it on to other people and then maybe it finds its way into the news. All from one guy, who may remain completely anonymous, and wouldn't have to file any sort of record. With everything being so accessible, streaming video of c-span, being able to transfer tivoed shows onto your computer, transcripts of talk shows, lexisnexis, for even an amatuer it would be pretty easy to get what you need. Politicians beware.

Oh Yes

2005-07-10T11:50:00.000-07:00

I am sitting outside in what has to be the most perfect temperature ever, drinking beer and listening to some sweet 97 phunky ass Phish. Translation, I'm the happiest man alive.

Do We Really Need An Influentials Strategy?

2005-07-09T06:40:00.000-07:00

This may seem counterintuitive to a lot of people, but reading the article I came at it from two different angles. First, when reading the tactics for engaging the influentials online, it wasn't anything we hadn't been talking about using all along. My second point is, with 70% of people engaged in online politics being influentials, why should our online campaign be geared towards anything else? Ultimately it comes down to the fact that we don't need to have a separate influentials strategy, we just need to call it what it really is, our Internet Strategy.

Password Protected

2005-07-08T12:50:00.000-07:00

I was reading the chapter on GOTV in the Winning Elections Online, even though I know it isn't part of this weeks reading, and I was very intrigued by the idea of distributing phone and walk lists through a password protected site. This was not because I had never heard of the idea before, but because the mention of disturbing phone lists gave me an idea. Now being vaguely familiar with CATI (computer assisted telephone interview) systems, it occurred to me that it could be set up in such a way that by accessing it would give the user the ability to use a similar system. Now this would allow the user a full interactive script to be able to use for more intensive voter IDing. That data could also go directly to the campaign's database. Now it might be able to go even further, while hooking up your home phone to the computer might be a hassle, but maybe not for your cell phone. My friend had just moved a new place that didn't have an Internet connection yet, her cell phone did. She was able to take her laptop and plug it into her cell phone and connect to the Internet. If you can do that, then surely you should be able to plug your cell phone into your computer and with a click of the mouse have it call, just like a real CATI system does. I think the possibilities with this could be great, not only could you do ID calls; you could have all the candidates issues scripted out and available at the touch of a button. There are just a ton of options that could make people anywhere are critical part of the campaign.

Every American heart feels for the British people

2005-07-07T09:07:00.000-07:00

"Every American heart feels for the British people and the families of those killed and injured in today's horrific terrorist bombings in London. As a country which has also experienced tragedy at the hands of cowardly killers and which keeps faith with the special alliance Prime Minister Tony Blair reaffirmed on September 11th, our thoughts and prayers are with you.

"In addition to words of condolence and condemnation, America should offer every assistance to Great Britain in dealing with the aftermath of this tragedy and in hunting down and destroying those responsible. We must reaffirm that cold blooded killers will not for a moment stop the critical work of the G-8 nations in showing the world the strength of our shared values and our commitment to ending poverty around the globe. The terrorists should hear from all of us today: the future belongs not to fear, but to freedom. We must also be vigilant here at home to take every step needed to complete the unfinished work of homeland security, strengthening our port security, rail security, protecting chemical plants, and securing loose nuclear materials abroad. While these attacks remind us that the fight is far from over, they also strengthen our resolve to stand together for the right of free people to live in a peaceful world."

John Kerry's Statement on Today's Attack from LightUpTheDarkness

A Digital Divide?

2005-07-04T12:18:00.000-07:00

Reading the chapter on Congressional websites there was one question bothering me, how do the characteristics of the district affect the Internet use? Are wealthier Congressional Districts more likely to have an excellent website than a poorer district? Does demand for a website affect the quality? With an incomplete dataset it would be tough to draw a real conclusion, but of the 10 websites cited, only 3 had median incomes below the national average and those same three were the only ones whose poverty level exceeded the national average. Together the ten averaged a median income of $46,000 and 11.8% below the poverty line. While it cannot be fully explored here, I would hypothesize that district wealth plays some part in the quality of a Congressional website.

The Irony

2005-07-03T14:00:00.000-07:00

Reading Dennis Johnson's book and the chapter The E-Mail Overload the apparent effects of e-mail become ironic. While the Internet and e-mail have made contacting your representative much easier, at the same time it as pushed the representative further away from the contact. E-mail essentially made it too easy to contact your representative. With hill staffers already overworked and underpaid, representatives are forced to turn to even more impersonal ways to handle all of the correspondences. So in the end, the Internet has made contacting your representative easier, it has also managed to make it less effective.

The Dangers of Congressional Blogging

2005-07-02T14:22:00.000-07:00

There is an inherent danger in blogging as an elected official because of the uncontrollable nature of the beast. A good example of this was a year or so ago when Kos posted something saying he didn't care about mercenaries who were killed in Iraq. The Republicans jumped on it and attacked every Democrat running for office who was advertising on his site, and most of them relented and ended up pulling their advertisements in protest to his comments. Just a side note, the NRSC was advertising on Free Republic at the same time this happened, and the level of venom spewed by the posters on that site is unparalleled by anything on the left, so there was a clear double standard. Blogging just has a certain level of uncontrollability to it that is going to scare a lot of candidates and elected officials, and the ones that aren't like John Conyers or Louise Slaughter probably aren't going to be hurt by anything said. It's a shame because the uncontrolled nature of blogging is what gives it so much of its draw.

Better Start Watching

2005-07-01T08:17:00.000-07:00

With the surprise announcement of Sandra Day O'Connor today, there is an excellent opportunity to see politics and the new media in action. Both sides are going to be full speed ahead as soon as possible. I think what happens over the next 24 hours through the use of the Internet will be an incredible case study in the power of the Internet in politics. There is already a post at Daily Kos of ways you can get involved. Before the Internet the time it would take to mobilize would be exponentially greater. It is great, for observation, that this happened during the time we are all taking this class. It is especially interesting because of the rapid mobilization that will take place. A large part of the real battle will be how well the sides organize in the next 24 hours and the Internet will be critical to the effort.

Run Better Campaigns!

2005-06-28T09:13:00.000-07:00

It is so frustrating to read all of these articles about how great the Bush campaign was run and how poorly the Kerry campaign was run. Nothing was coordinated, there didn't appear to be any real strategy, just poorly, poorly run. The few ground reports are bad, but I think most of us saw it all along with the lack of message from the Kerry campaign the whole campaign. It's amazing to think that the Bush team had to run a nearly flawless campaign just to beat a completely incompetent Kerry team. But for Democrats there are a lot of lessons here, and I think it all highlights how important an effective use of new technologies are going be in modern campaign, and the more the technology can bring politics back to the retail politics of old, the more effective they are going to be.

Piling On

2005-06-27T16:24:00.000-07:00

Since it is such a good topic I will comment on Matt Bai's article as well. I have two points to make here. First, the Kerry campaign's strategy for volunteering was absolutely a mess. I was running a state Assembly campaign in Onondaga County, New York at the time so I got to have a few run ins with them. They first sucked up 3,000 volunteers and basically locked them into working for Kerry in a state he was going to win in a county he was going to win. To get them to do anything for your campaign you had to submit a request a few weeks in advance. But the real killer was their strategy, which was just to make sure Democratic turnout in every precinct was 70%, that's it. No targeting, just call everyone until you think have 70% of the Democrats in a precinct voting, and that was their idea of running up the score.

My second point deals with something I think the Bush campaign did very well, targeting specific groups; Agriculture Coalition for Bush, Viva Bush, W is for Women. It worked great for them and it's a lesson Democrats should take note of. I've actually been preaching this for a few years now myself. I learned politics in Erie County, the home of Buffalo, where ethnic politics is king. Unlike the fairly homogeneous Republican Party, the Democratic Party is extremely diverse and every group thinks they should be the one running the Party. In 2004, after Congressman Jack Quinn announced he was retiring from the second most Democratic seat held by a Republican at the time, there was sure to be a competitive Democratic primary. Now the 27th is an interesting seat, because it has more union members than any other CD in the country (about twice the average), about 50% of the voters are either of Irish, Italian or Polish decent (a fact few would let you forget), and at approximately 17% it is the most Polish district in the country. Jack Quinn had held the seat for 12 years, and he is of course Irish, and the front runner to fill his seat was then Assemblyman now Congressman Brian Higgins, who is also Irish. Candidates actually got into the race as the Polish candidate; they were running because the next Congressman should be Polish. Fast forward a few months, three State Supreme Court Justices are retiring, two Italians and one African American, and it is certain that who ever is nominated to replace them will need the right last name. Now Erie County may be an extreme example, being as Democratic politics were once referred to as Beirut on the lake, but it shows why the Democrats need to follow Bush's lead. These are all key parts of the Democratic coalition especially in the Northeast, that need to be kept involved and need to be kept happy, and marketing specifically to them is one of the best ways to do that.

2005-06-26T09:49:00.000-07:00

2005-06-25T09:47:00.000-07:00

When is it too much effort?

2005-06-21T13:12:00.000-07:00

I touched upon this topic in my post yesterday about Podcasting, but I have been thinking about it more since. At what point do you spend too much effort on your web campaign that it starts to affect the rest of your campaign. Blogs, Podcasting, E-mail newsletters, volunteer databases, online donations, together this is all a lot of work. At what point does the effort put in exceed the return from that effort? At what campaign size is all this effort begin to go from red to black? How do you judge the online audience, and that audience's receptiveness to all these stuff before you engage in it? It seems to me that just diving in head first with all this stuff could eat up valuable resources and do serious damage to the entire campaign by focusing on the wrong tactics.

Podcasting

2005-06-20T20:19:00.000-07:00

The Pennsylvania Senate Republicans announced today that they are going to begin Podcasting. Which does sound like a good idea, but I wonder how effective it can really be. Sure it will rally the troops, but how much? I am not sure how much effort goes into making a Podcast, but I would imagine a state legislative caucus even in a large state like PA doesn't have much of an audience. I am a hardcore Democrat but if the NYS Assembly Democrats were releasing a Podcast, I wouldn't really have much of an interest in listening to it. So I guess my question is when does the effect put into a Podcast become a waste because it isn't that effective?

Building Email Lists

2005-06-19T12:05:00.000-07:00

The points one building email lists were very on point. I think they also highlight how critical an ever-expanding email list is to online campaigning. The power to reach so many people with just a touch of a button is invaluable. I think when dealing with campaigns it should go even further and at this point, every contact the campaign has with voters should include an attempt to get the voter to sign up for to the email list. It needs to be both online and offline, at rallies, at fundraisers, door-to-door canvassing, telephone canvassing, even encouragement in direct mail. I have also noticed though, that many campaigns are now using splash pages on their websites so when you first enter you are prompted to sign up for email updates, I am curious to how effective that is, does it get more people to subscribe or does it turn people off from it by being so straight forward?

Newsletters pt 3

2005-06-18T15:05:00.000-07:00

I think newsletters and other email based contact are great way for elected officials, through their campaign, to keep their grassroot supporters active even when it isn't campaign time. I have seen some Democrats using stuff like citizen sponsors for legislation, and I think it is perfect for keeping people involved. I haven't seen it yet, but I think something like citizen lobbyists would be a good idea, have supporters mobilize and make lots of phone calls or something of the like. Also use the newsletter to campaign for other candidates who may be up for election then. I think the Internet provides an excellent opportunity to cultivate a much stronger grassroots base during the off season. It will allow savvy campaigns to be miles ahead of opponents when it comes to organizing.

Newsletters pt. 2

2005-06-17T12:42:00.000-07:00

Following up my post from yesterday, I figured I would explain why I feel that the candidates choose to use negative or positive messages in their emails the way they did. At the core of the last presidential campaign, it was all about Bush, Bush's supporters loved him and Kerry's supporters hated him. Bush supporters were most motivated by seeing Bush re-elected, so a positive message about him and his agenda was what was going to get them motivated the most. On the other side, Kerry supporters were going to be most motivated by a negative message about Bush and his agenda. I don't think it speaks to campaign tone, only to campaign strategy.