Do Democrats Own the Internet?
by Patrick Ruffini :: April 8th, 2007 8:10 pmFollowing the Q1 money reports, bloggers and the pundits are all atwitter about Democrat online fundraising numbers. My friend Robert Bluey pens a column rounding up the story in Townhall. Other places with good thoughts on this debate are Kung Fu Quip (authored by ex-RNC Internet director Mike Turk), David All and the Bivings Report.
I have my own perspective on this issue, having led the RNC’s Internet operations in 2006 and now serving as an outside advisor to one of the GOP campaigns (Rudy Giuliani). And as someone who monitors trends on this daily (in my post last Sunday, I actually expected Obama’s Internet number to be higher), I think much of the commentary on this is missing the point.
The basic gist of the argument is that because Democrats embrace open systems online (blog comments, user generated content), they’re more successful and raise more money. This totally gets it backwards, I think. It assumes people go to Barack Obama or John Edwards’ sites because of the allure of creating their own personal space there, or at least to check out other people. But if this were the case, these tools would be wildly more popular than they are, with comment counts in the thousands. Think about your average political comment board. Most of the participants are regulars, and to borrow the old line from Cheers, it’s a place where everybody knows your name. If blog comments had mass appeal, the boards would probably be more unruly than they are now and no one would know anyone else’s name. And before someone starts ranting about how tyrannical and top-down Republicans are, GOP.com had open comments, and this is exactly how it worked. The fact is that far fewer people will participate in writing their own blogs on your site than will sign up for email or even donate, which makes me think that while valuable, this is not the driver that some think it is.
If you want to drive a lot of repeat traffic from a committed (but limited) core of users, comments should be at the top of your list. And like I said, that’s valuable, especially when you can parlay it into more content. But when we’re talking about raising money and generating email addresses, the subject of this discussion, your strategy is totally different. Look at MoveOn — an unqualified online success. It has no blog, just a motherlode of email addresses.
This is something smart Democrats realize. After 2004, Kos absolutely savaged Kerry Internet guru Zack Exley for running a top-down effort that barely recognized the existence of the blogosphere. Zack made the following observation in his response:
What many forget is that the Dean campaign was driven by communication among supporters — but also by communication from the campaign to supporters. Call it “top down” if you must. Joe Trippi posted on the blog right alongside other supporters. But he also sent emails to his growing email list. And those emails spawned much more organizing and raised much more money than the Dean blog did. That is not to denigrate the blog. It’s just a numbers thing: not all 600,000 Dean email subscribers visited the blog every day. But they did check their email everyday. So Joe could reach more people by posting to the blog AND sending an email than by ONLY posting to the blog. (emphasis mine)
All of this is to say that supporters are far more likely to interface with the campaign from a top-down email sent from headquarters than they are by having a peer-to-peer dialogue with the campaign. Blogs and email serve two entirely different purposes. Blogs generate buzz and influence the influentials; emails generate mass action. If you want to look at the success of any campaign in terms of transactions, look first at their (boring, stodgy, etc.) outbound email program.
And once you get into talking about email, as Zack says, “It’s just a numbers thing.” The growth of your list is the result of a formula that combines traffic to your site and the techniques you’re using to get them to give their email address. This part of it isn’t about lightning in a bottle, or about “getting it.” It’s a math equation than anybody can solve.
Two things need to be pointed out here. The first is that all three of the main Democrat candidates have run serious races as recently as 2004 and 2006 that have given them large, ready-made lists of valid email addresses for the 2008 primary. This gave them a readymade fundraising base.
Second, it is probably true that the Democrats are outpolling the Republican sites in traffic right now. You can see it for yourself on Alexa. Where is this traffic coming from? To a large degree, search engines. And if you check Google Trends, the ratio of Democrat to Republican candidate searches tracks pretty well with Democrat to Republican traffic on Alexa.
Doesn’t that effectively concede the point about Democrats and the Internet? Having watched this closely for some time now, no. This kind of divide doesn’t manifest later in election cycles when most voters are paying attention. After the 2006 elections, I did an analysis of traffic to the various Senate campaign sites using tools like Alexa and Compete. And in the most-watched races, traffic tracked with momentum (and to some extent the quality of online efforts). In Maryland, Steele got more traction online than Cardin, reflecting the enthusiasm for his campaign with the rightroots. In Pennsylvania, Santorum had a better site than Casey and got more visits as a result. In Virginia, Webb had the decisive advantage, tracking closely with the momentum in that race. In Tennessee, Harold Ford had that Obama youthfulness going for him but still only managed to tie Corker in traffic. The lesson is that Web traffic (and donations) follows media coverage and the political environment, and Republicans more than held their own in a difficult year.
What’s the environment like in 2007? In February I made the following prediction:
Watching MTP this morning, it seems fairly apparent to me that the Democratic nomination fight will eat up two thirds or more of the media’s 2008 coverage over the next year. This despite the fact that the outcome of the Republican nomination seems to be more in doubt than the Democratic one, and the GOP has no shortage of accomplished national figures running. …
I am trying to fully game out the implications of this, but don’t be surprised to see these storylines emerge. First, the Democrats will be seen as generating more grassroots energy than the Republicans, whose voters will be framed as subdued and unmotivated. The story on Obama’s crowds is just the beginning. The media will overstate Democratic enthusiasm because they think Democratic primaries are more interesting.
And, lo and behold, here’s a Google News count of all stories about the Big Six:
Hillary Clinton - 20,038
John Edwards - 17,915
Barack Obama - 14,465
John McCain - 13,987
Rudy Giuliani - 9,616
Mitt Romney - 8,157
Combined Democratic Candidate Mentions - 52,418 - 62.3% share
Combined Republican Candidate Mentions - 31,760 - 37.7% share
UPDATE: The pro-Democrat skew rises to 66.8% - 33.2% if you suppress the Republican names from Democrat searches and vice versa, indicating which primary the media is honing in on.
If Democrats are covered more often, it’s no surprise that they will be searched for more often, and their sites will get more traffic. In addition, I’m also willing to concede that Democrat primary voters may be more willing to engage in odd numbered years. Does this mean Republicans are congenitally incapable of going online? Hardly. At this point, the gap results from external factors in the offline world, and the numbers can easily skew one way because comparatively few people are tuned in. If you’re Googling a candidate’s name, you’re probably not a hardbitten netroots stalwart, which leads me to believe this is more about atmospherics and media coverage than it is about infrastructure. That will change as media coverage evens out.
To the extent Democrats do tune in earlier, they also force their candidates into the mistake of waging the campaign as a sprint rather than as a marathon. Think about how Howard Dean burned through his $40 million, or John Kerry left $15 million in the bank because he couldn’t spend it fast enough. It’s not clear to me that this frenetic pace, driven in large part by the netroots, helps them much at all.
Tagged: 2008 
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Patrick, you are aware that that rightroots “enthusiasm” for Steele was only good enough for a double-digit loss, right? I essentially agree with your basic point of the importance of e-mail over bloggery but let’s maintain some perspective.
Interesting post. It is important to not conflate the presence of interactive systems with eventual outcomes. I.e. just because candidate X offers a social network, this does not mean that candidate X will be successful. Once we’re past this, some interesting points emerge.
First, interactive systems will serve a multiplicative role with regards to halo effects from media coverage. If candidate X is highly covered, there will be more interest in that candidate. The presence of interactive systems will ‘capture’ a higher percentage of that interest, and drive them to be repeat visitors (and ultiamtely, sharers of content). In a static model, searchers follow the media halo, find the information on the static site, and proceed to more interactive engagement elsewhere (if so desired).
This multiplicative effect is moderated by audience demographics. You could say it is more likely that an audience that skews younger (and is more accustomed to interactive elements - blogs, comments, social networks) will use the interactive elements of candidate X’s site. Perhaps this is why Obama seems to have stumbled upon a goldmine formula in embracing interactivity.
Ultimately, none of this exists in a vacuum. Pageviews and uniques translate to something, but fundraising, feet to the pavement and mass mobilizations triumph. However, with this cycle I do believe that campaigns will more effectively be able to translate those uniques to action, so having the audience is incredibly valuable.
So how about breaking out those online donor figures for any GOP candidate?
Oh, I agree online enthusiasm for Lamont was not enough to elect him, but I think if you play the numbers it kinda worked out in our favor, no?
[…] Update: Patrick Ruffini chimes in with a thoughtful post. […]
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[…] I know that Al Gore invented the Intranets, but I didn’t think that Democrats actually owned the entire thing. Patrick Ruffini asks the question and analyzes how political parties use the net. Do Democrats Own the Internet? Excerpt: The basic gist of the argument is that because Democrats embrace open systems online (blog comments, user generated content), they’re more successful and raise more money. This totally gets it backwards, I think. It assumes people go to Barack Obama or John Edwards’ sites because of the allure of creating their own personal space there, or at least to check out other people. But if this were the case, these tools would be wildly more popular than they are, with comment counts in the thousands. Think about your average political comment board. Most of the participants are regulars, and to borrow the old line from Cheers, it’s a place where everybody knows your name. If blog comments had mass appeal, the boards would probably be more unruly than they are now and no one would know anyone else’s name. And before someone starts ranting about how tyrannical and top-down Republicans are, GOP.com had open comments, and this is exactly how it worked. The fact is that far fewer people will participate in writing their own blogs on your site than will sign up for email or even donate, which makes me think that while valuable, this is not the driver that some think it is. […]
[…] UPDATE — April 9, 5:03 p.m.: My column seems to have inspired quite a debate/discussion from a variety of friends and colleagues, including Matt Stoller, Todd Zeigler, Patrick Ruffini, Michael Turk, David All and Jonathan Martin. Posted at 12:50 PM in Clippings Save to Del.icio.us Share on Facebook […]
[…] « Do Democrats Own the Internet? […]
[…] 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. […]
[…] 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. […]