links for 2007-07-27
by Patrick Ruffini :: July 27th, 2007 8:23 am-
This is similar to a startup idea I had.
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GOPers Bail on YouTube Debate?
by Patrick Ruffini :: July 26th, 2007 7:16 pm Over the last few hours, I’d been hearing buzz that GOP candidates were going wobbly on the CNN/YouTube debate. I was dismissive. Given the huge earned media hit the Democrats got this week, the fact that even the highly partisan questioners acquitted themselves better than Chris Matthews did in the first debate, and the sponsorship of the powerful Republican Party of Florida, I didn’t think the GOP candidates would make the political mistake of passing up it up.
I was apparently wrong. Rudy Giuliani is unlikely to participate, according to an official source.
And Mitt Romney wouldn’t commit, dissing the “snowman question.”
Mitt Romney didn’t like some of the more frivolous trappings and told the New Hampshire Union Leader that “I think the presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer questions from a snowman.”
I would now expect numerous candidates to bail, just like they did at Ames, citing the lack of a frontrunner.
This is a big mistake. The Democrats are afraid to answer questions from Big Bad Fox News Anchors, and the Republicans are afraid to answer questions from regular people. Which is worse?
It’s stuff like this that will set the GOP back an election cycle or more on the Internet. No matter the snazzy Web features and YouTube videos they may put up, if they’re fundamentally uncomfortable with the idea of interacting with real people online, what’s the point?
Having spent the better part of a decade working at the intersection of politics and the Web, I can’t help but feel of a deep, deep sense of dismay that we’re missing something so basic. This is EXACTLY why I am afraid that we will be outraised by $100 million or more in 2008.
Yes, some of the questions on Monday were trivial. Yes, they were partisan. (I expect many of the 9/17 questioners to be partisan Republicans.) Yes, they were messy. But so is democracy. And the fact that some place so much faith in the broken mainstream media over a benign format like this one says a lot about the difficult straits the Republicans are in right now.
Perhaps the rest of the field will prove me wrong.
Tagged: mitt romney 
online politics rudy giuliani youtube
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links for 2007-07-26
by Patrick Ruffini :: July 26th, 2007 8:23 am-
iMania now thoroughly worn off
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Obama is Hybriding
by Patrick Ruffini :: July 25th, 2007 11:32 pmBarack Obama’s campaign has an interesting example of the online-offline integration I talked about a few weeks ago. Having signed up for their text messaging list, I texted in my addresses to get a free Obama bumper sticker. It came yesterday and looks like this:
Aside from feeling some mild disappointment in not receiving the standard Obama’08 sticker to add to my collection, I got to thinking, and this is an interesting viral strategy. If I had to guess, the last thing they want is for this to actually be placed on cars — you can barely see the call to action. Rather, the point is for it to be stuck on the outside of dorm room doors, where it can spread virally offline among college students. The amount of thought that went into this campaign (I got an SMS telling me my bumper sticker was being packaged up in Chicago with some TLC) shows you the premium they are placing on text messaging versus other forms of online communication.
Also smart: the package I received included a direct mail reply device (click for full size):
This isn’t creative. This is the typical blocking and tackling of a campaign. But it does highlight the opportunity to squeeze out every last ounce of return out of your interactions with supporters. Right now, I am signed up to most every Republican and Democratic email list, but only receive direct mail as a result of my online registrations to the Giuliani and Romney campaigns. That’s also good blocking and tackling. Do Democrats not do this because their universe is only responsive online?
Though I believe mobile is the next big thing, I am skeptical of SMS as a channel, particularly with the advent of the iPhone and the new mobile Web (Scoble says it’s far and away better than anything else out there, Dave Winer is not so sure). You can’t donate over SMS yet, and you can’t (really) volunteer over it, so email still remains the more versatile communications medium. Which is why I was almost more impressed by an email I got from Bobby Jindal’s campaign for Governor of Louisiana, which allowed me to simply sign up and get up a bumper sticker, and also sign up three of my friends to get bumper stickers as well. That seems like a pretty effective promotion to drive email list growth, the tiniest bit of free swag in exchange for an email address (which can be worth $10 or more in fundraising alone).
Tagged: barack obama bobby jindal mobile online politics
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links for 2007-07-25
by Patrick Ruffini :: July 25th, 2007 8:23 am-
iNation not as big as thought?
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worth repeating.
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Trippi’s Warning for Republicans
by Patrick Ruffini :: July 25th, 2007 12:47 am
I agree 100% with Trippi’s assessment of the GOP candidates and competition on the net. (Notice how candid he is about his guy Edwards being behind Obama, so this is not just spin.) There is no underestimating the world of pain we will be in if we don’t get the small donor and email list size thing right, and get it right by February 5th so that our nominee can go toe to toe with Hillary (1 million email addresses), Obama (258K+ donors), or Edwards (Joe Trippi’s guy).
What are the GOP campaigns doing about this? Do they even view this as a problem, or are they too bogged down in winning short term tactical victories with high dollar donors and padding cash-on-hand figures? Do they care more about the next quarter, or building a sustainable 50-state, 3,141 county, $400 million-plus movement to take on Hillary or whomever is strong enough to beat her in the primary? Where is the synergy between short-term tactics and long-term strategy?
It’s 2007, and the bottom is falling out on direct mail. (And none of the GOP candidates come to the table with a huge housefile anyway, so there shouldn’t be a sense of cannibalizing your direct marketing infrastructure.) There’s no better time to start prioritizing online over older, increasingly less effective forms of political contact. And yet the response to stuff like this seems to be… crickets.
This isn’t a fringe Internets thing. We could lose because we don’t correct this, in the same way that we almost lost in 2000 because we forgot door-to-door.
Tagged: online politics strategy
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Causes for Politics on Facebook
by Patrick Ruffini :: July 24th, 2007 2:56 pmWhen the Facebook Platform launched, Causes by Project Agape was one of the most widely anticipated new applications. Two months later, it’s difficult to argue with its success, with the most popular causes, Save Darfur, bringing in over 300,000 members and $26,000 in contributions.
Now, Project Agape has added Presidential candidate contributions to the mix. You can now start raising money for any of the Presidential candidates through Facebook. Right now, the most popular Cause is centered around Barack Obama (who else?) with over 6,700 members, leaving Hillary Clinton (1,700 members) and Rudy Giuliani (about 1,000 centered in two popular groups) to round out the top three.
The amount contributed isn’t overwhelming just yet — totaling just $359 raised by the top cause for Obama. (The most popular Causes tend to raise about 10 cents per member across the board.) This should grow over time, but one wonders what the mechanism is for driving return traffic given that one can’t message to members of a Cause.
I’m told that the Republican side of candidate contributions is being handled by ABC PAC, while Democratic contributions are being processed through ActBlue.
Tagged: facebook fundraising online politics
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links for 2007-07-24
by Patrick Ruffini :: July 24th, 2007 8:28 am-
When I give presentations, I don’t talk about Facebook. I talk about Facebook and whatever comes after it. Nothing (except Google) is permanent these days.
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links for 2007-07-23
by Patrick Ruffini :: July 23rd, 2007 8:23 am-
We’re not thinking about ourselves as a community — we’re not trying to build a community — we’re not trying to make new connections.
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This is an unbelievably good pickup by Team Fred.
