Engage Your Community
by Patrick Ruffini :: August 29th, 2007 10:17 pmWhen David, Rob, Soren, and I started kicking around an idea for an online training for conservatives, we maybe expected 50 people would show up to an all-day event in a sleepy August in D.C. when the city practically shuts down.
In light of that, the turnout at Heritage today rocked. More than 150 young conservatives showed up, many from out of town, ready to take the fight directly to the left.
More than anything, it was a great meeting of the minds, and my head is just awash in new ideas from all comers. It was also amazed me to see how many people are really following TechRepublican and instinctively buy in to the narrative about technology and the future of the party that we are building collectively. And that’s not just online professionals. These are the people who will be running the campaigns and major nonprofits 5, 10, 15 years down the line.
With the success of the Save the Debate coalition, the emerging competition to ActBlue, and real efforts to churn out more online operatives kicking into high gear, I think we’ll look back and say that this is the summer it started to happen.
My panel was about the boring, stodgy topic of email campaigns and how to build a mass movement on the Internet. It’s something I don’t thing gets enough attention with the current laser-like focus on social media (which is definitely emerging). I co-presented with my friend and former colleague Mindy Finn of Romney for President, who followed up with a case study of the campaign’s enormously successful Sign Up America! campaign.
My slideshow is below. Consider this a teaser. You’ll need to hear me speak for it actually make sense — or so I hope!
Tagged: announcements 
engage movement strategy
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Makes me wish I lived in D.C. so that I could attend events like this.
It is amazing that you could find 150 people who believe that the Republican party has a future. With John Warner retiring and the problems with Senator Craign, it is beginning to look less likely that the Republicans will be able to hold on to more than 40 seats in the Senate. When the Democrats get to 60 seats in the Senate, they will quickly legislate the Republican Party out of existence through a new Fairness Doctrine, another round of Campaign finance laws, and a new civil rights act. If the Democratic Party passes an immigration bill that calls for open borders and easy citizenship, the Republicans will stand no chance of staying relevant.
You can type of your computer all you want but when every demographic trend in the U.S. going against the Republican Party, the U.S. is heading to a time of being a one party state.
[…] Grasping new tools digg_url = ‘http://www.eyeon08.com/2007/08/31/grasping-new-tools/’; digg_title = ‘Grasping new tools’; digg_bodytext = ‘As my friends Patrick Ruffini, Rob Bluey, and Justin Hart have pointed out, a bunch of us organized a new media training workshop at Heritage, sponsored by Google, on Wednesday. It was a success. About 200 people attended. It was truly extraordinary. The goal, more than anything else, was to begin a discussion on how organizations, […]’; digg_skin = “compact”; digg_topic = “politics”; ( function() { var ds=typeof digg_skin==’string’?digg_skin:'’; var h=80; var w=52; if(ds==’compact’) { h=18; w=120; } var u=typeof digg_url==’string’?digg_url:(typeof DIGG_URL==’string’?DIGG_URL:window.location.href); document.write(”"); } )() As my friends Patrick Ruffini, Rob Bluey, and Justin Hart have pointed out, a bunch of us organized a new media training workshop at Heritage, sponsored by Google, on Wednesday. It was a success. About 200 people attended. It was truly extraordinary. […]
[…] As my friends Patrick Ruffini, Rob Bluey, and Justin Hart have pointed out, a bunch of us organized a new media training workshop at Heritage, sponsored by Google, on Wednesday. It was a success. About 200 people attended. It was truly extraordinary. […]