Putting the blogosphere under a magnifying glass
I know that Barack Obama and Ron Paul were very popular on Digg during the last electoral cycle, but the thing about that, you know… it was the last cycle:
And what’s this, just one story in the category right now? C’mon, Digg. You can do better than this.
And I don’t care where you go with it — 2012 presidential election? 2010 congressional midterms? 2009 New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial campaigns? — but you’ve got to start living in the now.
Twitter experienced another milestone last week, although you may not have noticed: Tweet for Chuck, a fundraising drive organized by the nascent campaign of Chuck DeVore, a California state assemblyman who is gearing up to take on Barbara Boxer in 2010. As far as I can discern, this is the first time Twitter has been put to this use.
Although it’s very early yet in the cycle, the last few weeks have seen a big jump in use of Twitter by conservatives, if the just-launched TCOT website (aggregating and ranking conservative tweeters) is any measure. The move should give DeVore some degree of online cred and visibility that few candidates yet have — at least among conservatives, and at this stage they matter most.
The image below, from the front page of the website, explains how it works better than any summary I could offer:
Further down the page, donors are listed along with their Twitter profile picture, the amount they donated or pledged, and whether other donors had listed them as a referrer:
By tweeting the donation to one’s Twitter followers, the campaign gets a free one-time use of that donor’s account and the chance to solicit additional donors. The same network effects that made Twitter even more conducive to passing along news about the Mumbai terror attacks than perhaps even the blogosphere could end up producing a tool more effective for fundraising than blogging as well.
Twitter is a more intimate experience than blogging, so a candidate on Twitter (as DeVore is) can to some extent simulate the access donors frequently get at traditional fundraising dinners. A candidate couldn’t really be expected to write a whole blog post thanking specific donors, but a tweet is just the right vehicle for such acknowledgment, and DeVore’s campaign has been doing just that.
Moreover, DeVore is on the right track so far, working with blogosphere and political veterans Josh Trevino and then Justin Hart and even contributing blog posts at the recently-launched GOP state blog network Red County.
It’s been said before that political movements tend to innovate in fundraising and message delivery when they’re out of power. With Barack Obama’s Twitter account recently falling silent while DeVore is taking it in a new direction, we might just be seeing that happen already.
Update: Don’t miss DeVore’s comment on this post.
In a post evaluating the three competing GOP online fundraising tools last weekend, and I criticized the “Defeat Radical Islam” issue badge on Slatecard for overlaying the Star and Crescent with the Universal No symbol. This weekend, Slatecard’s David All has updated the badge. Replacing Islam’s holy symbol is now a pair of crossed AK-47s. Old and new:
I suppose it is possible the good people at Izhevsk Mechanical Works will object, but I doubt it would matter if they did. Not that the old badge necessarily ran the risk of inciting politically-motivated riots in the Arab street (although one never knows) but it sent the wrong message. The new one is also unlikely to move the NRA. Good thing they have a sense of humor, and good thing All made the change.
Meanwhile, during the week I discussed the three utilities — Slatecard plus Rightroots and Big Red Tent with a smart conservative who argued that a) the movement needs to settle on just one, b) social features are not all that important, and c) what does matter is enabling state-level fundraising.
To take the last point first, I couldn’t agree more. Just as building state-level blogs is crucial to conveying information, so too is it important to lower the barriers to making financial contributions. State governments rarely make news here in DC, but decisions that matter to most people’s lives occur at that level, there are simply more of these races, and winners of those campaigns often go on to compete in federal elections. Making this happen 50 times over is a formidable challenge. ActBlue didn’t always do this, but now they do. My guess is that whomever on the right does this first will emerge as the go-to website.
Moving backward to the second point, it’s a fair point that people are unlikely to visit these sites with money burning a hole in their pocket, just looking for a candidate to support. Including a great deal of information about the candidates is not the most important thing these websites do. Those decisions will be made offline and influenced by bloggers who already command an audience. Yet I still think a fundraising widget would make such donations more likely, that good information and cross-referencing between issues and candidates can encourage more political giving. If you are primarily motivated by winning the Iraq war or promoting federalist solutions, you may be likely to throw a bit of money at candidates you hadn’t planned on — but only if you know to do so. How about a feature, similar to Amazon.com’s “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” feature? How about “Donors Who Gave to This Candidate Also Gave To”?
First point last: I said before that I think different mechanisms could be adopted by different segments of the party, but I cannot deny the logic of consolidating support behind just one of them — efficiency matters, and I think reinforces my second point. That said, I do not think there need be any rush to get behind just one. Competition among them should eventually produce one that’s better than the others. Maybe that happens in 2008, but I think the separation will occur during the ‘10 midterms.