Category Archive for ‘Online Campaigns’ at Blog P.I.

Archive for the 'Online Campaigns' Category

Playing Hard to Get

Published by William Beutler on May 23, 2007 in E-mail, Online Campaigns, Rudy Giuliani and Twitter. 3 Comments

As I wrote a couple months ago, I quite like the Rudy Giuliani campaign website — it’s much better than, say, the John McCain official site. In particular, they got a couple things very right about providing tools for supporters. However, two other aspects of the web operation have been bothering me.

First, and most importantly, I can’t seem to get on their e-mail list. When you visit their site, the first thing you’ll usually see is a splash page. This doesn’t thrill me, but I can accept its utility for… yes, building an e-mail list. But I have filled this form out at least three times in recent weeks, to no avail:

I have tried signing up from different computers in different locations, entering addresses from the District, Arlington and Oregon. Nada, zip, zilch. What gives? Something is up with the database software managing their contact information, I presume. I’ve been going about signing up for e-mails from the Big Six and some of the others, but so far only the Giuliani campaign has kept me in the dark.

This reminds me a bit of my trouble getting approved for McCainSpace. I was eventually added, on the third try, but it’s not worth the trouble in any case.

And speaking of ill-implemented innovations, what pray tell, is going on with Giuliani’s Twitter account?

I tried to add Giuliani as a Twitter friend several weeks ago, but nothing has changed. Moreover, it seems odd to be on Twitter but keep the updates private. I tried adding Giuliani again this past weekend, only to be informed that I had already submitted the request.

I’m guessing the campaign has a test post or two on Twitter, but are keeping it on hold until they’re ready to start using it. Compare with Mitt Romney, whose camp has either not yet claimed his account (Twitter has reserved the 2008 candidates’ names for them) or has simply decided it isn’t worth the effort. If the Giuliani campaign has in fact decided against Twittering, that’s perfectly fine, but quit teasing!

From a technical standpoint, these are obviously separate issues, but potential supporters who want to interact with the Giuliani campaign online are still getting the same mixed message.

Update: Blog P.I., with an an assist by techPresident, gets results! Or perhaps the third time really is a charm:

Dear William, Welcome to the Team Rudy weekly wrap up email. This email will give you a snap shot of what Rudy’s been doing in the past week and all of the latest news from the campaign. I hope you enjoy it. Sincerely, DuHaime Michael DuHaime Campaign Manager Rudy Giluiani Presidential Committee

“Sincerely, Duhaime”? Sort of like Morrissey or Liberace with the one-name moniker that’s a last name? If so, intriguing: first names are much more common (Beck, Madonna, Oprah, Cher, Penn, Teller).

Actually, I think what’s more likely is Gmail couldn’t load a signature image so displayed meta information instead. Just guessing, though. Maybe it’s more like a Van Halen-type thing.

To Spin or To Blog?

Published by Not Paul Begala on April 26, 2007 in Debates, Democrats, Online Campaigns and White House '08. 1 Comment

After tonight’s Democratic debate in Orangeburg, SC another debate begins.

The Spin Room, or Spin Alley, will be populated by the best hacks each campaign can muster to make sure reporters cover the story in the best possible light (Jon Stewart always has fun with this (Ctrl-F for Spin Alley)). They’ll also do the best they can to cover for any screw ups.

I was thinking about it today and I wonder if this really is even necessary anymore. Wouldn’t a reporter be just as likely to check out a blog post a candidate did after the debate?

Instead of spinning the reporters on-site, maybe instead post a diary on a few popular blogs and let the dicussion begin. The whole point of is to make sure the media gets your take on the debate. Why not just post it?

Turkey in the Straw Poll

Published by Not Paul Begala on April 17, 2007 in Daily Kos, Netroots, Online Campaigns, Online Polling and Straw Polls. 0 Comments

I really like it when the top bloggers do straw polls. It’s good water cooler conversation, they happen often so you can measure changes, and the MyDD polls have some cool rankings that allow voters to choose first and second preferences.

Straw polls can also be a good measure of organization and activist support — look at how Romney and McCain are constantly trying to outdo each other.

But what I don’t like is that the online straw polls on the progressive/netroots sites always come as a surprise.

I wonder if Kos announced that he was going to do a straw poll in a week, would any of the presidential candidates whip for it? Send out a blast to their lists? Might that also increase the number of participants?

Mr. Romney Goes To GooTube

Published by William Beutler on April 15, 2007 in Don Imus, Google, Mitt Romney, Online Campaigns, Social Networking, White House '08 and YouTube. 12 Comments

GoogleTube really appears to be making a go of its YouChoose ‘08 political channel, and this week Mitt Romney became the first participant in the YouTube Spotlight. This basically means the former Massachusetts governor and (depending on the measure) second, third or fourth place candidate for the Republican nomination recorded a short video (at right) asking the YouTube community “What Do You Believe Is America’s Single Greatest Challenge?” and what would you do about it?

This survey of people with webcams was posted Wednesday, April 11, and as of Sunday, April 15, it has been viewed about 285,000 times and picked up 54 video responses. More replies are doubtless on the way [update: yep], and I’d be surprised if anybody watched them all. That job would probably fall to Stephen Smith, and in case he hasn’t sat down and picked through them all yet, I’d like to save him the at least some of the trouble. I spent a rainy Saturday watching all the videos and took notes about each contribution. Surprisingly, all or nearly all are earnest replies, suggesting the possibility (even probability) that YouTube has removed attempted griefers. Even the Lonelygirl15 wannabe who said “preventing death” was our greatest challenge seems to believe what she’s saying. But they are not all quality, and where appropriate, I have noted the fact. And to those of you who have disabled embedding, come on. Here’s what I found:

Takes over a minute to actually string together a complete sentence, observes there are “so many challenges”	Jeff Jarvis asks what Romney thinks is the greatest challenge, also asks “which Mitt Romney” he’s asking people to vote for — the “reasonable fellow” from 1994 or the “Mitt Romney we see today”	Checks and balances, reforming education and health care, repairing US image in the world, end Iraq war
Small business owner David All worries about Democrats’ economic policies and Republicans losing support of twentysomething voters	(inaudible)	Coming to an agreement with the religious radicals in Iraq
Protecting our Constitutional rights — free speech, privacy, right to bear arms	America’s reputation abroad	Too many challenges (Iraq, education, health care, energy)
Iraq, Social Security, Medicare, gas prices	Listening to other people, listening to each other	Disappointed two-time Bush voter Bob Hanson: Red vs. blue divide, racial animosity
Getting troops out of Iraq, America’s reputation in the world, health care, homelessness, taxes	Alan from Utah: Education	Lack of vision for the future, better leadership, pessimism in Washington
Would-be Lonelygirl “absurdum00″ says “Death is an incredibly tragic occurence that we must work tirelessly to prevent”	Poverty and education	Education and poverty (see Poverty and education)
Southerner Lee Dean: mass media doesn’t represent average Americans (except maybe Fox News), a dozen others, Part 1 of 3 (10:03)	“Greatest challenge: The restoration of America’s image. Proposed solution: Jumpstart Israeli-Arab negotiations beginning with Syria”	illegal immigration — no amnesty, fixing the visa system
“Answer: gaining a better understanding of the impact our lifestyle has on the world around us”	Schoolteacher: Improving public schools	Ending reliance on fossil fuels, plug for TheOilDrum.com (no sound)
Education (9:51)	Illegal immigration — no amnesty, no work program	Protecting and honoring the rights of the individual, reining in big business
Racism (Don Imus and Sparkling Wiggles)	Justin Hart, Mitt Romney supporter: Politicians’ casual disregard for the people they represent, on the threat of JIhadism and spending in Washington	Keeping the big picture in mind when making decisions, reading “The World is Flat”
Imus getting fired	Adopt the Fair Tax	Focus on domestic issues like poverty and hunger
Getting the U.S. out of the United Nations	More sea to shining sea, less bombs bursting in air (Canadian)	The U.S. should be a “beacon of light and hope in the world”
The Corporate Agenda	???	Takes two minutes to not answer, asks Romney what he thinks (British)
“Keep up the good work, you got my vote, godspeed brother”	Alternative energy, banning lobbying, health care, racial equality, genetically modified foods	Abolishing Corporate Personhood (doesn’t mention Romney by name)

To sum up:

The single greatest challenge facing America today is Iraq, health care, education, fossil fuels, illegal immigration, corporations and Don Imus.

The Google Primary II: Buy Your Rivals

Published by William Beutler on April 9, 2007 in Advertising, Barack Obama, Google, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Online Campaigns, Rudy Giuliani, White House '08 and YouTube. 9 Comments

Yesterday I managed to get a whole post out of the observation that most, but not all, of the top tier candidates are buying up their own names on Google AdWords. In this post, I’ll try to get some mileage out of reporting something more interesting:

The candidates who are bidding for their own names on Google’s advertising program are also bidding on their opponents’ names.

To take one example, when you search for Mitt Romney on Google, one of the ads you’ll see in the AdWords column along the right-hand side will be for John McCain. So I ran searches for Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain, and then I compared the results. If the image below hurts your eyes to read, right-click on the image and open a larger version into another browser tab. Here’s what I found, in the order listed:

2008 presidential candidates on Google AdWords

When you run these searches, slightly different ads come up each time. It’s probably in Google’s interest to mix it up some, not to mention a number of advertisers may be bidding the same amount on some of these phrases. Therefore, the image above is only meant to give a general idea of what ads will appear. For example, since I Photoshopped that together last night, I’ve now seen a Giuliani ad appear in a Romney search. It isn’t reflected above, but it has been factored into this post.

Okay, but who all bought who? Here’s whose name/keyword was bought by whom — keyword, then campaigns:

Clinton
Obama
Giuliani

Romney
McCain
Giuliani

Giuliani
McCain

McCain
Romney
Giuliani

If you’d rather see who bought whose name as a keyword, try this on for size — campaign, then keywords:

Obama
Clinton

Romney
McCain
Giuliani

Giuliani
Hillary
McCain
Romney

McCain
Giuliani

You can probably do all the same armchair analysis here that I can. Obama’s camp believes he can win over Hillary Clinton people (supporters, or those interested enough to Google her name), Romney’s team hopes to win over McCain people, McCain aims to pull support from both his GOP rivals, and the Giuliani squad is on a comparative buying spree, to the point of wooing some Hillary supporters. For some reason, nobody is bidding on either Edwards or Obama.

Meanwhile, in a post seemingly anticipating this one, Oregon Dem consultant Kari Chisholm observed:

The point of a Google ad isn’t to find people who know they’re looking for you — they should be able to find you just fine. It’s to find people who are looking for something else; and your candidate is the answer to their question. This will work even better for the second-tier candidates who aren’t getting much media attention.

I didn’t find any second-tier candidates bidding on the top-tier names, but he’s right: They should be. I also didn’t venture any further than the top six candidates as generally agreed upon by looking at polls, fundraising and what how the Washington Post/New York Times axis treats the various contenders. Another mini-study such as this might turn up some interesting results for other candidates, and other phrases that on which campaigns have bid.

Additionally, election campaigns are not the only customers bidding for higher-placed ads on Google AdWords — they are joined by various for- and not for-profit enterprises, who seek to associate their products and programs with the candidates listed. Here’s what I found, based on the screen caps taken on Saturday night:

YouTube — that is, Google — bought everybody. They also bid the most. Hmmm.
The Pew Forum, not (yet) owned by Google, was the only other website/organization to bid, and bid high on the words.
The Center for American Progress’ Campus Progress bought Obama, and Obama only.
Something called Ascend Alliance — which appears to be a student exchange program without the students — has bought Romney, but no one else.
The do-gooders do seem to like Romney: the One campaign claims “Romney wears ONE band.” The ONE blog provides evidence, although it could simply be that he held one in his hand.
Human Events bought Giuliani and more curiously, Obama as well.
Cringe-inducing pro-voting groups have attached themselves to Edwards (generationengage.org), Rudy (declareyourself.org) and Romney (megadittoes).
Moviefone and Tickets-for-Events.com are both betting that people mistake John Edwards for John Edward of “Crossing Over” fame (or “fame”).
Hillary, Obama, Edwards and Romney all have obviously for-profit concerns bidding on their words — selling buttons and T-shirts, mostly — perhaps saying less about how well they think those candidates will sell than about how the others will not. The market has spoken — and Republicans aren’t moving units so well these days.
Hillary, Obama and Romney are all popular enough as keywords that a link at the bottom of their columns will take you to more ads, if you wish.
Trouble for Romney: one of the websites bidding on his name is ConservativesAgainstRomney.com. Lucky for Giuliani, sister site ConservativesAgainstRudy.com does not appear to be bidding on his name.
On the other hand, the Conservative Book Club appears to have bid on Romney and Romney only, so he should be reassured that not all conservatives are against him.

Anything I missed? Let me know in the comments.

Update: Credit where it’s due: Jeff Jarvis had this idea last week, although we went about it in different ways. Meanwhile, Kate Kaye at the ClickZ News Blog decided to see which candidates had bid on certain issue-related keywords:

iraq war, troop surge, social security, poverty, global warming, climate change, new hampshire, homeland security, terrorism, immigration, us attorneys, alberto gonzales, iran, iran nuclear, nuclear weapons, china trade, trade deficit, wmd, afghanistan, pelosi syria, british sailors, retirement, gay rights, women rights, feminism, labor rights, minimum wage, living wage, abortion, pro life, roe v wade, draft, military draft

So who bought those key words? Apparently none of them.

The Google Primary I: Paying, Or Not Playing

Published by William Beutler on April 8, 2007 in Advertising, Barack Obama, Google, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Online Campaigns, Rudy Giuliani, Second Life and White House '08. 4 Comments

Considering that Google controls just about half of the market for search in the U.S., that Google estimates its advertising network reaches 80% of U.S. Internet users, and that their program is extremely flexible, any political campaign should think strongly about using them. And even though pay-per-click ads are not without risk, this should be all the more true for a presidential campaign.

I’m working on a longer post looking at the 2008 candidates’ use of Google AdWords, but in the meantime, let’s first see who is playing and how they’re playing. Counting only the top six contenders from both parties, here’s what each campaign wants you to see at the top of a Google search results when you search for their name:

Hillary has incorporated Blogads into her online strategy and Edwards has been running an online campaign since early 2005, yet neither have bothered to make sure their campaign sites are the top result on Google. (Of course, Google News results do appear beneath the Sponsored Links for the others, but I have cropped them out.) Although Democrats have rushed into Second Life and other brave new worlds, apparently two of their top contenders are ignoring plain old Google.

A few other findings, based on tedious reloading of the same searches, over and over:

Obama is indeed playing, but he’s not all in. His ad displays less than half the time — so if you don’t see it, hit reload.
For all three Republicans, their Sponsored Link appears almost every time, but not quite.
McCain has three different versions of his ad in rotation. Key phrases: “Learn More” and “Sign Up.”
Romney also has three versions rotating. Key phrases: “Build a New American Dream” and “Strong. New. Leadership.”
Giuliani has just the one pictured above.

More later. Stay tuned.

Faster, Firefox! Click! Click!

Published by William Beutler on March 29, 2007 in NRCC, Netroots, Online Campaigns and Website Design. 0 Comments

I don’t want to sound like a broken record about Republican websites that miss the mark — this time the NRCC’s TheRealDemocratStory.com — and luckily, Mike Turk has already made most of my points already, especially the lack of a blog (though he does offer some fair praise). So let me just add one thing, using as example the main content from the page of Jerry McNerney, the lefty netroots-supported representative from California:

NRCC The Real Democrat Story (confusing)

Not that the supplemental bill was primarily about Homeland Security, but if you read the whole thing, you’ll get where they’re going with this. The left-hand column represents a campaign promise and the right-hand column represents the alleged breach. But you don’t know this until you’ve actually read it (and even then it may not be crystal clear). Now try this:

I don’t know about you, but if I understand what each column means before I read it, the chances are a lot better I’ll start reading in the first place — and then continue to see how the compare-and-contrast plays out. You don’t need to dumb down your materials, but you do need to organize them with the expectation that your readers lack patience. That’s just the nature of the medium.

P.S. What does it mean when, after the first day the site is public, the most popular site linking to it is an upper-middle tier liberal blog, the second-most popular site linking is a Beltway news site? Just asking.

Hey, This Rudy Giuliani Site Isn’t Half Bad

Published by William Beutler on March 27, 2007 in Facebook, Online Campaigns, Online Fundraising, Republicans, Rudy Giuliani, Web video, Website Design and White House '08. 3 Comments

The new website for Rudy Giuliani went live last week, and what was an attractive if perfunctory placeholder has now become an attractive and functional website. This shouldn’t be too surprising — when Bush-Cheney ‘04 blogmeister Patrick Ruffini announced in January that he was joining the Giuliani ‘08 team, that was a good sign the campaign would have a pretty decent website. And it is more than that — but it’s also not without flaws. So let’s take a look:

Is The Buzz is just a round-up of favorable coverage? Sure, but unlike the news feed from every other top-tier candidate, here the MSM and blogs coexist as equals. Romney’s page does link to favorable blog posts, but segregates them from the proper journalists; the others don’t link to bloggers at all. The Buzz also includes a quasi-Digg counter keeping track of how many times a story has been clicked. I assume this is imported from Ruffini’s 2008 Wire. Neither feature prevents a single user from clicking on a story multiple times to artificially inflate its relative significance. That’s a flaw on Ruffini’s own site, but not so much here.

A fundraising widget? Now we’re talking. Other candidates will let you sign up to become a fundraiser, but only the Giuliani campaign makes it as easy as cut-and-paste. In contrast, the Romney campaign makes you join TEAM MITT before they’ll let you at their fundraising tool, the cumbersomely-titled QuickComMITT. Hillary wants you to sign up before you can send your friends e-mail pitches, and while I haven’t completed the Obama sign-up page, I get the impression it’s an updating thermometer akin to the old Howard Dean “fundraising bat.” All of these campaigns want to keep tabs on their individual fundraisers, but the Giuliani team can do that through this Flash-based widget, too. But most importantly, if you can put a YouTube video on your page, you can raise money for Rudy Giuliani.

Ruffini is no great fan of the social bookmarking buttons that litter the bottom of many a blog post, but if the Giuliani campaign is using these ones, he must have decided these are the ones that work. That, or he was overruled. Regardless, Giuliani’s is the only campaign to make these tools standard across the website.

Considering how important talk radio is to the Republican base — and to the Giuliani campaign — this is a good idea. And nobody else has one. Yet the execution and experience leaves something to be desired — the boxes are small, the “Select City” box is unused, and the final readout doesn’t tell you what time the radio programs are on or on what station. Perhaps a prospective caller should already know this, but if so, why bother with this feature? Bottom line: If you want people to volunteer on your behalf, it helps to connect the dots for them.

And now, onto the less-good:

So it’s not perfect. I keep getting this dotted outline whenever I click on links from this panel. Not a big deal, but it does disrupt the browsing experience.

Now, this is a bigger deal. I got this message at home last night and again at work today. Both connections qualify as “broadband,” I’m on a MacBook Pro and using the latest version of Firefox. What’s a guy gotta do to watch some video around here? Actually, once I finally got the error message to go away (I was starting to wonder if Amazon’s one-click patent was written into McCain-Feingold…) the video worked just fine. On the other hand, it took too long to load. On the other other hand, the now-you-see-them-now-you-don’t controls worked like a charm.

And the best-laid schemes o’ mice and men gang aft agley, but this is still kind of embarrassing:

Republican presidential front-runner Rudy Giuliani’s campaign hurriedly fixed its official Web site late Monday to remove a dangerous design flaw that could have allowed hackers to expose personal information submitted by volunteers. The vulnerability affecting Giuliani’s site, http://www.JoinRudy2008.com, could have exposed confidential information stored in the campaign’s databases. The Web site failed to block commands that can instruct it to improperly display sensitive information, a popular hacking technique known as “structured query language injection.” … “Anybody who knows anything about security could have found these problems in two seconds,” said Marc Maiffret of eEye Digital Security Inc., a researcher who examined Giuliani’s Web site at AP’s request.

Aren’t you glad they didn’t make you sign up to fundraise now? I kid, I kid. So again, it’s a work in progress.

It’s also worth noting what isn’t included. Notably absent are any of the front-page social networking icons that most of the other candidates include. Before My.BarackObama.com and McCainSpace I wouldn’t have thought to mention that there is no social network, but there isn’t one. And there is no blog. A Facebook button wouldn’t kill them, but the one place they really need one is in their social bookmark toolbar — and it is. Meanwhile, a campaign probably doesn’t need to bother with their own blog unless they have a compelling reason to do so. And while I do think a Giuliani-based social network could succeed (call me crazy) it certainly is no requirement.

All in all, not bad. And I bet as the campaign goes forward, it’ll get even better.

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Archive for the 'Online Campaigns' Category

Playing Hard to Get

To Spin or To Blog?

Turkey in the Straw Poll

The Google Primary II: Buy Your Rivals

The Google Primary I: Paying, Or Not Playing

Faster, Firefox! Click! Click!

Hey, This Rudy Giuliani Site Isn’t Half Bad

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