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Archive for the 'Republicans' Category

More of Romney, Less of You

Published by William Beutler on October 8, 2008 in Barack Obama, Democrats, E-mail, Fundraising, Hillary Clinton, Internecine Battles, Joe Biden, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Republicans, Sarah Palin, White House '08 and William Beutler. 5 Comments

We’re now in the final thirty days of an election cycle that began nearly two years ago, and while many think they already know how it will end, no partisan operative can afford to think that way. What happens in the next four weeks will determine the outcome of the next four years, so everyone on each side is pulling as hard as they can in the direction of their party’s candidate… right?

I thought so, until this dropped into my inbox a few hours ago:

Wow, Limited Edition Fleece Blanket? This must be my lucky day!

Seriously, what on Earth is Mitt Romney doing asking Republicans, who could give money to John McCain’s campaign the RNC, to give it to himself instead? If you’re a committed Republican, what’s the most responsible thing to do in the next few weeks: Give money to put television ads on the air in Michigan Iowa, or add this comfy blanket with snazzy carrying straps to your collection of campaign-branded political paraphernalia?

But wait, it gets better. Did you see the last line of the e-mail in the image above? Here it is again, for those of you who dislike squinting:

It is more essential than ever that conservative candidates and organizations have the resources they need to get their message out to voters, and that is why I am writing to you today.

I think we can safely consider this Romney’s retaliation against McCain for picking Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Updated, minutes later: Wow, what timing — as I was writing this very post, another e-mail landed in my Gmail account. And it looks like someone else had the same idea:

What’s her excuse? Romney did it first?

P.S. At least Romney got a crummy, non-prime time speaking slot at the RNC. Hillary can’t say that.

Bloggingheads.tv: The Modern AIG

Published by William Beutler on September 22, 2008 in 9/11 Attacks, Bloggingheads.tv, Libertarians, Message Boards, Metapost, Republicans, White House '08 and William Beutler. 0 Comments

Well, I didn’t plan to disappear from blogging for a week, but sometimes that happens. Not that I was entirely absent from the blogosphere last week: among other activities related to blogging, I recorded my latest segment for Bloggingheads, this time not with Bill Scher but with Sara Robinson of Orcinus. Watch the whole thing here:

I’ll admit, I think this was my weakest appearance. Our discussion leaned heavily toward economic systems and policy, which admittedly has not been a focus of my reading ever since, well, about the time I moved to the District. Funny, that. However, the Bheads forum regulars yet again seem not to hate me and even sort of have my back, for which I am grateful.

RNC08 #4: The Beutler Hub

Published by William Beutler on September 2, 2008 in 2008 Conventions, Republicans, Seriously, Twitter, White House '08 and William Beutler. 3 Comments

I’m finally inside the restricted zone in St. Paul and sitting down at the C-SPAN work area in the Wilkins Auditorium press filing center (adjacent to the Xcel Energy Center) to get some actual work in. Barring any pressing need to write something longer than 140 characters, this will be my last update from #RNC08 in the form of a blog post. The Twitter and Flickr badges below will stay live throughout the week, so keep hitting refresh just as fast as you can manage without risking early-onset carpal tunnel.

Monday update: Now that #RNC08 is over and my tweeting activity is back to normal, I’m moving the Twitter feed back to the sidebar (or it will be just as soon as I figure out why WordPress is balking). But the Flickr badge is just the St. Paul photoset (with more yet to be added) so I’ll leave it where it is.

www.flickr.com

RNC08 #2: Convention Preemption

Published by William Beutler on August 31, 2008 in #RNC08, 2008 Conventions, Metapost, National Politics, New Media Strategies, Republicans, White House '08 and William Beutler. 2 Comments

Minneapolis-St. Paul by air

The image above was taken about five minutes before descending into cellular service to find five copies of the same press release in my inbox saying that (most) convention activities have been suspended (at least tomorrow) in anticipation of Hurricane Gustav.

And to think, I could have accepted an offer to be bumped to a Monday flight, which would have gained me three round-trip tickets (on AirTran, but still).

Whatever happens, I’m still on the clock for NMS and C-SPAN, so I don’t expect this will quite turn into a paid vacation. But I don’t know quite what to expect. Depending on how serious the damage from Gustav proves to be, it could be quite a morbid one.

N.B. I first tried posting a version of this from my iPhone from the airport, but something went awry. If I can’t get this fixed, this will put a serious damper on my plans to “mo-blog” or “iPhlog” the convention. Assuming, of course, that there is a convention. Meantime, you can always follow me on Twitter for the latest.

Bloggingheads.tv: The Week in Twitter

Published by William Beutler on August 11, 2008 in Barack Obama, Beltway media, Bloggingheads.tv, John McCain, Metapost, Mitt Romney, New Media Strategies, Online Campaigns, Republicans, Seriously, Technology, Twitter, Web video, White House '08 and William Beutler. 0 Comments

Late last week I made my third appearance on Bloggingheads.tv with Bill Scher of Liberal Oasis; we talked about the politics of Twitter, whether #dontgo is a genuine movement or not, whether Obama is underperforming or overperforming, how to understand the different types of voters, why McCain’s “Celeb” ad was a success, veepstakes and the pointlessness thereof, including my favorite theory on why McCain will choose Romney. Check it out:

I might as well get this out of the way: I am not actually about to eat the viewer. It just looks that way.

Googling the Conventions

Published by William Beutler on July 14, 2008 in 2008 Conventions, Advertising, Democrats, Google, Republicans, White House '08 and William Beutler. 1 Comment

The Google Adwords “buy your rivals” strategy can be a very effective way of putting your message in front of Internet users who wouldn’t necessarily think about your brand, product, service, candidate, issue, argument, party, or even your party’s nominating convention.

So let’s try Googling the major party political conventions. First up, the least interesting result, searching republican convention:

Google results for Republican Convention

As we can see, the RNC already has the top organic search result, the one that says Republican National Convention 2008 - September 1-4, 2008.” And yet they have also bought the top paid search result, the one against the light yellow background, which might seem like a poor investment. But maybe not, as we’ll see when we Google democratic convention:

Google results for Democratic Convention

It may have pained some in the GOP to put money down for the “ic” version of this word, but at least they have the satisfaction of having the absolute top search result on this page. While Republicans are generally considered to trail Democrats online in organization, infrastructure and overall support, here we can see that someone at the RNC (presumably under the direction of Cyrus Krohn) is thinking about how to overcome this disadvantage. And speaking of disadvantages, let’s see what happens when we drop the “ic” and search for democrat convention:

Google results for Democrat Convention

Now that is most certainly a good investment. It may pain the Democrats to compete, let alone pay money, for the (often) grammatically incorrect non-”ic” variation on their party’s name, but then Google searches don’t necessarily have to be grammatical to be useful. If the DNC or the convention committee have money in the budget — and this may be part of the problem — they’d be smart to get on that ASAP.

Let’s Just Admit Slatecard is the Republican ActBlue

Published by William Beutler on May 26, 2008 in Blog Consultants, Fundraising, Leftosphere vs. Rightosphere, Online Campaigns, Online Fundraising, RedState, Republicans, Startups, Technology, White House '08 and William Beutler. 5 Comments

In the past week or so, two online GOP operatives (neither of whom is David All) have separately suggested to me that the competition among the three Republican Internet fundraising websites is effectively over. Even I doubted the separation would happen this quickly, but as of now even a late push by one of the two laggards would have a hard time catching on.

Evidence that Slatecard, bootstrapped project of Republican consultant David All (and web developer Sendhil Panchadsaram), is “the Republican ActBlue” can be found throughout mainstream political coverage over the past six months. Here are just a few:

Campaigns and Elections:

Then why the development of small donor online vehicles, including the Democratic ActBlue and Republican Slatecard, that aim to raise small donations on the congressional level? Both tools are growing substantially, and several candidates for Congress are highlighted on those sites.

USA Today:

“Your average online donor is an impulse buyer,” said David All, a Washington, D.C.-based consultant who last year founded Slatecard.com, which he hopes to be a Republican answer to ActBlue. So far, the site’s donors have raised more than $5,000 for GOP presidential candidates.

Wall Street Journal [$]:

Mr. All, the Republican consultant, started a rival site last October called SlateCard.com. It has raised just $300,000. “What I’m finding is a lot of Republican campaigns are just hiring college kids or using their son who has a Facebook account,” said the 28-year-old Mr. All. “They don’t understand what this is all about.”

Human Events:

Slatecard aims to raise money for Republican candidates in the same way that ActBlue has for Democrats. Slatecard lets users create profiles (“slatecards”) for candidates they support and then raise money by donating to that candidate and passing it on to friends, family members, co workers — anyone — through blogs, emails, and social networking groups.

Wired:

“If you read the statute, the result is not surprising,” said Don McGahn, an attorney who advises Slatecard, the Republicans’ answer to ActBlue. “However, when they passed the statute, there wasn’t even the internet … what it really shows is that the way to fix this is to pass legislation to update the Matching Payment Act .”

While Slatecard is more elegant, interactive and transparent than its counterparts, it seems that All’s sometimes controversial self-promotion has made the lion’s share of difference, especially as he has succeeded in persuading local congressional campaigns to use his site, sometimes making it their exclusive online fundraising platform.

RedState, former backer of Big Red Tent, now supports SlatecardBut if you need further evidence that Slatecard is the take-all (no pun intended) winner of the online GOP fundraising tool primary, consider the image at right, taken from the sidebar of leading Republican activist site RedState. It’s a Slatecard widget encouraging contributions to the McCain camapign.

It’s noteworthy not just for being there but for what it replaces: Nearly a year ago, RedState announced it was backing one of the future also-rans, Big Red Tent:

Patrick Ruffini has said more than once that the right needs to stop building what the left already has and instead build the next big thing. As part of heading in that direction, please let me introduce you to the Big Red Tent. We didn’t build it, but we’re actively supporting it.

There is more irony here: Ruffini is chiefly responsible for the other runner-up, Rightroots, and RedState’s Erick Erickson was party to a minor internecine fight with All during the Republican primary season. To back All’s Slatecard over Big Red Tent may have been a difficult choice, but considering how the other two have languished, it may have been no choice at all.

Update: David writes to say that 48 candidates now have used Slatecard exclusively for online fundraising, though some have already lost their primary or special elections. That’s impressive, especially for a site not yet nine months old.

527 Reasons John McCain Should Watch Out

Published by William Beutler on February 13, 2008 in 527s, Advertising, Campaigns, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Republicans and Television. 2 Comments

By process, Republicans have eliminated the probability (if not possibility) that anyone but John McCain will be the party’s nominee. Meanwhile, the Democratic contest now appears certain to last several more weeks at least. As little as two months ago, the prognosticators had the Democrats deciding early with the GOP going to a brokered convention, yet the opposite is occurring.

The conventional wisdom right now seems to be that that this is going to hurt Democrats and help Republicans. McCain now has time to win over disaffected conservatives, raise money for the general election and hone his positive message. Meanwhile, the Democrats may not know who their nominee is for sure until a month hence, and whomever emerges victorious will not only have these disadvantages against McCain but may also have to deal with more-serious-than-usual intra-party divisions. That is, a long hard slog between Cinton and Obama could leave the losing faction demoralized and slow to rejoin the fray.

I’m not sure this is correct, at least not overall. Sure, McCain will be better prepared and the Democrat will have to mend fences late. But we’re only talking about the campaigns and party apparatii. This is the age of the 527. And it cannot go without noting that this is true in no small part to McCain’s own campaign finance legislation which, by limiting soft money to the parties, weakened those institutions and, by leaving open a “loophole,” allowed issue-advocacy 527s to replace them.

Certainly, a pro-McCain 527 could launch anytime now, and I assume at least one will. But 527s are less effective at building up than tearing down. Whereas a party must build a governing coalition to succeed, 527s are often driven by a narrow faction or collection of issues. Because coordinating between a campaign and 527 is illegel, they can’t share strategy or resources, and likely won’t know the others’ targets. It’s almost designed to waste resources.

But a negatively-focused 527 doesn’t necessarily need to know whether Obama will be nominated in order to start hitting McCain. So far, we’ve been told that McCain will keep the U.S. in Iraq for 100 years, will start more wars in the meantime, and that he is very old. We will undoubtedly hear more soon. And once the key themes are worked out online, we’ll start seeing them on television.

Meanwhile, Republican 527s can’t be sure that targeting one candidate or the other won’t be money or resources wasted. The RNC just rolled out an Obama Spend-o-Meter, which does in fact play to a McCain strength, especially as the GOP itself has lost credibility on the matter. On the other hand, talking about big-spending Democrats is a pat response. It could just as easily have been the Clinton Spend-o-Meter.

Unfortunatley for McCain and the GOP, a candidate-specific strategy will just have to wait.

There are Two Things Wrong With this Picture

Published by William Beutler on February 11, 2008 in Barack Obama, Blog Consultants, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Republicans. 0 Comments

F7 with Huckabee and Romney and Obama

If the question doesn’t make sense, then read this:

At Rightroots, we have built a way for Republicans to rally behind their new nominee right out of the gate. We’re asking all Republicans to donate online to the new nominee next Thursday, February 7th. …

On February 7th, we’ll set up a page on Rightroots for you to give to the nominee and show you our community’s results in real time. …

If the nominee is McCain, we still have to do this. His campaign especially is running on fumes financially, but they’ve shown they can be effective with an even a small amount of money.

You can’t read the fine print on the screen shot above (well, you could if you squinted) but here’s what’s relevant:

The Super Tuesday primaries are over and February 7th is here. On Tuesday, Senator John McCain established himself as the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, with Governor Mitt Romney and Governor Mike Huckabee winning primaries and caucuses throughout the nation.

Please give generously to the major Republican candidates who remain active contenders for the nomination…

It’s fair to point out that Romney did not officially suspend his campaign until a few hours after the page went live, but it’s also fair to point out that by February 6, McCain was the only realistic nominee. Also fair, Romney was still there as of the last revision of this post. My own initial coverage of the February 7 effort was quite favorable, so I would be derelict if I failed to follow up and say that anyone who bought into the initial pitch — let alone gave money — should feel misled.

CPAC: I Exit the Room, Romney Exits the Race

Published by William Beutler on February 7, 2008 in CPAC, Metapost, Mitt Romney, Republicans, Tech Blogosphere and Twitter. 0 Comments

I’ve lived in Washington for a good half-decade now, but today is the first time I’ve attended the event that everyone who asks “Where’s the conservative Yearly Kos?” should remind themselves of, CPAC. Luckily for me, this year New Media Strategies secured three-day passes to the event, and even luckier, this year it’s just across the bridge (in Woodley Park) from me (in Adams Morgan). But this is about where my luck ends.

I hopped a cab with the author of CQ’s Ground Game and made it to the Omni Shoreham a little after 10:30. In the Senate Room, I picked up my designer neckwear designating me as a “CO-SPONSOR,” then started looking for the Regency Ballroom in hopes of seeing Vice President Cheney’s 11:00 a.m. speech. I wandered around the labyrinthine Omni Shoreham for fifteen minutes before finally finding a short line leading up to the ballroom. The inertia of said queue informed me that I wasn’t getting in, while the avalanche of Romney signs, placards, stickers, thunder sticks and foam “mitts” informed me that I would see Mitt Romney speak.

That was fine; I was at CPAC to schmooze and even get a little work done between speeches. So I located an aisle seat, ejected my trusty MacBook Pro out of my backpack and sat down to get some typing done. I wasn’t able to get online, however. The free wifi at the Omni wasn’t taking, and AT&T’s EDGE network wasn’t available in the basement. Little did I know, @briandevine, my colleague referenced in the last post, was sending me this Twitterdirect message:

bloggers are saying you have a really good chance of watching Romney drop out at this speech

Alas, I didn’t see it until earlier this evening. And at 1:00 p.m., as Romney’s seemingly generic speech continued, I glanced at my pass schedule to see Mark Steyn was to speak in the Ambassador Ballroom starting now. So I folded up and made for the door in a hurry. At two checkpoints I was told, like the freshmen in Dazed and Confused:

If you leave, you can’t come back.

My response was more polite but no more apprehensive. And after a few more minutes of peripatetic perlplexedness, I realized the Ambassador Ballroom was in fact directly across the hall from the Regency Ballroom, and was the room where I’d spied an overflow crowd watching Romney projected on a large screen.

As soon as I went back upstairs to figure out where to go next, the tweets started flowing. I think the first was from Dave Winer, RSS inventor and not exactly a political blogger:

Romney is withdrawing. Giving speech at conservative group in Washington.

Damn.

Later, I rationalized my foolhardy decision to bolt the ballroom: If I’d seen Romney drop out of the race, I would have witnessed history, of a kind. I was never a supporter — obviously, or I would have remained. Meanwhile, I am a big fan of Steyn’s — his monthly obit feature in The Atlantic was my favorite part of that magazine while it ran.

Skipping out early, on the other hand, gave me a story to tell, and now I’ve told it.