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Friday, January 28, 2005

Online Triumphalism

Posted by Tim Tagaris

Sorry I missed this on Wednesday.

"Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Winston will hold a session Saturday afternoon to discuss the growing influence of web logs. Representatives are scheduled to break camp on Saturday, while the program for Senators continues through Sunday."

Where will our Daschle v. Thune blogs be in 2006? There is already a Dayton v. Kennedy blog that courts a modest daily audience. As with everything else organizational -- start early.

As a party, we should be creating a world wide network of bloggers spreading our message to each corner of the blogosphere. In the long run, I think we will find that the communicative and organizational properties of the blogosphere far outsrtip the fundraising use. As communication shifts from off-line to on, we would be well served to have that organizational web firmly rooted in the emerging technology.

Let's be honest. Today, most candidates and organizations look at the netroots and think, cha-ching! I can understand that. We fundraise because we need money, primarily, to get on television and radio. But once again, the world's a changing; a new dominant medium for communication is forging its way to the front of the line. We can save a ton of money in the long-term by tapping into the potential that lies within the world wide web, but extends beyond fundraising. It would probably be the best long-term investment we could make.

It is impossible to imagine what the political landscape would be today if the Democratic Party had a strong hand in shaping the the way political discourse is conducted on radio, network television, and cable. I would imagine, however, that we would like what we were seeing. With the emergence of the Net, we have that opportunity. Just because the Internet is decentralized doesn't mean we shouldn't be working to get our troops moving in the same direction, in concert.

But if, as a party, we aren't helping to create that network -- then as individuals, we must.

To comment, create a TypeKey account. Might as well do it now before someone scoops up your favorite user name.

Posted at 01:25 PM in 2006 Elections, 2006 Elections - Senate, Netroots | Technorati

Comments

I completely agree. My site was created to focus on Ohio and this weekend I will be having a meeting to discuss how to break this out to all 18 congressional districts and the senate race, along with Governor, Secretary of State, Auditor, etc. We have reserved some cyber real estate already and we just need to coordinate how we are going to approach this.

What I'm having lots of trouble with is getting hard data for Ohio down to the precinct level. So far my attempts have not been successful. If anyone reading this has any ideas, I'd love to hear from you.

Another area of frustration is that 50 out of the 88 county committees in Ohio have absolutely no web presence at all. If some college student goes to Urbana University and wants to know how he or she can get involved in the party, where do they turn to? Champaign county has absolutely nothing on the web.

We've lost Champaign county every presidential year since at least 1988 and the trend has been getting worse. We only got 37.29% this time around, down from 39.24%.

The point is not to necessarily win Champaign county, but to get the whole state motivated. The party structure here is practically dead and seems to not want to come to life. We are facing critical races here in 2006 and I hope we can all get together and make a big push.

Paul

Posted by: bringohiohome at January 28, 2005 03:17 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

I started a blog/site on all the Senators up for re-election in 2006:

http://www.removerepublicans.com

It has voting records, positions, and possible challengers on all 30+ Dems/Repubs. (A governors' page will be added soon.)

Link to it, tell your friends, etc.

--Anthony

Posted by: AnthonySF at January 28, 2005 03:43 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Paul,

Call up Dan Trevas at ODP, if you haven't already, and talk to him about your project. I know him as very open-minded about the new technology.

See if you can possibly get some funding, assistance, or information on the lists from the ODP.

Posted by: Tim Tagaris at January 28, 2005 04:04 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment