Suspecting the book’s value as a resource in the future, I took extensive notes as I read through it — essentially creating an index of every substantive mention of online politics in the book, which I’ve reprinted below as a resource for y’all, along with a few links to relevant e.politics articles (the current edition of the book doesn’t include its own actual index, unfortunately).

A couple of quick observations: first, the ‘net gets mentioned every three or four pages as you’ll see, demonstrating its absolute centrality to the Obama campaign (the index alone comes to roughly 2000 words!). Second, Plouffe and his colleagues had very little patience for the way the political press covered the campaign, mentioning often that the real stories of the campaign were overlooked in favor of ultimately irrelevant narratives (lipstick on a pig, anyone?). Finally, and personally, I don’t seem to have made any catastrophic errors in the Learning From Obama series/e-book — whew, I was more than a little nervous on that front.

Most of the citations below refer directly to the internet and its role in politics, with a few extra items that were either particularly interesting or a lot of fun. Note that I left out most random mentions of information distributed via personal email or Blackberry; including them would have blown this sucker up even bigger, since the Obama leadership team was absolutely addicted to email.

Internet Politics in The Audacity to Win

14

• “cutting edge website” first requirement for campaign launch

15

• 2006 Deval Patrick race lets Plouffe work with a campaign using the internet effectively for organizing and messaging

16

• campaign’s top team had different experiences but were all primed to see potential of technology to help “tap into the winds of change”

20-21

• technology-driven grassroots movement to be core of campaign

21

• “so many people are living their lives through technology — how can we expect their interaction with politics to be the one exception?”
• campaign greenlights the main website (”heavy on video”) and development of MyBarackObama.com social network

29

• initial campaign announcement to be via online video

30

• in campaign organizational structure, new media team coequal with communications, fundraising, etc., and separate from IT (C.f. Obama Campaign’s New Media Staff was NOT a Part of the Tech Team)

31

• “even with technology, there was no substitute for being able to run down the hall and discuss issues with your colleagues”

32

• announcement video is YouTube sensation, drives hundreds of thousands of people to “embryonic” website

36

• new media team reports directly to Plouffe

• Julius Genachowski, Joe Rospars recruited
• Kevin Malovar becomes CTO

38

• Mark Penn and microtargeting

47

• online signups reach 450,000 by end of March ‘07, in part driven by free real-world rallies

48

• email collection at Austin event

• data mining to analyze supporters’ contribution history and volunteer effort, allowing campaign to “track what people responded to and what they didn’t”
• website signs people up on its own
• list also grows organically via tell-a-friend

49

• online event organizing suggested by on-ground fundraising team in Kentucky

• low-dollar fundraising events yielded converts who became online donors
• beginning of campaign’s distributed fundraising

49-50

• citizen fundraisers via website
• not a tactical relationship
• authentic

50

• online merchandise sales as fundraiser

51

• live-stream video
• initial success after Rospars recommended

• 1st quarter ‘07 online money still relatively small

52-53

• 1st quarter raised $4 mil online, less than could have raised
• being careful with relationship with supporters, wanting them to have balanced experience of campaign
• fundraising team thought list was underperforming, new media team didn’t want to treat supporters like ATMs (C.f. How Obama Changed the Dynamics of Online Fundraising)
• conflicts between new media and fundraising teams “some of the tensest disputes” he had to resolve in campaign’s first year

54

• size of email list ahead of schedule

55

• website and MyBO soc net strong as campaign expands from basic operations

• need to keep building email list

56

• [early media coverage made campaign a marathon at a sprint pace]

• Obama found most coverage of the race banal

61

• [Bill Richardson's track suit...]

62

• importance of connecting directly with voters rather than through media filter

65

• [importance of local field offices]

76

• huge early growth of email list

• unsolicited signups
• first online ads in the spring of ‘07
• desire of people for actual information in campaign emails
• power of emails from Michelle and Barack, need to regulate number from Barack
• more emails begin to come from Plouffe directly

77

• raised $10 million online in the 2nd quarter ‘07

• small domors volunteered at a high rate

78

• small donors also tended to be repeat donors (C.f. As Big Donors Max Out, Small Online Donors Vital to Presidential Campaigns and The Enduring Power of Small Online Donors)

• high and sustained fundraising already causing campaign to change media plan
• campaign putting staff in Super Tuesday states earlier than planned, prepping to leverage early victories

79

• good fundraising news spread to supporters first via site

• posting first strategy memo on site

83

• later sends strategy memos via email

• diff betweeen sending and posting, with a much stronger response from sending directly to list

84

• YouTube debate & Iran negotiations

• first TV ads now running (summer ‘07)

86

• [importance of focus gourps, and the use of few by Clinton staff = campaign malpractice]

• Mark Penn and microtargeting

88

• metrics!

91

• before Iowa, adding more online advertising targeted at young people

92

• first mention of blogs, in with other media talking about Clinton (C.f. Cutting Political Bloggers Out of the Loop)

• MyBO as a groundlayer for paid staff, since people could organize locally and staff could drop in later to take over a network already in place
• Chris Hughes to supporters: get busy on your own

93

• green light for internet-organized local volunteers

94

• [cost-per-delegate thinking favored small caucus states]

95

• email, internet strategy, MyBO all strong and strengthening

103

• ["change we can believe in" emerges]

104

• slogan signage looked great on TV and online

• strong fundraising allows “ferrari campaign” in th future

112

• Clinton email invites non-Iowans to important pre-caucus event, suggests lack of grassroots support

• online video of pre-caucus events

113

• [press = "jackals"]

114

• Clinton staff comment that Obama supporters “looked like Facebook”

115

• Remembering pre-internet days, when he went to the newspaper loading dock overnight to get the Des Moines Register poll early

117

• field data v polling data (C.f. The Obama Campaign Used Grassroots Data and Computer Modeling to Allocate Resources in Real Time)

126

• more on field data

130

• [in Iowa, door-knocking more important than phoning]

135

• [Gandalf appears in Iowa]

• [first fist-bump mention]

137

• Iowa organizing as model for future of campaign

138

• value of donor base

• post-Iowa importance of people-to-people communications, technology allows people to bypass media filter to send information directly

140

• Plouffe checking post-Iowa online fundraising numbers as arrive in NH, huge follow-through gives needed resources

148

• campaign rebutting Clinton robocalls with own calls & emails, when they should have been out in public responding

152

• Plouffe checks online fundraising after NH loss, huge income including many first-timers

• supporters are clearly in for the long haul

154

• money keeps pouring in, some from emails but much unsolicited, setting (temporary) record

157

• [Bill Clinton in South Carolina = divine intervention]

158

• posting attack responses on web

165

• feels like Obama team is running one campaign while the press covers another (C.f. The Iowa Reckoning: A Year’s Worth of Political Blather Told Us Precisely Nothing)

166

• people’s own words most effective selling tool, not campaign talking points

167

• MyBO creates in-state presence before staff arrive (C.f. You’ve Got a Friend in Barack Obama: Integrating Social Networking Tools into Political Campaigns)

• online fundraising boom continues, 28 mill online in January 08, which funded TV in super tuesday states

175

• strong, effective St Louis for Obama group organized selves via MyBO, facebook

184

• traditional media still important despite rise of influential websites and blogs

187

• individual emails as a messaging tool to journalists and superdelegates (C.f. Obama, Clinton Used Instant Messaging as a Political Tool)

188

• [Obama kept campaign bus TV on espn on rather than cable news, would have run a worse campaign if he listened to the talking heads]

190

• “Our fundraising was on fire, particularly online…” allowing huge ad blitzes in TX and OH

191

• internet advertising “omnipresent” in TX and OH

196

• ["the press nearly soiled themselves from excitement over the [3 a.m.] ad’s drama”]

198

• posting strategy memo to website

206

• Rev Wright videos flooding the internet

214

• Obama’s race speech viewed more on the internet (particularly YouTube) than live, a fundamental change in “message consumption”

215

• Huffington Post breaks the recording of the “clinging to their guns” conference call

217

• nothing is private in an internet age, so “don’t say anything you don’t want posted on YouTube and whipped around the internet at warp speed,” but in this case the audio-only clip didn’t have the legs that accompanying video would have given it

231

• building volunteer list through in-person events

237

• Looking back after primary victory: “Technology was core to our campaign from Day One and it only grew in importance as the primary went on…”

243

• Clinton staff seem to assume Obama can wipe out their debt with “a couple of e-mails”

245

• technology and other campaign successes only “complemented” Obama, “a better candidate than his campaign”

247

• internet advertising is one factor in plan for “the most muscular state campaigns ever assembled in battleground states”

• 2008 campaign really only happened in 16 states

254

• grassroots supporters as key strength: after primary, campaign had roughly 2 million donors and over 7 million on email list, plus a high conversion rate of supporters into donors (an “enthusiasm gap” that favored Obama over other candidates)

255

• “we would need a persuasion army to convince Republicans and independents to support Barack” in the general election

• Rospars told to double the size of the list
• internet advertising and live events to help pull in Clinton supporters
• person-to-person connections via MyBO and Facebook

256

• in state like North Carolina, money alone would not win: “no substitute for committed volunteers”

260

• McCain “lacked a powerful online fund-raising program,” which helped keep him in the public finance system

263

• use of online promotions to boost donations, including “Dinner with Barack”

• public financing opt-out announced via email/video to supporters

264

• big email list one of several factors collectively more important than TV ads

• money can be thrown at TV at the last minute; field organizations need time to grow

265

• internet also reduces need for TV in a presidential race, since people are following events on their own online

273

• “flying blind” on Berlin speech crowd turnout b/c of lack of online signups

277

• Israel visit during overseas trip helps counter “a consistent guerrilla email campaign around the country, suggesting that Obama would not be a stalwart friend of Israel”

• running foreign policy ads, including online, in battleground states to reinforce trip message (”symphonic consonance”)

290

• Tim Kaine gains cred as potential VP in part via extended email conversations with campaign top team

295

• Rospars proposes telling supporters first about veep

• text annoucement to supporters fit campaign message, also assisted practical goal of list-building (C.f. Obama Wants ME to Know Who the V.P. Will Be)
• fifteen-fold increaase in text list in two weeks

297

• people on text-message side of veep announcement operation terrified of early leaks

• AP story prompts message send
• text directs people to view live-stream of announcement event the next day
• follow-up encourages supporters to discuss event on MyBO
• website becoming a true “home” for supporters

298

• including more videos in emails b/c people spent more time on them than on plain text versions (presumably meaning that the emails contained links to videos rather than the videos themselves)

299

• cable and internet audiences help make up for network convention coverage cutbacks

301

• Michele’s convention speech will help counter internet rumors (Muslim, etc)

307

• Palin nomination rumors explode online, Plouffe has to turn to Google to find the basics on her b/c she wasn’t a top suspect and her file isn’t on his laptop

311

• nasty rumors about Palin spread online;

312

• top Obama team watched Palin’s convention speech after-the-fact on YouTube

314

• post-Palin speech online fundraising boom, even before the solicitation emails from the campaign started arriving

315

• [swing voters watch local news and read regional papers, less likely to watch cable news, which played to true believers]

316

• candidate rallies important in part because attracted crowds that converted to supporter list at high levels

317

• battleground state ads “blanketed every medium, from TV to radio to the Internet”

326

• need for grassroots fundraising performance in last two months of campaign

• high ROI of online advertising, effect on list-building, list to over 11 million in September (C.f. Obama Campaign Saw “Ridiculously” High ROI from Google Ads)

327

• high conversion rate of list members into donors (30%), volunteers

• ten fundraising emails sent in September
• astonishing online fundraising in September, sometimes $500k per hour

328

• money allowed explosion of targeted media, a “fantasy camp for political operatives”

329

• Plouffe strategy videos to grassroots list help counter the talking heads

• less-produced, more-authentic look was more successful
• strength of email team
• “new media” team should be “digital strategy”
• national v regional/local emails

330

• email mix and density

• detailed Florida strategy video (with budget numbers!) motivates supporters, gave relatively little useful info to McCain folks

332

• standard rapid response formula includes talking points to supporters out in field

335

• Couric/Palin interview amplified by YouTube and video on CBS site

350

• texts, emails, online advertising all part of GOTV blitz as early voting begins

356

• new media dept suggest long-form documentary video on Keating Five in response to Bill Ayers

357

• video released online to wide viewership and to press, Obama displeased by tone

364

• email list reaches 13 million, became essentially its own TV channel directly to 20% of the votes Obama would need to win (C.f. Content was Key (and Overlooked) Part of Obama’s Online Juggernaut)

• importance of voter-to-voter contact in defusing Ayers and character issues

365

• online fundraising still humming in October ‘08

• pre-election 30-minute TV ad “of course” simulcast online

378-379

• role of internet in eventual victory (C.f. How the Internet Put Barack Obama in the White House and Learning from Obama)
• importance of integrated communications strategy across many channels
• importance of metrics, and of choosing the correct metrics

384

• OFA as successor organization to grassroots campaign

Just off a conference call to promote Obama campaign manager David Plouffe’s new (and so-far excellent) book about the 2008 race, which I’m currently about 3/4 of the way through — more about that soon. On the call, though, I got to ask a question about the behind-the-scenes smear emails that circulated regularly throughout the campaign — what did the campaign do to respond that was most effective, and how should future political operations reply to similar tactics?

Plouffe’s response was that campaigns need to take negative messages spread online from person to person as seriously as they would a negative TV ad or a direct attack from an opponent in a public appearance, providing yet another example of the extent to which the Obama team understood the changed media environment in which they ran. Conventional political wisdom might be to ignore below-the-radar attacks to avoid giving them credence, Plouffe said, but in the internet era a story that arrives in a million email inboxes matters even if it doesn’t lead the news.

To counter, as we’ve seen before, the campaign gave its own supporters the tools, at times at their request (Plouffe mentioned that the Fight The Smears website was a volunteer suggestion, for instance), so that they could fight what amounted to an email-to-email guerrilla campaign. One additional lesson was to keep a sense of proportion even as they took every public or private attack seriously, as for instance when they declined to respond to the Obama-is-a-celebrity meme that the McCain campaign tried to spread (Paris Hilton was there on her own, thankfully).

When describing the campaign’s overall posture toward the ‘net, Plouffe used a formulation that also appears in the book, that the campaign needed to be in the places where people were living their lives. Many of us now spend big chunks of our time online, and Obama’s campaign could not be an exception if it were to reach its true potential. Multi-channel connection was the name of the game, particuarly in battleground states, where the campaign was at people’s doors, on their televisions, at their community centers, in their inboxes on the websites they visited regularly.

In both the book and the call, Plouffe described online technology as one of the core non-candidate reasons they were able to win, and as inseparable from the grassroots army they relied on from the beginning of the campaign all the way through election day. An interesting discussion! Alas, I wasn’t able to get him to bite on the assertion that Obama wouldn’t be president without the internet….

More on Plouffe’s book shortly, once I’ve had a chance to digest it.

– cpd

Redistricting isn’t sexy: it involves numbers and maps, it’s wonky, and just thinking about it makes voters go to sleep. Which is immensely helpful to the politicians redrawing the lines every few years, because they know that almost no one outside of hardcore politicos is actually paying attention.

But redistricting is where the rubber meets the road in politics, since setting district boundaries is all about power: who has it, who keeps it, and who has a chance to get it in the future. And as the state-level victors of 2010 redraw legislative and congressional districts across the country, they’ll also be establishing the boundaries of power in Congress and 50 different statehouses.

Modern redistricting is a product of database-driven analysis, since it’s only been in the past couple of decades that software allowed politicians to slice and dice neighborhoods down to the precinct level. But those databases are also public documents, which means that the rest of us can keep an eye on what they’re doing. One excellent resource that launched just recently: Redistricting The Nation, a site that combines a Google Maps-style interface, Congressional and state legislative district maps and various kinds of statistical analyses of the districts themselves.

Why statistics? Because one measure of political gerrymandering is the relative “compactness” of a districts, since complicated demographic juggling often yields boundary lines that drift all over the map. The congressional map of Austin is a particular favorite of mine, since that bastion of Texas liberalism is split among districts that meander all across South and Central Texas in an obvious attempt to dilute Democratic votes.

The site’s a lot of fun for researchers and political junkies to play with, and the statistical analyses provide a nice confirmation of what an eyeball survey will often tell you right away — when district lines look funny, they probably are. What no statistical analysis can capture is the actual political calculus involved — whose seat is being saved and whose is being sacrificed. The power to redistrict IS political power, and if you want your side to exercise it, get to work on those state legislative races NOW.

– cpd

In his latest bid to Save The World, my father’s come up with a way that folks in the developing world can build their own local electrical generating systems. His invention is human-powered (using a treadle, like an old sewing machine) and can charge old car batteries that then provide electricity for night-time LED lighting (so kids can read!) and cell-phone chargers.

Like its parent project, the MultiMachine, Project Genny (for “Generator,” get it?) relies on scrap material that’s available all over the world, in this case an old car alternator to convert motion into electricity. This sucker could transform lives in so many ways it’s not even funny: besides charging economy-altering cellphones and giving children the ability to study after dark, it can help in areas ranging from health (the kerosene lamps currently typically used for night-time lighting are terrible on the lungs) to economics (kerosene can suck up 25-30% of a family budget) to global warming (kerosene = carbon emissions).

You can help spread the word, but time’s tight! Dad just found out about a Peace Corps Foundation competition for development projects last week and got his entry in under the wire. Voting ends today (Sunday), so please swing by the site and cast yours now! Be prepared — you’ll need to give ‘em an email address and click on a confirmation message first. Regardless of the outcome, this contest isn’t the end for Project Genny (or the MultiMachine), so keep an eye on this space for more to come.

– cpd

• Radical Imam Blogs His Support of Ft. Hood Shooter.
• Gay bloggers organizing boycott of DNC. C.f. Bloggers Furious At White House For Anonymous Ridicule.
• More Sarah Palin Facebook fun.
• Low Turnout Didn’t Cause Democratic Losses.
• New Advocacy Site Maps and Tracks Journalists in Peril.
• Kansas lawmaker’s anti-Obama ‘RedNeck Rap’ off Web.
• Why running the White House Web site on Drupal is a political disaster waiting to happen. C.f. Inside (and Outside) the White House Drupal Switch, Tim O’Reilly’s Three Insights into the Drupaling of the White House, and Before Drupal, There Was “The Tool”.
• Bloggers v Climate Change.
• Defending Clunkers with a Data Dump.
• Candidates Use Behavioral Targeting to Reach Voters.
• The Calculus of Mayor Mike’s Online Ad Blitz, plus “Facebook Guy’s” Thoughts on Campaigning.
• Using Twitter Lists to Judge Influence.
• Online Left Bundles Dollars for Grayson.
• Whither Obama & Co.’s Organizing Might? Plus, Twitter + Ads + Daily Kos = SEIU’s New Health Care Campaign.
• Ralph Lauren owns up to Photoshop disaster.
• E-Mail Mocking Obama Is ‘Exhibit A’ in Wrongful-Firing Suit.
• Did Meghan McCain get called a slut? Twitterfight!
• Wiesel slams tea partiers over Holocaust signs (on Twitter, natch).
• In Today’s Viral World, Who Keeps a Civil Tongue?
• MySpace for Millionaires not doing so well.
• Michele Bachman’s daily choice of reading material.
• How The Huffington Post uses real-time testing to write better headlines, via Burt Edwards.
• Membership Data Becomes Newest Weapon Against Britain’s Far-Right BNP.
• An Architect for the Machine Age.
• Edward Burtynsky’s Oil.
• The online ad market: “We’re not dead yet.”
• Criminalizing Twitter.
• Twitter: Disrupting Politics from Coast to Coast.
• NBC Taps SocNets to Generate Olympic Buzz.
• Top Digital Marketing Trends for 2010: Flash, Crowdsourcing, Info-Art.
• The psychology of Google Wave.
• Recessipedia, via Brett Schenker.
• Refugees set to tap demand for virtual workforce .
• Best advice for building nonprofit e-mail lists.
• Report Card: Which Groups Use Social Media? The response: One Year After Obama, Most Big DC Orgs Aren’t Embracing Social Media Tools, DC Social Media Survey Touches Nerve, and Participation in Social Media Does Not Equal Success.
• Wen Jiabao apologizes for geology error.
• The future of political journalism? Salon v Politico, again.
• 50 Serious Games for Social Change.
• Best Practices in Online Advocacy for Associations, Nonprofits, and Corporations.
• Googling Virginia’s Vote.
• The Fine Art of Timing a Money Bomb.
• Asteroid blast reveals holes in Earth’s defences.
• W.Va. House to stream sessions online.
• Can Public Data Be Too Public? Inside WA’s Domestic Partnership Debate.
• Shot at RNC “Hosting” Bill Draws Return Fire.
• “Designing Obama,” a Few Dollars at a Time.
• Report on Online Townhalls Finds Enemies on the Right.
• Why Obama Is Taking His Time on Afghanistan.
• How one company of Marines is helping to bring Afghan insurgents home. A glimpse at what it takes to do modern counterinsurgency.
• Now THIS is comprehensive battle damage analysis.
• Our lovely neighbor, plus an impressive shot of part of the extended family.
• Six diseases you never knew you could catch (see first comment for a perfect example of the genius of the internet).
• And finally: Cat Congress Mired In Sunbeam, via Alicia LaPorte.

C.f. Past Quick Hits.

– cpd

Unfortunately, the email is so over-the-top (and reeeally long) that it dilutes the tech-cool aspect of the whole idea. This one should serve as a lesson on how to aim for sincere but hit a little closer to ridiculous, and to use a whole lot of words in the process.

Dear Repower America Member,

When a clean energy economy finally becomes a reality in America, people will look back to the day that together, you and I launched The Repower America Wall.

The Wall is a place where literally thousands and thousands of people committed to a revolutionary new energy future for our nation and the world are coming together — to express our hopes, share our resolve, and step up to a leadership role in building a grassroots movement for change like nothing America has ever seen. It’s an opportunity for you to be part of the climate movement in a new way, in a way that takes us beyond ourselves.

By asking people from all over the country to share their thoughts and images on the Wall, we are fueling a campaign that brings together the power of national media with the strength and connection of on-the-ground organizing in a way that no one has ever done before. Your voice, and the voices of your friends, neighbors and colleagues, will become the language of our campaign on TV, in print, on billboards, online, and in brand new ways that you will help us invent as we create the Wall.

We know that the political will to transition America to a clean energy economy already exists. You are part of it. But now we must make sure our leaders know it too. The Wall will become our collective voice and thus transform the debate into action.

It’s an ambitious strategy — and it has to be.

Nothing short of every one of us joined together is needed to overcome the resistance of the powerful special interests blocking our path to a clean energy future, settling for the dangerous status quo.

But the time for politics is over. We have the power to force change in America.

Together, you and I will use the Wall as the foundation for all of our activism in the days and weeks ahead.

But first, I need you to meet me at the Wall.

Share your voice on The Repower America Wall right now.

The Wall is a revolutionary approach to standing up for what we believe in — for what our country needs. It combines the power of your voice with the force of a multi-media campaign, to build a collective call for change so loud it’s undeniable.

The messages you and many thousands of others leave at the Wall are the tidal wave that will break on Washington, and put us on the path to victory.

Our grassroots organizers in the states will use the Wall — your Wall — as proof that all of our friends and neighbors are as committed to clean energy as we are — that we are joined together in this commitment.

Content shared on the Wall will be used to create ads and other forms of communication that will go directly to your elected officials so that everywhere they look they will see the very people they represent, their constituents, calling for action now on clean energy — in the local newspaper, on television, on billboards, on the radio, and on important local and national websites. There will be no place to hide. The Wall will be everywhere.

When our opponents throw roadblocks in our way, we’ll gather at the Wall to fight back.

And when key decisions are at hand, we’ll light up the Wall to let politicians who side with powerful interests against clean energy do so at their own peril.

The time to demand a clean energy future for America is now. But we must stand together. Unless we do everything in our power to make our voices heard, the change we seek will not happen.

Stand up and be a part of the generation that makes future generations proud — join the movement and share your voice on The Repower America Wall today.

This is just the beginning. Next week we will take this campaign to the airwaves with new Repower America national television ads featuring real messages from the Wall. By acting now to share your own personal message on the Repower America Wall, you can insure that you were there at the start.

What you and I do today will determine everything about our country’s future and the world our children will inherit. The time for action is right now and the cause deserves your best efforts.

If you want to win and insure our clean energy future, I’ll see you at the Wall.

Together we can make this happen.

Thank you,

Al Gore

Sorry to pick on you Al, ’cause I think you do good work, but next time tone it down a notch or two, cut out a few paragraphs and we’ll all be a lot safer out there.

– cpd

– cpd

You can order as an e-book or have a paper copy shipped your way just as easily. Good stuff — check it out.

– cpd

1. Website

McDonnell’s site is excellent from start to finish, with a BarackObama.com-inspired visual style, clear organization and plenty of ways for supporters to get involved. The site works hard to turn visitors into activists through a prominent signup/toolkit section with clear action links — “get a yard sign” or “attend a fundraiser,” for instance, rather than something vague like “get involved” — while also highlighting recent videos, blog posts, campaign news and the campaign’s social media channels. A couple of other notable features: a find-your-local-volunteer-office page, a virtual phone bank and as election day neared, a Google Maps-based find-your-polling-place application.

2. Google Advertising

McDonnell’s been all over Google advertising for months now; his ads first started appearing here on e.politics back in the Spring. As the general election loomed, he launched a full-on Google saturation campaign, to the despair of those on the Left who noticed how much he’s outspent Deeds online (that last article via Brian DeVine). Most of his ads that I saw focused on list-building, and clearly over the long term — an excellent use of the medium.

3. Ning Network

Analogous to the MyBarackObama.com online toolkit of 2007-2008, Bob McDonnell’s Ning network is a custon social space that serves as a platform for political activism and a way for McDonnell supporters to connect with each other. Impressively, McDonnell’s Ning network has picked up over 2500 members, though much of the actual activity (blog posts, video) seems to be campaign-created.

4. Text Messaging

McDonnell’s website and at least some of his real-world outreach actively promote his SMS text-messaging program — I’ve seen “text xyz to [shortcode]” prominently featured on his yardsigns! The website includes a prominent link to the text signup in its action center, and the site’s general signup collects cell phone numbers alongside email, name and zip. I bet those “vote now” messages are flying around today….

5. Social Networking Outreach

Both the Deeds and McDonnell campaigns have actually emphasized online social networks and Twitter, with Deeds in fact updating his Twitter feed personally with the songs he listens to as he drives across the state! But as the Richmond Times-Dispatch also notes, McDonnell has roughly twice as many followers on most social sites as Deeds, a fact that may reflect the relative enthusiasm of the candidates’ supporters as much it does anything about their strategies.

More?

Of course this is just a drive-by look at McDonnell’s campaign; we haven’t examined email fundraising and mobilization, the details of his text messaging campaign, or anything truly behind-the-scenes such as database-driven voter contact. But it’s obvious from the comprehensiveness of his online presence (developed in conjunction with Patrick Ruffini and Mindy Finn at EngageDC) that he’s been determined not to let opportunities in the online political space pass him by.

A few more related links:

• Home Pages of the Home Stretch (techPresident’s Nancy Scola looks at candidate sites on Election Day 2009)
• Learn from this City Council Candidate (another excellent integrated campaign)
• Sarah Palin’s Facebook Strategy to influence the ‘09 elections
• How Candidates Can Use the Internet to Win in 2010

– cpd

Links (in all cases, YMMV)

• Wikio’s List of Top Political Blogs
• The world’s 50 most powerful blogs
• BlogAds (Sells ads on blogs, lists blogs by niche and circulation)
• Top Ten Blogs on the Left and Right
• LeftyBlogs (Find progressive blogs by state)
• The Top U.S. Politics Blogs (Based on results from blog search engine Technorati)
• Google Blogsearch

Related Articles:

• Reaching the “Network Influentials”
• The Enduring Value of the Online Communications Tripod
• Digital-Age Media Relations: Pitching Stories in a Challenging News Environment
• GM’s Christopher Barger on Social Media and Corporate Communications in a Networked World
• What a Modern Communications Team Looks Like
• Why Think Tanks and Nonprofits Should Be Thinking Like (New Media) Newsrooms
• A Sample Online Outreach Plan
• Don’t Just Spam Congress: Creative Ways to Put Your Supporter List to Work
• Twitter is NOT a Strategy
• Measuring the Effects of Social Media Marketing
• Leveraging Earned Media for Your Online Campaign

– cpd

Ten Rules for Blogger Outreach

1. Know Your Targets

How do you know whom to pitch if you’re not following the right folks in the first place? Before you reach out, get to know who’s writing about your field, and if possible get to know the kinds of topics each author seems particularly fired up about. Even on big sites such as Huffington Post or Daily Kos, different authors tend to cover their own favorite topics, and if you don’t know who writes about what, it’s very hard to…

2. Target Your Pitches

On a basic level, you’re not likely to have too much luck pitching sports stories to a political blogger and vice versa. Following Rule #1 helps, but also keep in mind that pitches tend to work best when they’re customized in some way. Figure out how you can relate your pitch to a topic dear to a blogger’s heart, and make that connection explicit in your pitch message. It never hurts to reference something they’ve written.

3. Participate When Possible, But Otherwise Monitor

Bloggers tend to notice the people who regularly comment on their sites, particularly when their audience doesn’t number in the millions. If you can see an opportunity to contribute to the discussion, do so. If you’re seen as a part of the community, your eventual pitch won’t be coming from a complete stranger. But if you don’t see a good angle, don’t feel obliged to talk just for the sake of talking — monitoring the discussion will do just fine until you can add something substantive. Note that contributing doesn’t just mean commenting, since many bloggers are open to guest pieces, so think about what you, your boss or your issue experts have to offer. Bloggers have pixels to fill.

4. Buy ‘em a Beer

It rarely hurts to invite a local (or visiting) blogger out for lunch, coffee or a beer if the opportunity exists — if you’re genuinely interested in the subjects they write about, you’ll have plenty to discuss. And after a couple of beers, you’re not a stranger.

5. Be Cool

Do what your momma raised you to do and be polite when you’re working with bloggers. DON’T get involved in a flame war either in public or behind the scenes unless you absolutely have to defend yourself or your organization against slander, and do go out of your way to treat people well, even if they disagree with you or completely ignore your pitches. Reputation matters! You want a blogger’s ears to perk up when they see a message from you — their email trash bin is always just a mouse-click away.

6. Value = Content + Credibility

Bloggers want to provide value to their readers, and you can help them do it if you have good content to offer. Try to “package” your information for easy digestion, combining words, images, video and even data into a prototype news story of your own. That way, a blogger has plenty to choose from, and can use your resources to craft his or her own unique take — different writers may derive very different stories from the same basic pot of content, based on their own styles and needs.

Credibility is a little more subtle — it derives in part from your own reputation (reminder: be cool) but also from the reputation of your organization or even of your position on the issues. Every contact you have with a blogger, either in public or in private, works to either build or undermine your credibility. Don’t forget that you can have the best content in the world but be out of luck if an author doesn’t trust you or it.

7. Twitter and Google are your Friends

Plenty of bloggers have taken to Twitter like ducks to (very shallow) water, so get into microblogging if you haven’t already. Start following the folks you may need to pitch down the road, and try to “retweet” their content by occasionally republishing it on your feed with attribution — retweeting helps bring you to their attention. Also, don’t be afraid to send a blogger a direct message if it’s appropriate.

Google helps in a very different way, since bloggers are just as likely to start their article research on their favorite search engine as anyone else. Get your (nicely packaged) content out on your own site and on other channels like YouTube to maximize the chance that bloggers and journalists will find you on their own. And make it easy for them to get in touch — have prominent links back to your main site on any content you’re spreading around, and don’t hide your contact info under a bushel.

8. Link to Them

Just as with retweeting, linking to a blogger’s stories can be a good way to get his or her attention. Of course, if you or your organization don’t have a blog, it’s a lot harder — but you might try Twittering about their stories or linking to them on Facebook or a social bookmarking site such as Del.ici.us (a Facebook link isn’t as automatically trackable as a link from a blog, but it’s a start). And think about getting a blog if you know that blogger relations is going to be an important part of your online strategy, since even just using it to link to other stories in your topic area can be very valuable (aggregation is content creation, too).

9. Try and Try Again

Blogger relations, like traditional media relations, tends to reward persistence. Don’t be annoying (reminder: be cool), but also don’t give up if a blogger ignores you completely the first few times you try to contact him or her. You never know which story might finally resonate. Of course, if someone tells you explicitly to buzz off, I’d move on to another target — preferably their competition.

10.Reporters are Bloggers, Too

In the internet world, the lines between journalism and blogging have blurred considerably — the two approaches now exist along a communications continuum rather than in separate boxes. Many traditional media outlets such as newspapers and television networks encourage their reporters to blog actively and even to engage bloggers directly in public discussion, building the connections between the blogosphere and the mainstream media by the day. When you pitch a blogger, you may also be pitching a journalist, and one who counts many other reporters among his or her readers as well. In other words, cast your bread upon the waters of the blogosphere — it might ripple farther than you expect.

Find Out More

That’s it for the rules, but there’s a lot more to learn about working with bloggers — for a start, check out the Online Politics 101 chapter on blogs and blogger relations.

My parents didn’t quite know what to say in response — Mom almost asked her to which communist country they were planning to move (are there really any left, with China in a full-on market frenzy and Mao no doubt shedding tears in heaven?), but basic politeness took over and they gently moved the conversation on. The scary thing was that the flight attendant seemed completely serious about the entire matter, as though the Obama era were the beginning of our inevitable slide into a world of commissars and work camps….

Of course, screams of “Communist!” are nothing new in recent American political dialogue (I remember one of my school classmates calling Walter Mondale a Red in 1984, and Joe McCarthy was alive and well during the 2008 election), but it’s astonishing how much they resonate 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the obvious triumph of capitalist economics. I don’t blame the folks who are personally afraid — like the Townhallers, they mostly seem sincere in their beliefs — but I do blame the people who are misleading them. To Limbaugh et al, politics is a zero-sum game with winners and losers and little in between, with the inevitable conclusion that winning is the only thing that matters.

The result? We elect a relatively moderate guy (center-Left at most), whose own politics seem timid to many progressive activists, but the Right hypes up the rhetoric to try to defeat even the relatively mild policy changes he wants (pardon me, but a healthcare “public option” that will affect about 3% of the population ain’t exactly going to destroy our market economy). In the process, the Beckification of our politics — the normalization of what are completely irrational ideas — scares the hell out of a lot of people.

Once you’ve swallowed Rush and Glenn’s hook, line and proverbial sinker, the possibility of compromise goes out the window — how could you make a deal with a Democratic party that’s aligned with fundamental Evil? These are dangerous demons to wake up, particularly when your main motivation seems to be to raise your ratings…. Once again, reasonable people on both sides are going to have one hell of a mess to clean up when this is over.

– cpd

New client site! Check out Vanishing Paradise, which I designed and built for the National Wildlife Federation and that aims to get hunters and anglers involved in saving Louisiana’s wetlands (hence all the guns — they don’t call this audience the “hook and bullet crowd” for nothing).

The site’s built in Wordpress and integrates with a DemocracyInAction account for list-building. It’s pretty straightforward overall, though dig the (client-requested) slideshow in the top banner, done with a publicly available Javascript. The site’s recently launched and is still a little shy on the content front, but the client is already working to expand it. A fun project all around.

– cpd