Also posted at www.achicagoblog.com.
So the election isn’t even over and already the post-mortem discussion are beginning. Actually, it is a testament to the pathetic state of Republican politics that this is really just a continuation of discussion that started two years ago.
The question: What could “the right” do better online?
John Hawkins offers this nugget, in reaction to Jon Henke’s post. And I can tell you, having worked in “the movement” for more than 4 years now, this conversation is frighteningly commonplace.
The bad news is that the Republican Party looks at bloggers solely as an alternative means to get their message out. In other words, there’s a completely non-functional top down organizational structure. It’s non-functional because the Republican Party organizations and pols issue talking points and press releases, most of which are of no interest to bloggers, and they are largely ignored. In other words, they spend most of their time issuing unheeded orders to people who, by and large, think they’re incompetent and aren’t inclined to pay much attention to what they say.
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Just to give you an example of what I’m talking about, here’s a generic conversation, some variation of which I’ve had with different congressional aides at least half-a-dozen times over the last four years.
Anonymous Aide: Hawkins, I want to ask your advice.
John Hawkins: Shoot.
Anonymous Aide: We’re thinking about doing idea x.
John Hawkins: Are you out of your mind? That’s going to be a disaster!
Anonymous Aide: Well, they’ve already decided to do it. How do we sell it to the bloggers?
John Hawkins: You’re asking me whether you should put mayonnaise or mustard on a sh*t sandwich. I can give you some advice, but it’s not going to go over well no matter how you spin it.
The Republican machine was built on a media model of spin. This model still exists and, in fact, McCain has used it with some degree of success. The idea behind the spin model is that the number-one, most important thing for a political media campaign is a centralized message and a strong command and control structure to make sure that single, centralized message is effectively distributed.
This model is not completely obsolete and can still be effective. But as the McCain campaign has demonstrated, it is mostly effective at temporarily changing the discussion when the trends don’t favor your campaign. The days of surviving on the spin model are over. Op-ed pages and TV news are no longer the frontline in political communication warfare.
The new model we could call the buzz model. Instead of a controlled message, you want buzz. You want the blogs and the discussion boards popping with discussion about you. What the discussion is about isn’t as important as it being about you, because that means you are the story. Unfortunately for candidates, to generate buzz you have to do something buzz worthy. This is something Republicans have a serious problem with.
Once you have buzz, the candidate and campaign can very gently nurse the positive stories, getting them on TV and op-ed pages, and work to counter-act the negative stories. But you have to go with the flow, you have encourage the buzz.
So far, Republicans have been horrible at this model. Democrats, on the other hand, are lining up to show at Daily Kos conferences and involving bloggers in relatively high level strategic discussion. Matt Bai wrote a great book about how the Left adapted to the new model after the surprising success of Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign. It is no coincidence that Howard Dean went on to chair the Democrat Party and has almost single-handedly (in the face of criticism) built the machine Obama is driving to victory today.
Perhaps the GOP should start looking to the remenaDemocrats, nts of the Ron Paul campaign for guidance.
