Politico

Over the weekend, Politico ran a story by Alex Isenstadt about the "failures" of Tea Party candidates. This article reads more like DC-based myopia. Movements don't transform at the federal level or statewide level first. Simply creating the network with the skills to execute huge campaigns is hard and takes time.

The place to go to see the successes are things like county parties, congressional district conventions, state legislative, and municipal seats. Those are races where a little bit of money and a little bit of energy go a huge way. They are also races with relatively low name ID. And they are the entry-level races for future leaders.

One of races that showed me that something was going on was the November election of Dan Halloran to the New York City Council. He is also the chairman of the New York chapter of the Republican Liberty Caucus. (recall that RLC is the branch of the Ron Paul movement that believes in integration with the GOP party infrastructure)

Similarly, anyone who has been following local party politics knows that tea party supporters and Ron Paul and RLC organizations have had a huge impact on local party organizations. I wrote about this in response to Ken Cuchinelli's crushing convention victory to become the Republican nominee for Virginia's Attorney General.

It is easy to miss what is going on in American politics and to the American right if you focus on Washington.  It isn't happening in Washington. What is happening will lead to the Washington-based leadership being overturned by a generation of new leaders.

One of the most interesting consequences of this recession will be the dramatic reordering of media in America. Many local newspapers will go out of print. Even big national organs like the New York Times will not be immune to these pressures. Internet news will become more and more pervasive.

The copyright cartels of the MSM will raise a hue-and-cry. Many will bemoan the loss of professional news journalism in many metro areas. But the fact is that theirs was always a flawed system. A single publication that mashes up the news, editorials, sports, business, the comics, and the classifieds is a fundamentally flawed product in the 21st century when the Internet gives us deep-dive ability on any particular topic that interests us. 

Outside.in founder Steven Johnson gave a great talk in March showing how the new way in media can be better than the old. The transition from old to new media is not unknown -- it's already happened in technology journalism, which used to be dominated by a set of monthly magazines with two-month-old news and is now thoroughly ruled by a flourishing and profitable ecosystem of blogs and podcasts that can bring you the latest Apple announcement in seconds.

The next media vertical to be revolutionized is politics, and it's already happening. Take a look, for instance, at this rundown of headlines from Sunday night in the Politics section of the Washington Post, including blogs, and stack it up to everything on the Politico's homepage, which doesn't have a print product to speak of and is very much the upstart:

We complain about the superficial, biased coverage of the MSM. We are justified in doing so. Thus, we must not succumb to the same trite discussion of why McCain is losing and where the GOP went wrong.

The answer, my friends, is not found in one person, wing of the Party, policy approach or tactic.  The reasons the "circular firing squad" now points to – inconsistent message, poor fundraising, inferior integration of new technology, even the President's low approval rating -- are symptoms of the disease, not the cause of it. 

The disease is complacency with the status quo and arrogance.  The same disease that caused Republicans to lose the majority in both houses in 2006.   Americans demand change. Duh.   

David Frum summarizes this well in The Week as reported by Politico:

In The Week, former Bush speechwriter David Frum wrote of McCain's travails in a way that seemed to take defeat for granted and warned the GOP faces a long road back. "That's not a failure of campaign tactics. It's not even a failure of strategy. It's a failure of the Republican Party and conservative movement to adapt to the times."

The Republican Party must heed this quote in the coming months: If you don't change, you won't change.  

If the Republican Party doesn't re-establish a core set of principles that address the issues the majority of Americans care about, we will continue to lose support.  If we don't understand that raising money is not the most important function of a campaign or political organization, we will continue to raise less than our leftist counterparts.  If we don't stop holding ourselves hostage to an entrenched consultant class, we only have ourselves to blame.  If we don't set specific goals and make investments in new media and political technology training, we will continue to cede grassroots dominance to our political opponents.  And if we don't start listening to the American people, and addressing their concerns, rather than pursuing our own agenda, we will continue to be unpopular.

Election Day is one week away.  No matter the specific Republican vote count for President or seat count in the House and Senate, it will be time to finally admit that the status quo is not working; it will be time to democratize the Republican Party, to rewrite the playbook; it will be time rebuild.

It will be time to stop throwing blame around, and for every Republican official, candidate, staffer and consultant to open their eyes and ears to a new approach.

As someone who has advocated a new approach to the Republican Party for the last four years, I look forward to a more open, inclusive discussion about the way forward.  Meanwhile, I look forward to your input here.

Point of personal privilege.

Ben Smith wrote about John McCain and the alleged need for him to look like he is technologically more sophisticated. When Ben called me, I told him that I thought it was a cheap attack against McCain. Jon Henke noted that  "Howard Dean 'was a self-described 'technophobe'".

Ben seems to suggest that I think that McCain should wear a stupid-looking high-tech earpiece. I don't. I joked that an older-tech earpiece might be reminiscent of a fighter-pilot's head-gear, but I don't think that it would be a good idea at all.

At the end, Ben captures the real point. John McCain has to campaign. I have to wonder why McCain would be spending his time with a blackberry, like Obama, when he could be talking to voters or press or working on his speeches, or getting briefed on Iraq, the economy, or some other important issue.

NOTE: I wrote this, and then dialed it back some. Ben has updated the story and clarified what I said. He does seem to take a dig at mef or not being timeliness. But it is the Politiico which seems to prefer speed to accuracy.

(cross-posted at Red State)

The Politico today has a column penned by David All, a young GOP internet consultant, and Saul Anuzis, Chairman of the Michigan GOP. The column looks at the premise that the GOP is behind its Democratic counterparts online, and suggests one possible reason why - we don't support the idea of big government intervention in regulating the Internet.

As Republicans, we must not only adopt the new techniques and structure of Internet democracy, but also understand the importance of preserving the open nature of the Net as a policy issue.The tools that are available at low cost to Republicans are only there because of an Internet ecosystem that has managed to remain open, despite the efforts of phone and cable companies.

Republicans need to adopt a lighter approach that will preserve the values of decentralization and freedom — essential conservative values — on the Internet. If we fail to engage in this effort, the Internet service providers, who control the last mile of the tubes into a customer’s house or small business, will choke off the affordable tools available to conservative activists.They have already started exercising their market power to block applications that enable Internet users to distribute information across the Net.

They will make the Internet look a lot more like cable TV, where citizens lack access to every legal channel available and where, consequently, conservative activists get shut out. Taking away these free tools will come at the major expense of the activists and small-businesspeople who are the core of our party’s strength.

Given the attacks on cable and telephone companies in this diatribe, it would be easy enough to discount any response from me as shilling on behalf of cable. Look at my bio, however, and you'll see that I may be the one person uniquely qualified to address every inaccuracy and outrageous claim in his post. Prior to coming to work in the cable industry, I was the eCampaign Director for Bush-Cheney '04, and the Republican National Committee. I've been involved in Republican politics - and online politics - since I launched one of the first state party websites (EVER) at the New Mexico GOP in 1995. At that time, there were only about 5 state parties online.

Since I have been active in GOP politics, and specifically online politics, since Andreesson released the browser in 1994, I have a bit to say about the reasons the GOP is behind (which virtually nobody argues). As an employee of the cable industry, I have a bit to say about what , if anything, that has to do with net neutrality.