Twitter

One of my first thoughts on seeing Twitter being used by Iranians following their elections was, 'Imagine if they had Twitter during Tienanmen Square.' Totalitarian regimes historically thrive, in large measure, by controlling the media and modes of communication. Would be protesters become isolated. Government propaganda simply spins any protest or event into something that reflects well on the regime in power.

Yet now there is Twitter, other social networks, and the internet at large. It's wise for Tweeters and others to understand that the deck is still stacked against those protesting the election. The Iranian government still controls the media, and in a textbook totalitarian move they have banned foreign press. While members of the Twitter community have set up proxy servers for people in Iran to use, the government has shut down known internet connections, which means that in all likelihood a large majority of Iranians are only hearing the official government version of events.

Yet protests continue and news spreads in large part due to Twitter and the internet. This is not something past totalitarian regimes have had to deal with. There are enough Iranians using Twitter (or other forms of communication) to organize that protests continue. The government has not been able to implement complete control. Hopefully those watching, participating, and following #iranelection on Twitter recognize that there is a definite possibility that this ends very badly as totalitarian regimes are also brutal. The reality is that what results from this is wholly a guess, but it changes the playing field and gives voice to those who previously had none. Person to person communication tools change the dynamic shifting, at least some of the power to the people, and puts a crack in structure of totalitarianism.

Twitter Changing the Playing Field In Iran and For Totalitarianism

Patrick Ruffini wrote that “The Rightroots Needs Less Meta and More Purpose.” I’ve recently been involved in two Twitter campaigns which have convinced me that the proper combination of meta and purpose can lead to political success. 

Free the Hops

Free the Hops is an organization behind a recently successful bill to allow beers with more than six percent alcohol (98 of the world's 100 top gourmet beers contain over six percent alcohol) to be sold in Alabama. After a hard fought four year Internet-based campaign, the wildly popular bill finally passed in Alabama’s lower legislative chamber.

When the bill hit the state Senate, one senator decided to filibuster the legislation. Every time the bill came up on the floor, he’d irritate his colleagues by preaching about the evils of alcohol. After years of hard work by thousands of activists, it looked like the bill was going to die. That’s when we decided to take it to the Tweets. 

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH0jnyuJ1Tg

I don’t really think that any of Newsom’s policies are good.

But I did think that his online video announcing his gubernatorial campaign was great.   Here’s why:

1-   It was Short

For the love of God please NEVER put a video on the Internet that is longer then five minutes.  The shorter the better. 

2-   It was made specifically for the Internet

I have seen far to many candidates and politicians use their youtube channel for reposting entire news conferences, long-winded speeches and news clips. I am not objecting to this material being put up, but online video allows for so much creativity and yet I see so many campaigns just pushing what was already on TV, and what didn’t make it onto TV.     

3-It was professionally produced

Did you notice the upbeat music that fit well with the theme?   The multiple shots?   The flowing story line?   The fact that Gavin speaking was shot specifically for this online video?  The fact that this video had quick edits and was always visually interesting?   The consistent text?  The good sound quality?   

Notice how when you give an intern a $300 camera you got at Best Buy you don’t have any of these things? 

If you want your video to be good, expect to spend a little bit of money on it.  It will still be a tiny fraction of Television CPM.

4-K.I.S.S.

This video was a very simple announcement:

San Francisco is doing great under my leadership.

I’m running for governor.

I’m liberal.

Join the Campaign. 

5-It spoke to a target audience.

Every time an online video is made there should be a specific target in mind: past donors, potential donors, gun owners, the media, young voters ect.

The target for this video was elite voters (voters that are informed and who’s political opinions are valued by their friends, family and neighbors) of the Democratic party, who will defiantly vote in the primary.

What did the video say to this very liberal group?

-I have little regard for the English language.

-Extremist government environmental policies create jobs.

-Government health care is wonderful and affordable because of me.

-Minorities like me.

-Government creates jobs that pay a “living wage”.

These are all things that the target audience wanted to hear.

6-It was used to in conjunction with the media.

The media talked about his video.  The story was about how he is cutting edge, and high tech.  As opposed to the story being about his problems: the failure of prop 8, his personal issues, ect.  He created the frame as opposed to letting the media frame him.

7-It was used in conjunction with the rest of his campaign.

The video promoted campaign stops he was going to be making up and down California.  And it asked people to “Join” his campaign (donate or volunteer).  

8-It was used in conjunction with other Internet properties.

Gavin twittered the video (where he has over 421,000 followers), put it on his facebook (where he has 50,000 supporters), his website (which gets more then 7 times the traffic of all his gubernatorial competitors combined), and he put it on the Huffington Post (where he is a regular contributor).

Online video must work hand in hand with every e-platform you have at your disposable to ensure proper distribution.

9-Awesome subliminal messaging!

“Stop looking back and start looking for solutions.”

“We can’t afford to keep returning to the same old tired ideas and expect a different result.”

“We need new ideas and bold fresh innovative solutions.”

=

Jerry Brown is older then dirt.

Bryan Barton is a political consultant based in Sacramento specializing in online video.

You can email him at bb@iStardom.com.

Or check out his videos he has made for Congressman Tom McClintock, The San Diego County GOP, and the Tea Parties at www.youtube.com/bryanbarton

I realize I'm inviting much ridicule from my friends on the left, but I'm going to write this post anyway, and I'm going to leave the title intact - Why Twitter Matters & The Left Should Be Nervous. It's no doubt going to generate some giggles among the online intelligentsia in the Democratic Party. That's ok with me.

I have, for several months now, seen a string of posts and tweets from these same lefty friends that are either mocking or dismissive of the Conservatives nascent efforts on Twitter. Here's one example courtesy of TechPresident's own Micah Sifry.

It's positively quaint to listen to Republicans murmur optimistically about their "dominance" on Twitter. #polc09, #tcot, #p2

The very first time I saw one, it reminded me immediately of comments I had seen and heard before. They were the openly dismissive comments directed by complacent and cocky Republicans at the Democrats efforts online.

I specifically remember more than a few people, myself included, who watched the rise of the online left with initial derision. As late as 2004 and 2005, I heard things like, "The Democrats and their blogs. How's that working out for them? All that effort and how many wins has it resulted in?"

Beginning with Conrad Burns and George Allen, we began to quickly see the results of "those blogs". It's a lesson we failed to heed early on, and it contributed greatly to our demise.

What we failed to recognize was the infancy of an effort to use new technology to mobilize. It was an effort to build a new network and the infrastructure to disseminate a coherent message.

I have argued that the reason the Democrats never mastered talk radio was very simple - they never had to. In modern politics, the insurgent party will adapt to the most interactive (and the most real-time) technology available at the time. In 1992, having lost the White House, House and Senate, the GOP gravitated toward talk radio. Despite it being a broadcast medium, it was the most interactive medium available. It was adapted to facilitate the conversation about the direction of the party and the country.

The Democrats, rising out of the loss in 2000, had to coallesce around a platform. Talk radio, had the Internet not been available, would likely have become the staging area and the rise of the left on talk radio would have been a near certainty. But a funny thing happened on the march toward the AM dial.

With the Internet, blogs and Meetup became the new polis for the exiled Democrats.

Now you could argue that two data points is hardly enough to qualify my central thesis - the adaption of interactive forums by the out party. But keep in mind that Americans detachment from one another and from in-person communities really didn't explode until about this same time. Prior to that, most people who were politically active simply turned to their party and its structures. It's just the last 20 years that have split us from our parties and each other, so we can only look at the data available.

That brings us back to the present day and the Republicans.

Now that we are the out party, we are turning to the Internet to discuss, debate and strategize the party's future. It is no longer, however, simple enough to label "The Internet" as a monolithic thing the way we did with the Democratic use of the medium. The Internet is no longer about websites as it was with blogs and Meetup. The Internet, as it exists today, is more a generic platform for advanced communication services - whether they are site based, text messages, cellular applications, or anything else.

In the world of converging technologies, Twitter represents the single most interactive, most real-time, tool available. Twitter is mobile. Twitter is rapid. Twitter facilitates deep content (via linking) and fast action (via retweets and viral distribution).

For the Democrats that dismiss Republican testing of many and various models of activism on Twitter, you should watch very closely what's going on, rather than simply mocking it. Complacency and satisfaction with your status quo is a slippery slope and it's very easy to fall into the "yes, but what has it gotten them" mindset.

It is likely, I would even say certain, that Twitter, or some next generation concept that builds upon Twitter's framework, will be a central component of the GOP resurgence. It most certainly won't happen overnight. However, I guarantee you will - when you find yourself out of power again - be able to trace the roots of your downfall to this earliest of efforts.

Until then, to my friends on the left, let me say two things. First, we'll keep using Twitter, and you can keep cracking jokes. Second, as long as you do, we'll see you on the other side, soon enough.

Update: Based on further conversation (via Twitter) about this post, I need to clarify a point.  I'm not claiming the GOP is currently "dominant" on Twitter.  That was Micah's reference.  I'm simply looking at the tendency for conservatives to adapt to Twitter faster and easier than they have other online venues.

The left's attitude (represented by Micah's comment) seems to me to be that the GOP is putting all its eggs in the Twitter basket without doing all the other things that the left did to be successful.  My argument is that's a false assumption.  It requires that the GOP mimic the left to advance online.  Just as the left bypassed the right's use of talk radio and went straight on to a different model, I think the right may be able to skip directly past the duplication of the left's infrastructure by simply making use of what are currently the most advanced communications and mobilization tools. I see evidence that many in the right are developing new models in an effort to do just that.

Those new models have not yet become "dominant". My central premise is, however, that many on the left  and right seem to believe we must embrace the left's status quo.  I, on the other hand, believe our salvation will not come in duplicating their model, but in creating a new paradigm for our own activism.

Interesting points from Bill. We should neither overestimate nor underestimate the power of new tools online. We have to match online tools with offline goals in order for political entrepreneurship to continue to grow on the Right. -Matt Moon

I've noticed a trend over the past few weeks, roughly concurrent with the Twitter-reinforced Tea Party movement, which is a tendency on the Left to dismiss Twitter both for its apparent limitations as well as its embrace by the political Right. Not only do I think they are making a mistake, but the explanation in part illuminates why Twitter is becoming ever more important to online communication.

To begin, here's erstwhile conservative John Cole making the former point:

Here is what I don’t understand about twitter. When blogs came out and started to rise in popularity, lots of folks in the MSM and elsewhere said “Great. Just what we need. The undigested, unedited thoughts of the rabble.” If blogs are the undigested thoughts, tweets are the orts.

Here's Bloggingheads regular commenter B.J. Keefe, responding to new host Matt Lewis' point -- via my post here -- that the Right is succeeding on Twitter:

Is this anything worth bragging about? What does it even mean, that there are more Republicans spewing out sound bites and ill-considered thoughtlets? ... [G]iven the choice to "dominate" on Twitter compared to, say, the blogosphere, let alone actually getting people off their couches to go knock on doors, I know which one I'd pick.

Even as Markos Moulitsas has recently taken to Twitter, at least one Daily Kos community member decided to hoax the TCOT list about the contents of the stimulus bill -- "$2 million for Shamwows" -- and with some success, too. (On the other hand, this guy makes a good point.) And here is Gavin M. from Sadly, No!:

Twitter is that new thing that’s like burping the alphabet. Republicans are big on it because they have nothing to say.

He is being glib (what? impossible) but this is a trend, all right. What's driving this attitude? We can't ignore sour grapes -- for the first time in a while, the Right is being recognized as doing something online better than the Left. It only makes sense the Left would want to minimize that, both to reassure themselves, discourage the Right and encourage skepticism among outside observers.

It's absolutely true that, by itself, Twitter is a stunted communication tool. The brevity allows for faster communication, which also means less context and a greater likelihood of jumping to conclusions. Then again, the value of each individual tweet is infinitessimal and easily countered (the so-called "self-correcting blogosphere" in fact wasn't, but the Twitterverse may be different).

Of course, there is a lot more to Twitter than 140 characters, thanks to its API and developer community. For those who may have not been following it closely, Twitpic lets you share pictures. Power Twitter embeds those photos (and links to YouTube) on the page. Utterli lets you post audio. Services like Bit.ly make it easy to track clicks on links you post. Both Farhad Manjoo and David Weinberger have recently explained how Twitter users have compensated for its limitations.

Twitter's homepage famously asks "What are you doing?" but, famously as well I think, the vast majority of Twitter users ignore this question and say whatever they think needs to be said. Twitter is what you make of it.

Practicing Politics in the Twitter Era: If we are to speak of the age of online politics -- and I am not certain that we should -- let's say we've lived through the Blog Era (2001-04), the YouTube Era (2005-08) and now we are in the Twitter Era (2008-?). This screen shot of a blog post at Media Matters (of all places) juxtaposing tweets from Newt Gingrich and Matt Cooper -- proof alone that everyone in Washington is using Twitter -- provides a useful snapshot of the how Twitter works alongside the blogosphere (rumors of its death still exaggerated) in moving political messages online:

Zing.

So the Right had a vibrant 'sphere in the post-9/11 Warblogging Period, which drifted after the 2004 election, as frustrated soon-to-be-ex-Pajamas Media bloggers can tell you. The Left owned the YouTube era, which happened to coincide, not coincidentally, with President Bush's second term. Their political blog infrastructure was developed largely on the participation of bloggers and blog readers, not anyone using Twitter yet, most of the time because Twitter did not exist or see any significant usage until SXSW 2007. (You know who I can't find on Twitter? MoveOn.)

For at least a year now, the Right again has been leading the way on an Internet-based communication platform. So far it's to organize for Conservatism somewhat broadly as a unifying cause. Top Conservatives on Twitter is not quite a MoveOn for the Right -- a whispered-of but ultimately mythical animal not unlike the "Party-in-a-laptop" idea popular with some Neoliberals -- but it could have more value as a list than Gingrich's own Drill Here, Drill now efforts and even the (also short-time) #dontgo message it spawned last August. These new conservative projects are often built around Twitter itself. Sometimes this results in really annoying tweets, but at this point the right is doing more interesting things in this space. Twitter is smaller than Facebook, but makes up for it in volume of press hits (hopefully someone with Nexis can back this up for me) and news reports that its traffic is about to go all hockey-stick. Maybe it will go Galt as well.

Conservatives also have other, much older infrastructure whose blogging component counts a few successes but still relies on decidedly Web 1.0 websites, and so hasn't taken as big a hit in the Great Blog Crash of 2008-09. And like companies of the dot com crash (including Google itself), the concepts and websites that clawed their way out of the rubble did not and will not bring back substantial returns in the short run. Twitter, by its sheer simplicity, is kind of a Long Tail product in that we can (and often seem to actually do) use it in spare moments between the day, which means its audience could approach that of e-mail (especially since, you know, you need an e-mail account to join Twitter). Either could build that kind of reach, depending on who experiments more through the rest of the arbitrary era proper.

Using #TCOT vs. No Hashtags Whatsoever:

According to Internet marketing blog Hubspot, the right's #TCOT momentum means it vastly outnumbers the hashtags left-leaning Twitter users and bloggers... er, aren't listed as using, not here at least. Hmm. So which hashtags do the left use?

Pause for dramatic effect.

Turns out the left-verse doesn't do hashtags at all, that I could see from checking these accounts over the weekend:

• markosmoulitsas
• jedlewison
• matthewstoller
• ttagaris
• janehamsher
• Atrios
• ezraklein
• glenngreenwald
• KagroX
• openleft
• mmfa
• owillis
• mattyglesias

My question for the Left is whether the port side of the Twitterverse will adopt the same habit of hashtags that moves stories -- and if it does, whether it will even be led by the Kos-Greenwald-Marshall-Hamsher-Klein-Stoller-Yglesias Netroots movement. (Note: In the comments at Blog P.I. a fellow Twittizen points out there is a website collecting progressive hashtags: Tweetleft. And as she observes, organized hashtag use lies beyond "'the usual' accounts.")

And my question for the Right is whether they know any of the Top 5 Conservatives on Twitter, because I haven't got a clue.

Benchmark note: As of Sunday afteroon, Markos Moulitsas (2,411) has 7,288 fewer followers than John Culberson (9,699).

Adapted from a post at Blog P.I.

It has been reported that Jack Kemp has cancer.

His office released the following statement:

"Mr. Kemp has been undergoing tests to determine the origin of the disease and the options for continued treatment. He will continue to serve as Chairman of Kemp Partners and plans to remain involved in his business, charitable and politically related activities. Mr. Kemp and his family are grateful for the thoughts and prayers of friends and appreciate respect for their privacy at this time".

The disturbing news hits POLITICS 24/7 hard. For me Jack Kemp, has been a shining example of the type of leadership we expect, want and need in government and the news causes reason for me to pause.

As a young man Jack F. Kemp spent 13 years in professional football, playing quarterback for the San Diego Chargers and Buffalo Bills. He led the Buffalo Bills to the American Football League championships in 1964 and 1965 when he was named the league's most valuable player. He also co-founded the AFL Players Association and was elected it's president for 5 consecutive terms.

After a period working for the Reagan gubernatorial campaign in California during 1966 and as special assistant to Reagan when he was Governor, Kemp in 1969 worked for the chairman of the National Republican Committee. In 1970 Kemp was elected to Congress where he represented the people of Buffalo, New York in the state's 38^th district and served their until 1989.

Barely in my teens, my political interests were inspired by Ronald Reagan. They grew each day for the eight years that he was President but during the mid 80's I also came to appreciate the Congressman from my home state of New York. Although Jack Kemp was from Buffalo and I was from Brooklyn, the distance did not takeaway any sense of the Congressman's i.mpact on me.

Many casual voters outside of Buffalo may not have heard of him at the time but those involved in the issues shaping America sure did. Especially those who considered themselves "movement conservatives". They considered Jack Kemp a leading figure.

A movement conservative is one who supports all or nearly all conservative principles with a coherent philosophy, and who advances broad conservative goals both individually and through teamwork. At the time, I did not know it, but I was one and Jack Kemp was one of the movements leaders.

Kemp's credentials increased in In Congress where he became increasingly interested in economic ideas and was a keen supporter of supply-side economics and especially of large cuts in direct taxes, which he argued, would pay for themselves. Kemp was also a strong and vocal advocate of deregulation and enterprise zones. In 1978, together with senator Roth of Delaware, Kemp sponsored a 30 percent across the board tax cut which was in large part enacted in the 1981 Reagan budget. It is said that he sold Reaganomics to Reagan. Kemp's vigorous promotion of supply-side economics made him a well known, if not controversial, politician and earned him a popular following among the Republican rank and file.

In addition to being a fiscal conservative Kemp has also been conservative on cultural and foreign affair issues. In one debate with Mario Cuomo, Kemp said of himself, "I am not a hawk but actually a heavily armed dove".

Over time, I came to appreciate Jack Kemp more and more. I followed his voting record and read the speeches he offered on the floor of the house in the congressional record. His words were always inspiring to me. Although those speeches were often intermingled with words that I needed to lookup in the dictionary, once I did, they made sense and they were supported by all that freedom in a free nation meant.

On top of that, his voting record always matched his rhetoric. Jack Kemp meant what he said and said what he meant.

Later, while working on Kemp's campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, I learned that I was not alone in sometimes having to look up the meaning of something Kemp said. While gathering the mornings news clippings for the campaign's press secretary, I stumbled upon an a piece from a local paper that wrote "although very passionate about economic policy, Congressman Kemp often finds himself speaking to an audience of reporters and voters alike, who have a glazed look in their eyes that is brought about by his discussion of intricate policies and use of technical terms that Kemp uses with the familiarity that we have with the alphabet".

After reading that I was actually relieved to know that I wasn't quite as ignorant as most. I was just as ignorant as everyone else.As the Reagan years were winding down I geared up to take the Reagan revolution to the next level and I prepared to make sure that Jack Kemp became our next President. The man to carry the torch into the future. I even developed a report which proved that Jack kemp would be the Republican presidential nominee and that Jean Kirkpatrick would be tapped as his running mate.

I was also a fan of Ambassador Kirkpatrick and the relatively close ties that she and Kemp had at the time, seemed to me, to make them a perfect and likely ticket.

As the 1988 campaign began, I found myself traveling to campaign for Jack Kemp in New Hampshire and eventually became a low level field director. I will never forget sitting on campaign busses traveling from every Notch from Dixville to Zealand in the North White Mountains and Great North Woods to Portsmouth and Seabrook in the Seacoast region and Nashua, Concord and Manchester in between. I was often honored beyond belief to sit next Jack Kemp on the campaign bus and have the opportunity to brief the would be President on events at our next stops and update him on how the door-to-door events at previous stops went.

Although Kemp did win in Dixville Notch, when all of New Hampshire's votes were counted, Kemp came in third behind then Vice President George H.W. Bush and Kansas Senator Bob Dole, but ahead of Delaware's former Congressman and Governor Pete DuPont, evangelist Pat Robertson and Reagan's former chief of Staff, General Alexander Haig, respectively. Suffice it to say, I was devastated.

In 1989 President George H. W. Bush appointed Kemp to be Secretary of Housing and Urban Development when he formed his administration. In this role Kemp was perceived by many as a maverick rather than a collegial member of the administration. Yet he successfully implemented many policies and programs which won over friends and foes alike. One of Kemp's most effective creations was the introduction of urban enterprise zones.

With his maverick image in place, in 1996 the Republican nominee for President, Bob Dole picked Kemp to be his Vice Presidential running mate. The selection was something of a surprise, not least because Kemp and Dole had policy disagreements in the past and had been rivals in 1988. Dole had generally been skeptical of massive tax cuts preferring to emphasize deficit reduction but the electoral dynamics of 1996 converted Dole to the merits of tax cuts. In this context Kemp was an ideal vice presidential choice. He symbolized vigorous tax cuts and was able to generate enthusiasm among Republican activists. Kemp was well known nationally because of his football career and visionary economic and defense policies; and it was hoped that Kemp's energetic style and manner would balance Dole's age.

Maybe it did or maybe didn't but either way Americans wanted a second term of Clinton and Gore and they got it.

Just as was the case in the 1988 primaries, I was disappointed but just like before I remained a fan of Jack Kemp.

I feel that there are few people who have actually been involved in politics on par with Kemp. Sincere, principled, hard working, innovative, persistent and consistent, Kemp and his leadership has influenced our nation much more than your average politician and he helped take what was once a fringe wing of American political thinking and turned it into mainstream policy.

All of his leadership and accomplishments led me to pick up the moniker 'Kempite". On the internet, one must often come up with a user I.D. and since all of my online activity involves politics, I felt there was no name better to choose from other than Kemp's.

So today, from the bottom of my heart, I offer my wishes for a speedy recovery for Secretary Kemp and it is the greatest hope of all of us that he defeats this bout with cancer with the same level of energy and success that earned him his victories and honors in the N.F.L. and that moved America over to his way of thinking in politics.

And Be Sure To Also Sign The Petition To

REPEAL THE CONGRESSIONAL PAY HIKE

Sign the Online Petition - To Repeal The Automatic Pay Raise That Congress Is Receiving Congress

Pass The Link On To Family, Friends and Co-workers

http://www.gopetition.com/online/24301.html

Aaron Marks asks if we are on the verge of a rightroots movement. The answer to that question depends on what we're organizing around: new tools or specific political objectives?

The last couple of months has seen a flourish of conservative organizing on Twitter. Now, we have DiggCons, complete with hashtag.

As someone who just crossed 3,000 followers on Twitter while writing this post, I'm just as thrilled as anyone about these developments. But I feel compelled to add a caution.

If these new movements don't evolve beyond efforts to colonize insert-Web 2.0-property-here, reacting to perceived liberal dominance of these spaces, we will not move the ball forward. That's because strategy must always precede tactics. A unifying goal to organize around is inevitably more compelling than cheerleading for specific tools. The end goal should not be to dominate, or keep ourselves from getting buried on Twitter or Digg. The goal should be to (eventually) dominate the American political system through the strategic use of all the tools at our disposal, including e-mail lists, fundraising, blogs, social networks, Twitter, or tools that don't even exist yet. In terms of how we communicate to the outside world, blog / Twitter / Digg triumphalism should be kept at a minimum, and a statement of our ultimate political objectives -- delivered in clear, non-technical language that even late adopters can understand -- must be in the foreground.

If you want a great example of goal-based online political organizing, look no further than Chris Bowers' call to his readers to pressure Democratic members of Congress to support no-name liberal legislation that would normally die in committee. This is actually a useful and serious political objective the realization of which just happens to be made easier by technology. But there is no tech-triumphalism in this -- just a hard-nosed political goal.

In many ways, the Open Left example mirrors the initial development of the conservative and liberal blogospheres. Conservative blogs in their early days featured a lot of blog-triumphalism, with "Carnival of X" serving as the precursor of a hashtag. This self-referential activity was good at building lots of interlinking between blogs -- but meanwhile, the left was beating us by organizing around concrete political objectives outside the political blogosphere. Raise Money for Candidate X. Defeat Bill Y. There is a lesson there. Anyone, whether an existing user of the tools or not, will be drawn to the goal, and will eventually latch on to the tools as a way to achieve the goal. The netroots was not self-consciously about dominating blogs. It was about routing around existing failed power structures to achieve concrete external goals, and blogs just happened to be the readiest tool in the arsenal.

People like Justin Hart are working to convert the right's energy on Twitter into dollars for candidates and organizations. And #TCOT has a whole slew of action projects, including a campaign to realize the 435 District Strategy and pressuring RNC members to get on Twitter. Given that Twitter is best used as a person-to-person medium, this is actually not a bad way to personally influence the 168 who elect the next Chairman to make sure our concerns are heard.

As someone who conspired in the creation of a hashtag around the wedding of one of The Next Right's founders last night (Congrats, Soren!), I know what great fun they can be. But if our goal is to exert real-world political power and convince the late adopters to follow, we might want to think about organizing our movement around things that are more serious, and less meta, than another hashtag.

It’s been a while since I’ve heard chatter on the blogosphere about building a Rightroots movement (I last commented on it at the end of October). However, over the past few weeks, I’ve seen a number of major developments that suggest we might be on the verge of establishing a true and effective Rightroots movement.

When John Hawkins wrote about this topic, he noted that (emphasis added):

One of the biggest problems online — and this extends outside of the blogosphere — is that there are far more liberals online than conservatives and they’re much more enthusiastic.

Because of that, huge websites that can drive a lot of traffic like Digg, Fark, and YouTube have come to be dominated by liberals, even though they aren’t liberal per se.

Over the past few months, some great minds on the Right – people like Patrick Ruffini, Mindy Finn, Eric Odom, and Michael P. Leahy – have taken the lead in organizing conservatives online. As a result, I believe we’re witnessing a substantial increase in both online participation and enthusiasm among the Rightosphere. Although we haven’t fully established ourselves on Digg or YouTube (yet), we have taken Twitter by storm – and establishing a significant conservative presence on other websites may be coming very soon.

And so without further ado, I wanted to take a highlight a few fantastic websites/projects that have come to fruition since the election that are helping to organize a Rightroots movement. If you’re not already active with them, you should definitely check them out and consider getting involved.

1. Rebuild the Party – When Patrick Ruffini and Mindy Finn initially started Rebuild the Party, it was simply a forward-looking plan for the Republican Party (albeit a phenomenal plan that I have enthusiastically endorsed). However, it has since blossomed into a substantial movement. Over 7,000 people, mostly ordinary citizens, have endorsed the plan. All but one of the candidates for RNC Chair has publicly announced their support for it. And over 2,100 folks have jointed the Rebuild the Party Action Network. This is a very strong showing of the Rightroots who are clearly looking to rebuild after the devastating results of the 2008 election.
2. News Platoon and DiggCons – A number of folks, led by Eric Odom, launched the #dontgo Movement in response to the Congress’ unwillingness to pass offshore drilling legislation in August. And although #dontgo remains the umbrella organization, Eric has recently released a number of notable new spin-off projects. One of them, News Platoon, is building a state-by-state grassroots network that offers “REAL news stories across” a given state. New Platoon’s first state, Tennessee, is in beta. The other project that Eric just today released, Diggcons, is aiming to even the conservative hand on Digg, where for the most part the Right is held to a whisper.
3. Top Conservatives on Twitter – Michael P. Leahy started Top Conservatives on Twitter as “a rallying point for conservatives on Twitter.” The #tcot hash tag has been one of the top 10 trending topics on Twitter for weeks now. The list started out with no more than a few hundred names; it has since ballooned to nearly 2,000 users, and 15 RNC members have signed up on Twitter.

With websites and projects like these springing up across the nation, I truly believe that we are witnessing a new conservative online movement. We may not yet have established a true Rightroots movement, but I am starting to think that we are getting very close. A critical next step will be using peer production and mass collaboration to our advantage.

Patrick Ruffini has excellent advice this morning for campaigns: go multi-channel.  His point is that when you do "new media" you better make sure you do ALL new media. I believe there's one more element we need to throw into the mix: timing.

More on this soon.