Investing in the Netroots

but we DO have some talented people working on youtube videos and such.

http://www.youtube.com/user/TMRTV  has some pretty good stuff, as does:

http://www.theminorityreportblog.com/site/tmr_tv  

 There also seems to be a break with the available social networks.

Focus on the numbers in this next paragraph, don't get distracted arguing about Newt:

215,000 people (or so) have signed the Drill Here, Drill Now petition in a week. There's a Digg link just below it. 25,000 have watched (one of) their videos. And only 55 diggs.

I can understand the dislike a lot of people have for some of these sites, but this is one sure fire way to bring something like the Drill Here petition to a wider audience. 

Additionally, these 'single topic' groups would seem like a good way to stay involved. A fair number of 'conservative issues' resonate with people who have some dislike for Republicans. Form a separate group based on the individual policy. That's what a laundry list of leftist organizations are. Sierra Club, Amnesty International, ACLU, etc.

Because probably all of us, as we've been out on campaign, have done the math in our heads and figured that if X number of people "just gave $10.00, we'd have more money than we'd know what to do with."

And yet the investment in the $10 donation just hasn't been there.

Liberals have successfully "evolved" their online efforts: Blogs to develop a sense of participatory community, then social networking and meet-ups to build a sense of fraternity, and then the shift to activism - such as the repetitive $10 donor and the volunteer activist.

We are still back at square one.

When did Richard Viguerie, et al, develop Direct Mail?

When the Republicans were out of Power and in the Wilderness.

When did the RNC develop the concept of the "Sustaining Member" Card and other goodies that meant cascading funds from all over the country from hundreds of thousands of small donors?

When the RNC was out of power, I'll bet.

I'll tell you how the Netroots developed their online activism: by being hungrier than we are. They are out of power. They are much more inventive and have the motivation to put up the money to make the videos and involve the young people.

Nope, they haven't figured out yet that Obama is selling a Perpetual Motion Machine Patent hustle. There are enough rubes who will buy into the Bandini Scam that he's selling. That disappointment comes later. Caveat Emptor, and all that. Right now, the world is possibility, and that breeds excitement, activism, and tens of millions of dollars in contributions. As a side dish, being out of power and hungry for power breeds lots of Outside the Box thinking about how to get In Power. 

Patrick has been beating this drum for at least a year, but nobody at the RNC is listening because they're all fat and lazy thinking they can rerun 2004 and the 72 Hour Plan and that will save their bacon. They haven't figured out yet that the Base and the Grassroots have had it up to here with the A**clown RNC and wouldn't throw them a life raft if they were drowning.  

However, it doesn't surprise me at all that "Team Maverick" is completely clueless about most of what Obama and the Dems are doing.  

I find it ironic that McCain won the primary with probaly the weekest web presence of any of the candidates, which I think speaks to whose online right now.  I'd love to see some sites that empower individuals to establish themselves online, maybe this could help narrow the numbers gap between the left and the right.

Apparently the left is even willing to help McCain boost his web visibility:

McCainpedia.org

McCain can't afford to let the Democrats get a head start with this kind of thing, because when voters search google for anything related to McCain, the Democrats' McCain pages are going to return ahead of his own pages.