Social Networking May Be the Next Big Thing in Politics

Ruffini, the Republican National Committee’s eCampaign dir., said he’s “sick and tired of talking about blogs.” Although the nation is headed into a Presidential race in 2008 that will be the first to feel the full force of the blogosphere, upcoming campaigns can be expected to tap social networking hubs like MySpace and Facebook and user-generated content sites like YouTube to score points with voters, he said.

DailyKos.com blogger Moulitsas agreed: “Blogs are yesterday [and] are very much maturing as a medium.” He cited photo sharing site Flickr and social bookmark manager del.icio.us as potential “next big political applications.” Cell phones will also play a prominent role in future campaigns, Moulitsas added. “People who continue to talk about blogs as though they're the next great thing are completely out of touch and don’t know what they're doing,” Moulitsas said, but some campaigns will still insist that blogs are “hip and cool and cutting edge.”

A generation of would-be voters who've known nothing but the Internet age and thrive on real-time, instantaneous Web communications will be the new target, Ruffini predicted. Social networking sites deliver a more-thorough relationship building experience than blogs can offer, he said, even though blogs have been “great at democratizing the insider game of politics.”

Could the “Gang of 500,” those campaign consultants, pollsters, pundits and journalists who matter in modern day politics, eventually become the “Gang of 500,000” or the “Gang of 50 million?” Ruffini asked. The answer won’t come in 2006 “but this will be the time when the tool is put out there,” he said.

The use of new technologies to communicate with people in- and outside of politics is “virtually endless,” Moulitsas said. Applications are going to arise in the next year or 2 that only exist in the minds of their inventors today, he said. Knowledgeable campaigns won’t be utilizing the hot communications strategies of the last elections, they'll “look at what’s on the horizon and take advantage of that,” Moulitsas said.

Townhall.com’s Garthwaite said the climate has changed for both parties since the “Republican revolution” 12 years ago. It’s nearly impossible to execute a “top-down campaign” but “bottom-up” campaigns are difficult as well, he said, likening both scenarios to “herding cats.” Campaigns that succeed will find a “happy middle” that taps the new “chattering class,” Garthwaite said. A current example is the trouble the GOP is having with the immigration debate -- there are many more voices out there and “you can’t just steamroll one policy over everyone involved,” he said: Times like these call for “a bigger discussion.” While he wouldn’t predict this election cycle’s winning get-out-the-vote tactic, Garthwaite said the campaign that exploits databases and geo-targeting, not the one that “gets the most ink about the cute little technology” will be the victor.

The lesson for 2006 is “you really can’t fake it online,” Rospars said. Transparency and sincerity in integrating online elements into the full campaign operation will win the day for some politicians, he said. There’s a difference between facilitating free-flowing online conversations among candidates and voters and “simply putting the regular Saturday radio address on someone’s iPod,” Rospars said. The ability of some campaigns to refine people’s tastes and raise their expectations will make life harder for those who don’t, he said. -- Andrew Noyes

Personal Democracy Forum Notebook…

Most lawmakers on Capitol Hill are clueless on Internet policy issues, especially when they involve attempts to reform campaign finance laws, panelists agreed at a Personal Democracy Forum conference session on regulating online politics Mon. Attorney Adam Bonin, a key voice during the FEC’s recent deliberation on Web exemptions to the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act (BCRA), said a handful of congressmen were truly interested and wanted to know more about the issue. He accepted invitations to brief them on the matter but, at the end of the day, most “don’t understand, won’t understand and will follow whatever [their party leaders advise].” SkepticsEye.com blogger Allison Hayward, a former FEC aide, said lawmakers’ ignorance is even more troubling because the FEC has routinely left the ball in Congress’s court. Common Cause Vp-Advocacy Celia Viggo Wexler said those in power are the least Web-savvy. She recalls one unnamed staffer saying her boss requires that all Web correspondence be printed out. “She hasn’t a clue… and she’s going to make decisions” that affect the Internet, Wexler said. Hayward said the FEC’s final ruling (WID March 28 p1) embodies the notion that the Internet is a force for good, and so the only public communication covered by BCRA would be paid ads on 3rd-party sites. But who’s to say what websites will look in 5 years, she asked, hinting at another debate over Internet politicking in the future. But the recent campaign finance debate was only part of the story. “The world of public communication is a little nut in a larger tree of communications that are regulated by the FEC,” she said. The “expenditure trigger” is important and that hasn’t changed, Hayward said. Expenditures are important post-rulemaking, she said, because “if you think you might be making an expenditure, you might otherwise be chilled because it’s close to express advocacy.” The Commission is “quite sensitive to over-regulating in this area right now,” Hayward said, but the “smart activists” are advised to seek advice now, in the form of advisory opinions in some of marginal cases before “some poster child of bad behavior goes out and ruins it for everyone else.”