Introducing The Next Right
by Patrick Ruffini :: May 7th, 2008 2:35 pm
Today, we’re giving a sneak peek into something new on the right side of the blogosphere: an online community for change-minded activists and hardcore political junkies in the conservative movement. We’re calling it The Next Right. We’ll be launching in a few weeks, and you can sign up to get an email when we do.
My partners in this endeavor are already well known to you if you’re a fan of savvy, fact-driven political blogging: Jon Henke of QandO and recently a consultant to the Fred Thompson campaign, and Soren Dayton of RedState and Eye on ‘08 fame and all too briefly of the McCain campaign.
Here’s why we’re doing this, and here’s why it’s different.
It’s no secret that the right operates at a severe disadvantage to the left when it comes to building online political infrastructure. People point to ActBlue and Obama’s massive fundraising advantage, but the problem cuts deeper: netroots activists on the left have built critical mass around an idea that regular people on the Internet can get their hands dirty and remix Democratic politics. They not only raise money. They recruit candidates. They fund full-time investigative journalism to ambush Republicans. They act as a party whip, creating consequences for Democrats who, in their view, don’t act like Democrats. They volunteer and flock to states with key races. The right can build all the tools it wants, but without a narrative and a rallying point for action, it will be for naught.
Part of the problem is structural. When the conservative blogosphere first emerged, we were in the midst of a political upswing, with back-to-back-to-back victories in 2000, 2002, and 2004. Political activism wasn’t going to be a comparative advantage for the right online. Most were content just being pundits or media critics. This trend was reinforced by the blogosphere’s success in scalping Dan Rather, part of a series of new media-driven events that arguably changed the trajectory of the 2004 election.
Ever since then, a radically different set of circumstances has dominated our politics. It’s one that requires a substantially different response — one that requires us to stop being pundits and start being change agents.
Put simply, the party, and in many cases, the movement, has lost its moorings. Earmarks exploded ten-fold, and it wasn’t under a Democratic Congress. In this winter’s primary, we saw the once mighty fiscal-social-national conservative coalition turned in on itself, with economic conservatives pitted against social conservatives. And too many of the “experts” in the Presidential campaigns this cycle failed to modernize the way the party does business, clinging to the old top-down rostrums of direct mail and fundraising-by-cocktail-party in an increasingly networked and crowdsourced world.
It’s no wonder that Joe Conservative outside the Beltway feels that none of his self appointed “leaders” are listening to him. He looks to Washington and sees a leadership class that is too often arrogant, timid, divided, and technologically behind the curve. It’s no wonder why this year more than most his wallet has been sealed shut when it comes to supporting Republican candidates — even the good ones.
We’re calling the site The Next Right because much of this story will be written in the future tense. Our analysis will be as much about looking ten and fifteen years down the road as it will be about dissecting the mechanics of the 2008 contest. What are the coalitions, strategies, and tactics the right needs to win again? How does the party need to change to attract a generation of voters who could very well be lost to us if we don’t move fast? Where do we find the candidates who will lead a resurgent right in the 2010 and 2012 elections and beyond? The vibrant discussion Soren, Jon, and many others had about the future of the movement last spring and summer would be perfect fodder for this new venture.
If you’re looking for pure-play opinion and link bait on sundry topics from Ann Coulter to Jimmy Carter/Hamas, you won’t find it here. What you will find is in-depth (often unabashedly technical) writing about the election, the polls, the strategy, and the issues. Our analysis will track truth and stay true to the numbers. But it will self-consciously serve a greater purpose — educating YOU to be your own political strategist and start doing something — whether that’s blogging about your local Congressional race or Democratic corruption in your state, organizing fundraising drives, and maybe even managing races or running for office yourself. Only a revival of civic engagement at the grassroots level will create a conservative future we want: one that is pork-free and robust in the defense of our country and its values. We can’t call a switchboard and wait for Washington to fix the mess. We have to do it ourselves, from the ground up, in every state.
In that spirit, we’re opening the doors to anyone who wants to blog on The Next Right. Users will be able to create their own blogs on the site, an ability only a handful of conservative sites offer today. We’re also looking for a great stable of front-page writers who can write smart, savvy analysis on a consistent basis — email us if you think you fit the bill. We want to open this up as much as possible. It can’t just be about the three of us, or it will fail.
I’m pumped about this new venture. The last few months have seen a considerable amount of backchannel discussion between the thought leaders about the sorry state of online activism on the right — often with great agreement on a direction moving forward. The good news is that the talent is there. I’ve long relied on Soren and Jon for high-level political analysis, and by bringing it under one roof and opening the door to more people, we hope this quickly becomes a hub right-leaning junkies like you.
We don’t think this alone will solve the activism gap. Anyone who tells you that they alone have the answer is fooling you. This is not “the Daily Kos of the right.” What we’re hoping to do is create momentum and an intellectual framework for action — because action ultimately starts with narratives and ideas. We want grassroots conservatives and libertarians to start believing that they can make a difference again — a sense all too many have lost. Only you – and not some well-funded 527 — can bring the movement into the future. Only when grassroots conservative have a direct stake in the future of the party are we effective. The Next Right is about creating a vision for a 21st century Republican Party and conservative movement.
On a personal note, you should finally see me blogging more, though not at PatrickRuffini.com. I’ve committed to moving all my purely political content to The Next Right, and will be setting up my RSS feed to automagically redirect you to my writings there. I’ll still keep some personal and tech stuff here, but most of my stuff will be there.
We hope you’ll join us in taking the next right.
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Grand Theft Auto Republicans
by Patrick Ruffini :: April 30th, 2008 9:16 pmVia Jon Henke on Twitter, this Google Trends chart for “grand theft auto” is pretty interesting. Not only does it show a noticeable uptick surrounding the release of GTA IV this week, but check out the Top 10 states where people are Googling the game: Kentucky, Kansas, Michigan, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Indiana, and Oklahoma.
These were all Bush states in the last election, or were tossups. Who knew that Grand Theft Auto fans skewed Republican?
Last fall, I blogged about how free analytics data from social sites around the web, in this case Facebook’s advertising platform, could be used for behavioral targeting. (If you watch SportsCenter and worship the Star Wars trilogy, you’re probably a Republican, and if you’re into Colbert and Paris Hilton, you’re probably a Democrat.) Though Facebook has since pulled its segmentation by ideology after its ill-considered move towards open-ended political affiliation, and we only have geographic data to go by in Google Trends, this data may gain more mainstream acceptance since there is no more mainstream action online than Googling for something.
For instance, Julie Germany’s microtargeting riff at SXSW that vodka drinkers are Democrats and bourbon drinkers are Republicans is fully borne out by Google Trends. All ten of the top vodka states are blue states. And eight of the top ten bourbon states are red states. And I didn’t need some six figure study to tell me that.
Combine the lean Republican nature of Grand Theft Auto players with the hard Republican tendencies of bourbon drinkers, and you’ve just microtargeted bourbon drinking gamers as solid Republicans. (We already knew from the Facebook dataset that the gaming community skews conservative.)
Of course, any post titled like this is bound to be a little tongue in cheek. More recent GTA adopters do tend to be from bluer states, as seen in this April 2008 chart.
Other charts can help quantify what we intuitively already know. Check out Twitter’s top cities: San Fran, Austin, Seattle, Portland, New York, LA, DC, and Boston — the classic early adopter lineup.
Ever since the Bush campaign’s pioneering use of microtargeting in the ‘04 campaign, building the perfect model for political behavior from consumer data has been the holy grail of politics. The reams of data that’s only now just surfacing about consumers’ online behavior is making it a little easier, allowing, say, a Congressional campaign to perform basic targeting on their TV and online advertising.
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Twittering Philly
by Patrick Ruffini :: April 22nd, 2008 8:42 amThe use of Twitter as a discovery vehicle for raw political intelligence takes another step today with Election Journal, a project by Republican election watchdog Mike Roman. The site is using Twitter, Flickr, and Google Maps to cover primary election day in Philadelphia, with Twittering correspondents stationed around the city.
Anyone who’s worked a few election days in Philly knows how colorful things can get. Violence, intimidation, broken machines, and officials denied entry into polling places are par for the course. With more than 1,600 precincts in the city alone, it’s difficult to get a handle on it all. Here’s hoping a little technology-enabled citizen journalism can bring some much needed transparency to election day.
Follow @ElectionJournal on Twitter to get live breaking updates. And here’s a map of the incidents they’ve uncovered so far:
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The GOP and the Six Million
by Patrick Ruffini :: April 18th, 2008 12:54 amRarely a Saturday has gone by the last few weeks that I haven’t gotten someone e-mailing me that they’re off to their Republican county conventions to fight the RonPaulbots. I didn’t think much of it. But something jogged me and I decided to do some Googling. Even at a 30,000 foot level, it’s pretty remarkable.
UPDATE, 10:45: A Ron Paul volunteer and organizer in Kansas City confirms that the Jackson County Republican caucus elected a nearly-complete slate of Paul delegates at its convention Saturday.
Larry Holland says the caucus elected more than 170 Paul delegates out of an estimated 187 available. Those delegates will eventually, directly and indirectly, pick delegates to the Republican National Convention.
Alaska (where Paul came in third, wth 17% of the caucus vote) held its state convention Mar. 13-15, in Anchorage. Ron Paul Alaskans reports that, thanks to efforts at the district conventions, Paulunteers “were to were able to secure 105 delegates to State, or roughly 30% of the total.” At the convention, the Ron Paul Republicans (RPR) managed to pass several platform resolutions, calling for repeal of the Patriot Act, opposing Real ID, and advocating abolition of the Internal Revenue Service and Department of Education. Another resolution, opposing the Iraq war, lost; author Chris McGraw notes that “we were simply unable to pull support from anyone outside of the Ron Paul delegates for this purpose”.
Over the weekend, [Ron Paul supporters] captured six of a dozen GOP national convention delegates elected at congressional district meetings. The rebellion has left local party officials crying foul, even as state leaders downplay the importance of the unexpected result.
Nolan Chart correspondent “Paul from Clearwater, Florida” recently reported on his local caucus: “I got about 30 Ron Paul meetup members to join and become Commmittee Members for the Local Republican Party…. We get there, roll call is taken. We each individually introduce ourselves. The Chairmen of our county and surrounding counties are there. Voting time comes around and THEY DO ALL OF THE VOTING. No one else. And of course they vote themselves in and it is over”
The Orlando Sentinel reports that “similar struggles are occurring in other Florida counties and states.” In Orange County, party chairman Lew Oliver led a move to block Paul supporters from becoming precinct captains at this month’s party meeting. In Pascoe County, Paul supporters were asked to publicly pledge their loyalty to the GOP.
Let’s take a look at what this means, both short term and long term.
Short term, county convention delegates elect state convention delegates. In many cases, the state conventions elect delegates to the national convention. The end result could be a lot of Ron Paul people sitting on the floor in St. Paul, pledged to vote for John McCain but free agents otherwise.
Little will be decided by the delegates. Outwardly, their goal is to get Paul a speaking slot, which I imagine he’ll get, at 8:05 p.m. on Tuesday night.
But by far the biggest impact delegates can have is through floor demonstrations. In some ways, their reactions to the speeches set the tone for the convention, amplifying messages from the stage. Remember how Pat Buchanan enraptured the floor at the 1992 convention but lost the country? Or how the Texas delegates turned their backs on gay Republican Congressman Jim Kolbe in 2000? Now, imagine, Paul loyalists get 20-30% of the seats on the floor in St. Paul, controlling delegations like Missouri, with a significant presence in Minnesota, with closest promixity to the stage. Can the speakers safely voice a pro-victory message in Iraq without a significant amount of boos and catcalls? How will this look on television? And don’t forget, national conventions are also heaven for reporters trolling for off-message quotes from delegates.
The long term aspect is what fascinates and disturbs me. It’s not that Ron Paul supporters are a fearsome army in raw numbers. I don’t worry about them taking over the party. They couldn’t manage 5% of the vote in most states, and are violently opposed by the other 95% when they care enough to show up.
It’s that last part that worries me. If they care enough to show up. In primaries and generals they do. At county conventions, where the party’s identity at the local level is forged, they don’t. Ron Paul supporters are the only ones motivated to organize a bloc of people to take over local Republican Parties across the country. That matters.
I can’t fault them, can you? Dodging on loyalty oaths aside, all they are doing is Grassroots Organizing 101. Even the social conservatives who traditionally filled this role have punted, drifting into lifestyle-based forms of self-identification. What is remarkable is that this is being pulled off by an historically smaller and smaller base of people using the Internet. All because the regular Republican organization across the country is demoralized, demobilized, and eviscerated.
Nationally, it doesn’t look like help is on the way any time soon. The McCain campaign is making a strategic gamble that they can do this without a grassroots organization – and certainly nothing on the scale of 2004. It’s a strategy that’s consistent with McCain’s actual strengths and weaknesses, and from that perspective, I suppose you can justify it.
The problem is that this overlooks some broader realities about the evolution of politics in favor of some narrower, McCain-specific realities. In an over-the-air campaign like 1988, volunteers probably didn’t matter much. In 2008, we’ve seen how active supporter bases can be everything. Look at Obama. Look at the left’s swift, coordinated block-tackle of ABC News. And even in the GOP, look at how grassroots candidates who appealed strongly to a specific niche exceeded expectations (Huck and Paul). The Internet empowers geographically distributed communities to fund campaigns, to set the tenor of media coverage, to explode little YouTube clips into a big, big deal. These are the 5-6 million people on each side who can be inspired enough to sign up for the nominee’s email list, visit blogs, spread messages and volunteer. In caucuses, these types of people represent 100% of the turnout universe (including older people if you take out some of the tech references). Let’s round up and call these groups the Six Million (this is a smaller group, I think, than “the base”).
Republicans haven’t had a concerted strategy for reaching the Six Million since the 2004 election, and help is not on the way in 2008. McCain won the nomination despite the Six Million, is resigning himself to running at a severe financial disadvantage, and is bypassing them by pivoting into general election messaging (blasting Bush on climate change?). At the grassroots level, no one seems to care that these regular Republicans — who are more often than not down the line conservatives on economic issues, cultural issues, and the war — are going home and leaving local parties in the hands of the Paulbots. The Congressional leadership abandoned the Six Million by overspending, and only embraced earmark reform after it was too late. The President abandoned the Six Million on immigration — though that’s a tough one, since restrictionism has very little resonance outside the Six Million.
The Democrats, meanwhile, can be easily confused as a customer service organization to their Six Million, as opposed to a messaging entity targeting the Sixty Million (or, voters). The Six Million includes MoveOn (3 million). The Six Million probably correlates to the 2-3 million emails Obama has today and the 5-6 million he’ll have by November — though that includes some of Obama’s in-house Six Million, younger people from outside the process. If you were to take a poll, the Democratic Six Million would be 70% for Obama and 30% for Clinton.
The focus on the Six Million — which quickly yanked the party in a harder, more partisan direction in the post-9/11 era — can lead to oddities that may well poison the Democrats’ sure thing in 2008, most prominently the nomination of a William Ayers-Jeremiah Wright associate for Leader of the Free World.
That should cause at least a few sighs of relief in Republican circles — but it doesn’t negate the power of an energized Six Million. The standard litany on the right — about the lack of online donors, shot grassroots organizations, the desire for its own MoveOn, and (expletive) Ron Paul supporters taking over county conventions – can all be traced to a lack of care and feeding of its own Six Million in the mid-2000s. Even now, many envision they can create grassroots organizations from the top down, using an issues matrix conjured up by a pollster. Sadly, it’s not that easy. When the right idea to energize the Six Million comes, it won’t come from a “MoveOn of the right” occupying a D.C. office suite funded by an initial round of 7-figure commitments. It will come from someone working outside their den in far outside the Beltway hosting a little activist website that hits the right message at the right time on a $7 shared server.
If we don’t want Ron Paul people controlling our party machinery by default, and if you’re tired of the Obama online fundraising headlines, we need to be focusing on the best minds on empowering David-with-his-slingshot from the Six Million. Even if that means a little less emphasis on the Sixty Million in the short term.
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links for 2008-04-17
by Patrick Ruffini :: April 17th, 2008 7:32 am
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