Our goal for this panel is to spur some cross-partisan discussion of what it’s like to organize online and gain traction for your issues when your side is in power and when your side is not in power. With people like Mike Turk (former e-campaign director for the Bush-Cheney campaign of 2004 and then the RNC, more recently an adviser to Fred Thompson in 2008), Mindy Finn (deputy under Mike at the RNC and more recently Mitt Romney’s e-campaign director), Natalie Foster (the new media director for Organizing for America, at the DNC now, previously with the Obama campaign), and Ilyse Hogue (the interim executive director Moveon.org’s director of political advocacy and communications), I’m sure there will be plenty to chew on, but here are some starting questions:
Is the internet is inherently more favorable to liberals? You might imagine that it is, based on the disproportionate impact of online Democratic activism in the last election cycle or two, but it wasn’t that long ago that Republicans were more dominant online in the US (remember war-bloggers? or the GOP’s big technological edge in data-management?). In fact, judging from a glance at England’s online scene, the question of who gains traction online may well be more determined by who is in power and when activists started adopting online networking to deal with that.
Also, does the embrace of Twitter by conservative activists indicate a shift in where online innovation is centered, going forward? Or is the big e-group still the killer app of online politicking? How is the net’s more open nature invigorating (or hurting) both the efforts of Republicans to reboot themselves and the efforts of Democrats to manage the challenges of being power and holding their base’s support?
I should also note that this panel is a great illustration of one of the best things about PdF–its crosspartisan nature. Where else can you go to talk shop with, share a beer with (or spy on?) the other side in politics?
That’s not to say that I expect this session to be all milk and cookies. As I emailed the panelists recently, “It’s not meant to be a partisan slugfest about how stupid or brilliant one side’s leaders or positions are. We get to do that the other 363 days of the year, but please, not at PdF. That said, it’s certainly fine for you to own your partisan labels and values!”
June 24, 2009