There’s Hope for McCain’s Online Woes
Allahpundit linked to a story on Sen. McCain’s online fundraising woes. I left a comment and am getting some response so I want to expand the discussion to TAM.
McCain’s two problems have been 1) he hasn’t done much to reach out to conservatives. Don’t expect red meat attacks from the Senator to rile up the base. 2) his campaign hasn’t made a coherent attempt to build up their e-mail lists and ask supporters to donate online. Instead, they’ve relied on Bush-style fundraisers that cost money and suck time McCain could be using for campaigning.
Message and tools are both needed for online fundraising success. I don’t care that a poll last week said McCain was getting conservatives into his fold. His fundraising numbers show otherwise. But along with message McCain needs to use the tools he has at hand and take (steal) the good ideas from Obama and Clinton (and even Ron Paul). That’s what I helped do on Fred Thompson’s eCampaign. Without our efforts Fred wouldn’t have had the money to make it through Iowa let along South Carolina.
Online politics is more than raising money. Sen. Obama and Rep. Ron Paul showed that online tools could be used to connect supporters, energize them, activate them, and generate media attention. There are plenty of tools available for McCain to at least make an effort to activate online supporters. First, the campaign weblog could actually have interesting content. There’s no good reason Mark Salter’s response to a Washington Post article should be only on The Corner. To drive readers to JohnMcCain.com Salter’s words should have been posted to the weblog with Ramesh Ponnuru quoting and linking to the weblog.
Second, McCain’s campaign does well with video. McCain should video weblog daily and talk about issues directly to voters.
Third, he needs to reach out to conservatives more. I thought he made a good start with his CPAC speech, but that’s all I’ve really seen him do. McCain won’t really rally conservatives by hoping they don’t like Obama or Clinton. That might get some votes, but it won’t get him volunteers and donors that will work to really get out votes.
My last two points dovetail together. Today, McCain started his “Time for Action Tour” where he travels to places not normally visited by Republican Presidential candidates. While he’s doing this he could be fliming short videos talking directly to conservatives about red meat issues like tax cuts and winning the Iraq War. He could answer questions from critics and let his “straight talk” work its magic like it sometimes does for the MSM.
The tools and opportunity are there for McCain to improve his online outreach. All that’s needed is for the campaign to want to do it.
On related points Jon Henke talks the Right being behind online generally, and David All examines why MoveOn.org is effective.
I’d like to know what TAM readers think are realistic actions McCain could do to help his situation. By “realistic” I don’t mean stuff like having him repudiate every non-conservative thing he’s ever said and done.
“Politico: McCain Gives Up on Fundraising, Will Accept Public Financing”
I’ll start by reaffirming that I agree in broad, overarching, moving forward terms, that Team McCain and the GOP in general have some ground to make up in the use of new media tools.
With that out of the way - the question I can’t find the answer to yet is - for what?
It seems to me that one of the reasons that the McCain team has not made online fund raising a more critical component of their finance plan is because 1) it didn’t prove successful enough to supplant the traditional FR methods when they tried it at the beginning of the campaign and 2) They are already having to return donations as a result of their intent to take public funds (See J Martin’s story here http://tinyurl.com/47gqwb).
That leaves the arguments that he should do more to reach out to conservatives (more specifically new media conservatives). I think his frequent calls with bloggers has done much to help build that bridge but at the point where you know that you aren’t going to have a whole lot of red meat to throw the cons - what does amping up your outreach attempts do? All too often I have seen them provide the most volatile elements of the community with clear, irrefutable evidence opposing something McCain has been accused of (in terms of not being conservative enough) only to have the response be: “Yeah well maybe but there is still this other thing he did.”
I’m not pointing these things out to try and be difficult but simply because they are questions I have no seen answers to yet. By throwing them out there I am hoping that someone will.
As I have said before - Ron Paul, Obama, the Dems in general definitely LOOK light years ahead of McCain in utilizing new media to harness and fan the flames of groundswells. But if a groundswell doesn’t currently exist and we all agree that McCain is not the kind of candidate to develop policies based on their ability to create groundswells (which I love him for) then what does the increased use of these tools do?