Campaigns and Blogs

My good friend Matt Dole and the staff here at WMD haven't exactly been getting along lately, so when I see a subject that I know will interest him and that we agree on, I like to bring it up and engage in some constructive dialog for a change of pace... And who knows, maybe we'll get a real pro like Matt Naugle over here for a comment as well...

Patrick Ruffini scribes a gem of a piece on the importance of campaign websites and the vital functions that those website perform that blogs simply can't and shouldn't try. Those interested in campaigns and blogging ought to give the whole thing a read, but here is the part that I know Mr. Dole and I will agree on:

Campaign blogs are generally lame; authentic blog communities are vibrant and unscripted. I write this as a former campaign blogger who's gotten more attention doing my first few outside calls than in "blogging" for The Man for over a year.

But as Colin Delany, Alan Rosenblatt, and I never tire of noting, there is a time and place for the boring grunt work of Web sites, databases, and e-mail lists. We can't let the glitz and press value of blogging distract us from the task at hand.

House Republicans especially have made great use of the blogosphere -- I've lost count of how many [Members of Congress] have waded into the comments at Red State, and many Leadership offices from John Boehner to Eric Cantor to Roy Blunt on Twitter, the bleedingest edge of the social Web. And for their government offices, that makes good strategic sense, as the limits on what can do on official online real estate are myriad. But I've seen these priorities gradually move out into the field; at candidate trainings, what people want to hear most about are blogs. Here's what's just as much if not more important: email collection, splash pages, petition drives, fundraising.

Campaigns (and party operations too, for that matter) do need to have a new media strategery that engages the blogs and bloggers, but not at the expense of the critical operation of a website that works.

Patrick makes a big deal out of Twitter, Facebook and MySpace...three social networking tools that even I don't see the real value of yet...but I have to caution against campaigns getting so caught up in the latest, hip, new trend in Digital Democracy that they forget what the whole thing is about. Web operations are pointless if they can't be used to get the candidate's message out, collect information from supporters, and is useful for fundraising efforts.

On the other hand, I also agree with those who say that every campaign ought to be video taping each and every appearance that a candidate makes. Those videos need to be made available to bloggers along with the press releases. I also advocate that campaigns make recordings available of any radio spots and interviews (with transcripts) that the campaign might have on file. A lot of bloggers are now also doing podcasts and/or internet radio, these sorts of resources are gold for both the campaign (which gets some free publicity - earned media) and the blogger/podcaster (who gets something to talk about). And that is on top of what these resources can net for the campaign on YouTube...

But the whole point of web operations is to build an email list of supporters whom you can use to get your message out and hit up for fundraising. Without a good website for the campaign (or party), no amount of blogging, Twittering, Facebooking, or MySpacing is going to help. My advice: Don't ignore those things, but don't make them the focus of your web operations either. There are plenty of bloggers out there who can and will fill that hole for you if you just help them out a bit...