Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Is The Right Losing the Online Arms Race?   [Jonah Goldberg]

Robert Cox has a piece in The Examiner arguing that the Right is falling behind in the world of "Web 2.0."

Now, I haven't read a lot about Web 2.0, but it sounds an awful lot like a buzzword for people to justify hiring people who use phrases like "Web 2.0."

Still, the stuff about Google and Wikipedia is very interesting, and I think Cox makes a very good point about how the lefty blog infrastructure has entrenched itself in the web infrastucture — i.e. things like Google and Wikipedia — to the Right's detriment.

It's the first part of his argument I'm skeptical about. He writes:

Last fall in this space, I asked, “When will the right recognize the cost of conceding Web 2.0?” With that cost now readily apparent in the form of online campaign contributions for the 2008 presidential campaign cycle, the only remaining question is whether conservatives can do anything about it in time for the elections next fall. It appears likely the answer will be a resounding no.

In the first quarter of this year, Democratic candidates raised almost $80 million, far ahead of the Republican candidates, who combined raised just over $50 million. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., raised $6.9 million over the Internet from 50,000 individuals, most of whom gave in small amounts. That means they can be tapped again during the campaign. More than 8,000 individuals signed up as volunteers through the Obama Web site.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., raised $4.2 million over the Internet. The Republican candidates did not break out online contributions separately but all of this suggests the gap will only grow wider over the course of the 2008 election cycle.

Joe Trippi, who has since signed on to work for former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards’ presidential campaign said, “We built it and they didn’t. Now it’s paying big dividends.”

The first step in recovery for the right is to admit they have a problem…

Me: I remember when John McCain was the marvel of internet fundraising in 2000. His glorified webmaster was treated like some sort of super-genius. In 2004, Howard Dean was the phenom on the web. And, again, the folks with an professional stake in that story claimed Dean's success was a matter of brilliant strategy. Now, the Democrats' success on the web is supposed to be the result of heavy investments in web infrastructure or some such.

Nonsense.

Remember that old joke by Steve Martin where he says he knows how you can make a million dollars tax free. First step: Get a million dollars.

Well, the same thing applies here. You want a successful web campaign? First get a successful candidate. McCain made a lot of money on the web because he was a popular candidate. Dean raised a lot of money because he was the hot canddidate — and his upscale voters are more likely to donate via the web. Today, the energy is on the Democratic side and so the web fundraising is more successful over there. Obama — who has a very Dean-like base, let us recall — isn't succeeding on the web because of his web strategy, he's succeeding on the web because he's succeeding everywhere else, too.

04/24 09:39 AMShare