In 1972, computers and campaigns were just getting acquainted. Fundraising appeals using direct mail lists were considered revolutionary - and helpful to a young Karl Rove working on the Nixon re-election campaign.”Young people have got to reach other young people,” Rove told CBS News at the time, “and that is what we are seeking to do.”The merger of politics and technology was so new the Nixon campaign felt its use of computers should be shielded from the public.

How things have changed.

In 2007, candidates announce that they are running for president, raise money and even hold debates on the Internet. Earlier this month, the Democrats held the first candidate “mashup” - their responses to questions were posted online for internet users to edit any way they choose.

Still, a recent poll showed that 72 percent of those surveyed get their political information from newspapers. Analysts say that means campaigns have to keep both old and new media in mind when trying to connect with voters.

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Back in August, Time Magazine wrote about “the extraordinary appeal of Facebook“:

Facebook’s appeal is both obvious and rather subtle. It’s a website, but in a sense, it’s another version of the Internet itself: a Net within the Net, one that’s everything the larger Net is not. Facebook is cleanly designed and has a classy, upmarket feel to it–a whiff of the Ivy League still clings. People tend to use their real names on Facebook. They also declare their sex, age, whereabouts, romantic status and institutional affiliations. Identity is not a performance or a toy on Facebook; it is a fixed and orderly fact. Nobody does anything secretly: a news feed constantly updates your friends on your activities. On Facebook, everybody knows you’re a dog.

Maybe that’s why Facebook’s fastest-growing demographic consists of people 35 or older: they’re refugees from the uncouth wider Web.Every community must negotiate the imperatives of individual freedom and collective social order, and Facebook constitutes a critical rebalancing of the Internet’s founding vision of unfettered electronic liberty. Of course, it is possible to misbehave on Facebook–it’s just self-defeating. Unlike the Internet, Facebook is structured around an opt-in philosophy; people have to consent to have contact with or even see others on the network. If you’re annoying folks, you’ll essentially cease to exist, as those you annoy drop you off the grid.

Emphasis mine and for a reason.  Many view the web as a current generation thing, a way to engage teens and twenty-somethings, while aiming for anything beyond that has proven all but impossible.  Facebook is slowly but surely pulling it off, broadening its market into demographics that matter most to politicos and campaigns focused on using new means to target traditional voters.

The question then becomes how to best utilize Facebook for political purposes.  Does having a group with 300,000 members really lead to more votes or money?  Does someone friending you mean they’re going to do more than simply list you on their profile?  Does it mean that people will learn more about the candidates and become better informed participants in the democratic system?

It’s the answer to these questions that’ll determine whether or not Web 2.0 and social networking can really work as a political tool and force in 2008 and beyond.

And while we’re on the topic of Facebook, have you joined the RedStormPAC Facebook group yet?

First, a thanks out to “Gopher Broke” for bringing RedStormPAC to the attention of Free Republic readers.  He does mention one thing we here at RSPAC would like to address: our current Virginia-only format.  This is something a few people have asked us about in the last week so let’s just come out and say it.

Virginia is only the beginning.

Virginia has the luxury of every year being an election year which makes it a ripe place for political activity and evolution.  What better way to introduce the RedStormPAC system than to simply apply it to current elections.  This gives us an cycle under our belt and a way to battle-test things so when November 6th comes and goes, we’re ready for 2008.

Federal elections are coming.  But first things first.  Let’s keep Virginia in the right hands and go into 2008 ready for battle.

We here at RedStormPAC would like to take a moment to thank the early adopters of the candidate widgets.

Candidates Jeff Evans running in the 20th Senate District and Chris Yakabouski running in the 17th Sente District have both adopted RedStormPAC as their means for generating online contributions.  Help Save Manassas now uses RedStormPAC on their site as well.

And where would we be without the blogs?  The following is just the start of what’s to come as RedStormPAC widens its coverage and slate of candidates.

• Black Velvet Bruce Lee
• Cathouse Chat
• I’m Not Emeril
• Leslie Carbone
• Scott’s Morning Brew
• Spark It Up!
• Virginia Virtucon

If you use RedStorm widges on your site let us know so we can add you to the roll.  We’re always looking to say thanks to those that make RedStormPAC happen.

 Julie at the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet blog shares Kevin Betram’s Top Ten Lessons for running a mobile campaign for political candidates:

1. A dedicated short code is imperative. You don’t want your supporters to accidentally receive messages from companies who might be assigned the same shortcode. Splurge on the extra cost ($1,000 vs. $500) for your own shortcode.
2. Timelines and relevance are key. When the Obama campaign used text messaging to remind its supporters about a debate at Howard University, some of the recipients told the campaign that even though they attended Howard, they didn’t know that there was debate.
3. People like to feel empowered, so use mobile technology in a way that allows them to talk back to you and take action. One example Kevin cited was asking your volunteers to text you about their experiences canvassing.
4. People like free stuff, like ring tones, bumper stickers, and wallpaper. And when you ask them where to send their loot – like bumper stickers – you can collect their mailing addresses as well.
5. Segment your lists by zipcode/area code, events, and issues. People should only receive text messages about events in their area and issues they care about.
6. Stay away from complicated.
7. Tests your assumptions. Sometimes what you believe about mobile technology, such as the myth that only young people use text messaging, is proven inaccurate.
8. Dedicated customer service is important. Make sure work with a company that has a dedicated staff ready and able to answer your supporters’ questions.
9. Knowing and following the Mobile Marketing Association’s rules is imperative. Check out the MMA website.
10. Don’t ask for money. Early gratification equals retention, and mobile is still a tricky medium when it comes to fundraising.

Kevin Betram’s Distributive Networks runs the mobile operations for the Barack Obama campaign.  Currently mobile campaigning has only been heavily harnessed by four Democratic candidates while the Republicans are still trying to figure out the best approach.  Mobile campaigning is all about interacting with the volunteer and providing incentives for motivation, and the cost of a text message compared to any number of other methods is remarkably low.

The “long tail”, as coined by Chris Anderson, is the concept of “selling less of more”.  Typically applied to business models like that of Amazon or Netflix, the concept is that businesses can sell a greater amount of more things at small volumes than popular things at large volumes.

The same can be true for fundraising methods.  Traditionally fundraising has aimed at pulling as much money as possible from donors, appealing more to the “big head”, the few people who can give more (shown in the graph as the green area).  Yet missed by such efforts is the long tail (shown in yellow), which often holds a majority of the market.  The cost of appealing to such a broad end of the market has been cost prohibitive in the past, usually not worth the small yield of returns.

This is where RedStorm comes into play.

By offering a no-cost method of receiving online donations, RedStorm is aimed directly at this long tail portion of the market.  While the PAC can certainly handle high dollar donations, it is specifically the low dollar donors that this system best appeals to.  Donations as low as $5 that would otherwise have cost about as much to solicit are now reachable with a free and easy to use widget that can be put on any website, whether it be a candidate or organization or simply a blogger that wants to help a cause.  This system enables campaigns and supporters to cast a wider net when seeking donations (and no fish is so small to be thrown back).

It’s a system of getting more of less, though that doesn’t make any of it less valuable.  It may even prove easier to convince 50 people to donate $50 each than two people to give $1000.  Not only have you raised funds, but you’ve also invigorated that many more supporters and developed a solid foundation for future grassroots action.  It’s the politics of engagement, inviting more people to participate in ways that they may have been hesitant to do so in the past.

It’s the future of politics and it’s happening right now.

New Voters Project, in cooperation with Working Assets and researchers at the University of Michigan and Princeton University, has released a study that shows text messages increased an individual young voter’s likelihood to turnout by 4.2 percent in the November 2006 elections.  The fact sheet is available here and the full report is available here in PDF format.

This report presents one of the first bits of real data to show the effectiveness of text messaging in getting out the vote.  A short, to the point message proved most effective and the cost per vote generated was an extremely low $1.56 per vote compared to $20 for phone calls or $67 for direct mail.

One bit of hesitation on the part of Republicans may come in the demographics of this report.  57% of all respondents labeled themselves as Democrats compared to only 13% calling themselves Republicans.  This could just be the result of national sentiment in 2006 or how the researchers went about retrieving their sample pool, but it does show some limitations of the report.

Another figure to pay attention to is that while 43% of the respondents reported a positive reaction and 25% said they felt the message was a helpful reminder to vote, 21% were confused or surprised and another 10% were outright annoyed by the message.

As a GOTV move in general, the method seems to work well.  Whether texting can be applied as a way to get out a candidate’s message and sway a voter as opposed to simply “preaching to the choir” is still up for debate.

See CNet’s News.com’s coverage here.
See e.politics’s coverage here.

RedStormPAC has created two widgets for Bill Bolling for Virginia and Bob McDonnell for Virginia!  Links for the widgets should be at the top inside right — just cut and past the code into your sidebar and you’re set!

Can an online presence for a small campaign make a difference?  If the answer is “yes” then Ron Paul’s 2008 bid for presidency may be the best how-to manual for Republicans seeking ways to make headway online.

True, the New American isn’t the most objective source (it is run by the John Birch Society after all).  Still, this article does make one point abundantly clear:  Rep. Ron Paul is crushing the Internet out of the park:

With such headwinds to fly against, one might think that Ron Paul would find it almost impossible to get noticed on anybody’s radar screen — until one goes to the Internet. Then one gets the impression that he is some kind of superstar, moving through cyberspace like a titan. Despite the fact that the mainstream media is treating Ron Paul virtually as a nonentity, a growing number of Americans are learning about him through the Internet. Many of them like what they are finding out and are supporting his candidacy. This prompted Wired magazine to run a commentary on its website entitled, “Ron Paul: How a Fringe Politician Took Over the Web.” 

The fact of the matter is this:  While Ron Paul continues to get anywhere from 3-6% in national polling, Paul not only continues use the Internet to multiply the effect of his volunteers, at times his campaign absolutely destroys larger, more traditionally savvy rivals.

Is Ron Paul ‘08 the Howard Dean ‘04 of the GOP?  Possibly… he has a long ways to go before his Internet campaigning translates into boots on the ground, and much farther to go in order to become competitive with “the big four” of Thompson, Giuliani, Romney, and McCain. 

But as his second-tier competitors drop out, and if one of the larger races possibly nosedives, is it altogether impossible for Paul to pick up dejected activists searching for a new candidate?  Ron Paul’s online campaign may very well become an excellent case-in-point in how small campaigns with a strong online presence can quickly become competitive.

Sign up if you haven’t already! 

If your campaign (or you) don’t have a Facebook group set up, it might be a good idea to familiarize yourself with one of the most versatile social networking tools on the web.  This is an excellent way to keep Facebook users (read: potential volunteers) notified on future events and campaign updates. 

As the technology matures and new applications become available, Facebook only stands to become better, so it’s not a bad idea to join the “fad” and see if it becomes a necessity.