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The GOP, Behind Again
I’d be interested to hear what Rick Wilson and the other political professionals here at Ricochet have to say about this, but this observation from a friend who works in high tech seems to me to ring only too true:
It is remarkable to see the number of high quality agencies, technology providers, and firms who can offer testimonials for the work they’ve done for the Obama for America 2012 campaign team. I have never seen a single testimonial from a member of the Romney team. It may be survivorship bias (the winner is glad to write a satisfied testimonial, the loser remains silent or badmouths the provider).
But to my eyes, in the digital campaign game, Romney didn’t just lose, he wasn’t even on the field!
There are great things happening on the conservative web: Ricochet, The Federalist, The Daily Signal, etc. But on the campaign side, we look like the Left’s caricature of us: a bunch of old, slow, white males who think buying TV ads and full page ads in the newspaper are good ideas.
Image Credit: Shutterstock user Amy Johansson.
Published in General, Politics
Wouldn’t be the only arena where Romney failed to show up.
I’ll speculate that the digital side of a campaign is fixed fee for service that has to be painfully sold through the campaign organization with 1000 people who can say no and only 1 person who can say yes. With the campaign apparatchiks loath to let anybody but themselves and their print and TV connections anywhere near the money tree.
The print and TV are commission. Every ad placement is another ring of the cash register for the consultant.
Hard to see evidence of where the money spent on digital went. Easy to see evidence of money spent (which is not the same thing as results) with print and TV.
I’m much more concerned about being behind in ideas.
I put the blame on those who make posts referring to things said in the New York Times or the Washington Post as though those bankrupt playthings of liberal billionaires actually mattered.
It’s like the scene in The Graduate:
Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics.
Benjamin: Exactly how do you mean?
Mr. McGuire: There’s a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?
Take out the word “plastics” and replace them with “digital campaigning.” What the heck is he talking about? Are we talking fundraising? GOTV efforts? Web advertising? Twitter?
Voter profiling?
Ill defined complaints or remarks don’t mean much.
OK, so here’s the reform plan for the GOP:
Step 1) Pour millions into Ricochet and The Federalist since those are in good working order.
Step 2) Still working it out.
But that’s got to be the place to start, right?
I’m delighted to disagree with you on this front.
The great news for us is that technology is morally and politically agnostic. The amazing advances by the Obama team in both 2008 and 2012 weren’t a secret. They didn’t invent the tech tools that took them to the White House, but they made a commitment to using it, and to directing the resources and energy of the campaign into the path the data told them to take. It was a matter of integrating a bunch of new systems and approaches at the expense of the comfort of the graybeards of the campaign world.
We’re not there yet, but the number of GOP-oriented firms who have made enormous investments in technology that are poised to pay out in 2014 and 2016. In four big blocks where data is king: polling, voter files, voter contact, and television targeting, we’re doing better every day. Still need a cultural change in campaign to integrate it universally, but things are looking up.
Now, there is still a bias in campaigns to “do as we have always done” and run three TV spots and six waves of direct mail, but the tech battle is one we’re catching up on, and quickly.
A lot of this comes down to the campaign’s and candidate’s attitude toward technology. The Obama campaign brought in folks who had delivered real tech products. The Romney campaign went for a consultant-driven approach.
Whom would you trust to deliver technology for your campaign? These guys?
Or this guy?
One other area where we’re catching up is adding some actual academic rigor to our approaches. This was a statistical and methodological backstop the other side enjoyed with groups like the Analyst Institute.
And with that, I really must…
Is there anywhere where we are ahead?
The Romney campaign attempted an aggressive digital get out the vote effort called ORCA. The problem was that it hadn’t been subjected to quality assurance and didn’t incorporate data analytics, but it’s still a very good idea.
Thanks, Rick. It’s a huge relief–just huge–to hear this.
Sheer genius, Rachel. (Step 1, I mean.)
Nope, not that I can see.
I am not so worried about being behind in technology, that can be fixed. Technology is a tool not a strategy. Our side’s greatest weakness is courage and vigor for the fight. I have yet to see a major campaign that has displayed the brass knuckles/no holds-barred attitude needed to win (at least against Democrats, they can get down an dirty in the primaries). Until our side starts using Atwater types (the Patton of political campaigning) we will keep losing the marginal races.
If the Obama people are so smart, how come the ObamaCare roll-out was such a mess?
The problem here is that Ricochet isn’t necessarily a net plus for the GOP. We spend as much time attacking it as we do supporting it, and we spend more time fundraising for primary challengers than we do raising volunteers for the general. At a point when Daily Kos is turning out tens of thousands of volunteers, it’s not clear to me that Ricochet will raise even a single volunteer for the general. Worse, by providing an alternative outlet for people’s expression, Ricochet may even reduce the number of people making a real difference.
The podcasts, and particularly Rob Long, are far more problematic than anything else, though. We regularly hear that a race is won, that it’s lost, or that it’s too late to volunteer, at moments when these statements are entirely false. There are times when taking the cool approach and not being too earnest is the best way of appealing to people, but comes without cost, and there are times when it comes at an ethical cost. It’d be so easy to nudge people to donate or volunteer after talking to Tom Cotton or someone else with a tough fight against Democrats. Instead, that never happens, but we get told that contributors are donating to Ted Cruz, who has no election upcoming at all, and who will never have a tough fight against a Democrat, but who makes the donor feel good.
ORCA was a small part of the Romney digital campaign, although it was hyped more before hand because part of its value was in intimidating voter fraud (before the election, a lot of the media discussion was about it suppressing the vote, and it was intended to suppress (illegal) votes).
If you want to understand the digital campaign as a whole, this is by far the best account. It’s written from the Democratic perspective, but the numbers seemed sound to people I know who worked on the Romney side. Huh. The link button isn’t working for me, so here:
http://enga.ge/download/Inside%20the%20Cave.pdf
You’ll note that the election day stuff (Orca for Republicans) is not a big part of the digital campaign, but that it’s all vital stuff. One of the key problems faced in 2012 was that there wasn’t the money available for it until quite late in the cycle. Some of the Obama team were saying that their code wasn’t bug free until more than a year after they wrote it, but having written it in 2011, that was fine. The fact that the Obama team had a lot more in the way of tech volunteers and employees is helpful, but the fact that they had them really early on may have been more helpful. Fortunately, the RNC is taking on some of this responsibility, but it remains an area where we need to spend and volunteer dramatically more than the Democrats just to catch up, and an area where that is difficult.
In terms of why people don’t talk about having worked for the Romney campaign so much as for the Obama campaign, are you familiar with the fate of Brendan Eich? There’s a real cost to coming out against gay marriage, and a lot of people who are told that you were part of the Romney campaign will hear that you were fighting SSM/ women/ etc. This both reduces the number of volunteers (who wants a resume booster you can’t brag about?) and reduces reporting.
It would be fantastic to get Nancy or David French to write for Ricochet.
Please do not discount the enduring cachet OFA has among techies themselves, the vast majority of whom are part of the Democratic wing of the Democrat party. That’s why people who worked on OFA are proud to brag about it. Being a full-on MOLON LABE conservative (and not RINO-squish Rob Long and/or Paulian libertarian) can definitely be dangerous to one’s employability in places like Silicon Valley.