Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Republicans steal Barack Obama's internet campaigning tricks-Culminating in last weekend's protest
The London Guardian ^ | September 18, 2009 | Ed Pilkington in New York

Posted on 09/19/2009 12:49:57 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

Erik Telford remembers all too vividly the dark cloud hanging over him on 5 November 2008, the day after Barack Obama was elected president. For the internet strategist at the rightwing campaign group Americans for Prosperity, election night was a double disaster. Not only had Obama won the votes, he had outwitted his Republican opponents in his use of new media tricks such as email recruiting and social networking.

"The left was far ahead of us. The efforts that Obama put into internet campaigning and what he accomplished were extraordinary," Telford says.

That cloud hung over the conservative movement for many weeks. A sense of crisis set in, he recalls, with bloggers, strategists and Republican politicians scrambling in different directions.

"There was a real lack of leadership, a lot of confusion."

But then, almost imperceptibly, something started to happen.

--snip--

For Telford, though, dismissing the eruption as extremist or racist was to miss the point. For him, the 9/12 rally marked the moment at which conservative America finally embraced the new world and recovered its confidence. He believes the movement is now close to catching up with the Democrats in terms of internet savviness; in some ways he contends it has even surpassed them, particularly on Twitter, where much of the heavy lifting behind the so-called "tea parties" against Obama's tax and other policies is being done.(continued)

(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Front Page News; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 912; angrymob; democrats; internet; marchondc; newmedia; obama; socialnetworking; teaparty; teapartyexpress; twitter

1 posted on 09/19/2009 12:49:58 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

Y so socialist?


2 posted on 09/19/2009 12:55:07 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (There is no truth in the Pravda Media.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet
Didn't Obama weaken the lefty grass roots organizations in favor of his own organizations in the primaries? Sounds like that centralized planning thing might not be working out any better for him than it has for other tin horn dictators.

Weren't there also a few missteps by his campaign as well? I seem to remember that he promised a few million folks that he would text / email / tweet the name of his Vice President before anyone else. Then he didn't follow through.
3 posted on 09/19/2009 12:59:56 AM PDT by Question Liberal Authority (Why buy health insurance at all if you can't be turned down for any pre-existing conditions?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

I enjoy reading the British papers covering our issues and politics.


4 posted on 09/19/2009 1:09:17 AM PDT by Ciexyz
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet
My take is the Teaparty counter revolution and the Iranian counter revolution have many similarities, the TP is different in that IMO it has been much more effective.
5 posted on 09/19/2009 1:38:41 AM PDT by iopscusa (El Vaquero. (SC Lowcountry Cowboy))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

Republican steals 0bama’s internet tactics? How? By collecting information of everybody who visit their website without telling the visitors?


6 posted on 09/19/2009 2:36:30 AM PDT by paudio (Road to hell is paved by unintended consequences of good intentions)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

If anyone is a member of freedomworks, please notify them that their join-up and contact pages are not encrypted. I don’t put my personal information on any unsecured page. Not because of the government putting me on a list (too late for that) but others.


7 posted on 09/19/2009 5:13:26 AM PDT by huldah1776 ( Worthy is the Lamb)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

This article is very interesting considering the Guardian is a very left leaning newspaper. The left is very worried now.


8 posted on 09/19/2009 6:32:32 AM PDT by luckybogey
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Question Liberal Authority
You're absolutely right.

Libertarians and conservatives aren't using the Internet to organize in the same manner that the Bolshies did last year. All sides are leveraging the Internet, yes. But fittingly, the left's method relied on centralization. It was a top-down affair: meetups and rallies were planned and organized from the top-down. The party machine was involved at every stage.

On the right, this is simply not the case. Santelli ignited a spark that was distributed and magnified via the Internet. The original day of tea parties was highly-decentralized and 9/12 was remarkably decentralized and ad hoc. There still isn't an accurate count of just how many towns saw protests that day or on 9/12. Individuals just bloody showed up. Individuals chartered their own buses. It was pretty damned interesting to see how huge it was, despite the lack of central planning.

9 posted on 09/19/2009 10:13:56 AM PDT by upstanding
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: upstanding

We were also wounded because we had a spineless RINO in Juan McCain and his campaign manager was a Democrat. A real receipe for victory there.


10 posted on 09/19/2009 3:55:12 PM PDT by Frantzie (Do we want ACORN running America's healthcare?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

obama couldn’t invent his ass, much less “internet tricks”...besides, we all know that algore invented the internet, don’t we?


11 posted on 09/20/2009 10:36:43 AM PDT by FrankR (We are only enslaved to the extent of charity we receive....INCUMBENTS OUT!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ciexyz

Brit newspapers cover American politics much better than Yank papers do.


12 posted on 09/21/2009 5:16:20 PM PDT by AFPhys ((Praying for our troops, our citizens, that the Bible and Freedom become basis of the US law again))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson