Posted on 08/13/2007 12:19:41 PM PDT by kristinn
Is there any chance of the Republicans catching up to the Democrats online in 2008? From any angle, the picture looks rosy if you're a Democrat and bleak if you're a Republican.
-- According to Hitwise.com, which tracks the surfing behavior of 10 million Americans across 1 million sites, online interest in the Democrats is way ahead of the Republicans. For example, for the week ended Aug. 4, the Democrats drew a whopping 66 percent of all the traffic to candidate websites.
-- In terms of donations online, the Democratic field reports raising more than $28 million, versus about $9.4 million for the Republicans. While we don't think you can meaningfully separate online donations from the rest anymore, even the reported differences are stark. Overall, the Democratic field has outraised the Republicans by $180 million to $117 million in the first half of 2007.
-- The number of small (under $200) donors to the Democratic field, 94,833, is 50 percent greater than the Republicans' 63,248, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics [ ].
-- On the big social networking sites MySpace.com and Facebook.com, the Democratic field has accumulated more than 611,000 friends, compared to about 219,000 for the Republicans, according to our techPresident tracking tools.
-- Interest in online messaging from the Democrats is also clearly higher when you look at how many times their videos have been viewed on YouTube.com: nearly 9 million times, compared to 7.3 million for the Republican field (of which, it's worth noting, nearly 3 million views were of Ron Paul's videos).
These kinds of numbers are starting to stir a spirited debate among Republican activists about whether their party is not only on a path to losing the 2008 election but also headed toward a longer period of second-class status as the online arena becomes more important to politics.
They look at the YearlyKos convention in Chicago, which brought together some 1,500 Netroots Democrats the first weekend in August, and wonder, "Where's our YearlyKos?"
Some Republicans clearly think all these dynamics will change in their favor once the primary battles are over and the Democrats nominate front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton, the right's bête noire.
Indeed, Sen. Clinton does generate nearly as much mobilization on the online right as President Bush does on the left; for example, the biggest Stop Hillary group on Facebook now has more than 358,000 members, more than the so-called "Million Strong" group for Barack Obama.
But Patrick Ruffini, the former e-campaign director for the Republican National Committee (and briefly an adviser to the Rudy Giuliani campaign), argues that there's a deeper problem on the Republican side of the online equation.
He notes that conservatives don't lack for their own YearlyKos, as thousands of right-wingers have been gathering for years at the annual CPAC conference. And he argues that in sheer traffic terms, sites like the Drudge Report and Free Republic still outdraw their left-wing competitors which is true.
To Ruffini, the Republican problem online is rooted in an older culture that has stopped innovating and has failed to embrace the sort of cooperative networking practices and freewheeling activism that collectively has produced so much new energy on the Democratic side.
"Drudge has made clear he disdains blogs," Ruffini writes on his blog. "The site looks the same as it did in 1997. There is no interactivity on Drudge. You go there, read, refresh, and that's it." As for Free Republic, Ruffini points to a whole set of things the sites owners have done that have stifled the formation of a vibrant community.
"The founders made the decision that they were going to hoard as much traffic on their servers as possible. Early on, links to blogs were verboten. If you expressed your own opinion when starting a thread, that was a 'vanity' and it was frowned upon. And fundraising for candidates was strictly forbidden, except for those pet causes approved by [the site's owner]. What lessons did our activists learn from this? Freepers, who were our best online activists, never learned how to swarm to other sites, to take different kinds of actions and to raise money for conservative candidates."
What all this means is its highly unlikely Republicans are going to turn the tide online not until they wean themselves off their top-down habits and start using the Web more to foster community and collaboration.
Right now, we don't see much sign of this happening (except among supporters of Ron Paul) but we know plenty of Republicans who are watching how well the Democrats are doing this cycle, taking notes and making plans.
Andrew Rasiej and Micah L. Sifry are, respectively, the founder and editor of Personal Democracy Forum, a daily website and annual conference on how technology is changing politics.
what about CPAC?
I am here but I have not gone to a candidate site this week or for a while.
We are just waithing for our race to start.
I guess Patrick never heard of DIANA IREY? RIGHT DIANA?
Congressman Billybob
You have to remember many of these experts are PAID consultants who earn their living manipulating opinion. They want forums (and blogs) to be suseptible to their viral advertising influence. it is hard to viral advertise on FR.
On other sites you can pay and they play.
The founder of FR was smart to keep news news and opinion opinion. We are not lacking on the latter, which is the easy part of any website or blog. And we lead the world on the former. We are show prep for all the top radio hosts and other influentials on the right (Hi Rush, baby).
Lib sites are full of opinion masquerading as news. They aren’t teaching their younguns the difference.
He notes that conservatives don't lack for their own YearlyKos, as thousands of right-wingers have been gathering for years at the annual CPAC conference. And he argues that in sheer traffic terms, sites like the Drudge Report and Free Republic still outdraw their left-wing competitors which is true.
Good Whine! Still behind!
hi don’t mean to poach, the live duncan hunter thread is going. (no I am not a d.hunter supporter but I think some polite posters visting overthere will be good for our image)
Hopefully this will lead to more candidates comming by.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1880600/posts
plausable deniability.
(its all soros’ fault)
Perhaps that is why the MSM confuses blogs and forums.
While I usually visit freerepublic while I eat lunch, I could not today. Exelon has filtered this site as a “Sex” site.
Where else are interested parties denied access?
No point calling us out on it after that -- it was free advertisement for the site to anyone who didn't know about it back in '98 and it showed what kind of power we could wield.
This site has been “Influential” in past elections, and the left KNOWS that it’s monitored by the media....
Hence the “sudden” drive to discredit FR, before the election season starts to heat up....
You know there is a point where I have been trying to maintain the high moral ground if there is such a thing. And if it was merely massive hit count that I wanted rather than foolishly trying to be a contribution here and see myself as FReeRepublic's unofficial man on the ground in Southeast Asia I could easily do so.
So what do you think I can just change the format to ~~
THE NEW AND IMPROVED
An American Expat in Southeast Asia
NOW WITH
HOT SEXY ASIAN WOMEN
The problem is, like many FReepers I'm a sucker. I'm here hoping to be a contribution and share whatever wisdom or expertise I have because I want to make a change - and because I truly love my country and you guys as well ~ and so when I get accused of "blog pimping" it hurts.
OFCOL, this is a conservative NEWS FORUM. It is not a political party site. People come here every day to post and read the world’s news, and if they are so inclined comment on that news. If the Republican party wants a GOP web site let them start one. What Jim has created here is unique, and as someone has already said, it is what the news will look like when the newspapers are obsolete. I’m tired of “backseat drivers” who are always telling Jim how to drive his own vehicle.
It’s easier to criticize those that have and been SUCCESSFUL at it.
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