How will President Obama deploy his Internet army?

McClatchy ^ | November 5, 2008 | Frank Greve

[2ndDivisionVet]

WASHINGTON — A powerful new lobbying force is coming to town: Barack Obama's triumphant army of 3.1 million Internet-linked donors and volunteers.

In a mass e-mail thanking them, written moments before his Grant Park victory speech, Obama put them on notice. "We have a lot to do to get our country back on track, and I'll be in touch soon about what comes next," he wrote.

Many are eager. "I'm going to be sitting at the phone, asking, 'What do you want me to do next? I'm ready,' " said volunteer Courtney Hood, 37, a mother of three from Owings, Md.

How Obama will use his ardent laptop-armed cadres is unclear. So is the extent to which they'll rally behind his priorities, press him for their own or both.

Joe Trippi, the Internet politics guru whose computer geeks made Howard Dean a contender in 2004 and who went on to design Obama's socially networked campaign machine, offers a provocative and educated guess.

Trippi predicted that Obama would use his forces, first and foremost, to intimidate congressional foes of his agenda, rally his allies and forge "one of the most powerful presidencies in American history."

Certainly, Obama reaches the White House with the biggest, best organized, fastest-acting grass-roots army in the history of presidential campaigning.

Moreover, because his Internet operation was miles ahead of Republican John McCain's, Obama's liberal-to-libertarian electronic activists are in a position to dominate the new political medium much as conservative Republicans dominate talk radio.

As for political utility, many thousands of volunteers such as Hood will be deployable within hours, with great precision and at almost no cost, thanks to the campaign's state-of-the-art information-management systems.

[nathanbedford]

How about Bush awarding the Medal of Freedom to Democrat George tenet who blundered us into a war? Or sharing popcorn at the movies with Teddy Kennedy? Or pandering to the Clintons at the unveiling of portraits?

Until we have a party leader who embraces the idea that partisanship is good and necessary for the health of the Republic, we will have a sick party and a sick republic.

[Recovering_Democrat]

3,100,000 of them...all ready to do der Fuehrer's bidding...

[livius]

That’s a good analysis of the libertarian support. Whenever there is a Communist takeover, as we are witnessing now, there is usually a sort of wild-card group that supports them and often does some of the initial dirty work for the Communists. In Spain, for example, the Communists were supported by the anarchists and in fact the anarchists carried out many of the political assassinations, church burnings, etc. that helped the Communists get power.

Interestingly enough, as soon as the Communists consolidated their power, the anarchists were put on the chopping block, too. The Communist leaders considered them too unstable and “politically immature” to be of any further help in building the glorious Communist society and they were liquidated.

I hope the army of Christian-hating (hatred of Christianity was a big feature of the anarchists, too) doper libertarians that Barry has recruited to do his dirty work are prepared for the moment when he decides they’re expendable.

[livius]

There are fifteen fully-staffed and populated chapters, operating under the watchful eye of Michelle Obama.

I have been saying all along that Michelle is the Madame Dufarge of Obama's Terror.

[Faithfull]

Exactly, well said. We need to join forces and for conservatives to have an additional TV station (FNC is starting to decline), a newspaper or two bought by true conservatives, etc. We also need an all new spokesman for the RNC and for the conservative principles. We can't keep the same- McCain's loss proved this. So many missed opportunities in what was said and left unsaid....we need bold brave fresh conservatives to lead.

[OPS4]

We are the RONALD REAGAN ARMY who have been deployed since
1981 fighting Communism,Throughout the freeworld!

We will know use the tactics our friends on the left have used.

Yes the new cold war is upon us.

[metmom]

bttt

[COBOL2Java]

I’d prefer Palin / Jindal myself, but I’m bitterly clinging to my guns and religion.

[Gilbo_3]

[7] a carton of 'K00L filta kings

[8] a coupon good for a FRee 1/2 pint of Ripple

cue the Sanford and Son theme...

[cameraman]

Much of it will be joining sites like FR and "contributing" to the conversation where they will inject doubt and exploit uneasiness. If done properly, the posts will not be outwardly offensive, like some idiot from DU mouthing off, but instead will be done with accounts that are not new and will sound like credible responses from conservative leaning people who are changing their minds. (Something to look out for will be new accounts created between now and January '09 as an indicator.)

One thing the left does very well is change the way people perceive the reality of the way something is. The media contributes by repeating the claims and the public perception follows right along. Add in educators who parrot the same lines and it makes for a very formidable method of getting what they want.

What we have on our side is human nature where some desire to know a little more than what we are simply told. If that were not the case then the world would still be flat.

[waxer1]

Excellent. I saved this. We need to organize people. I am willing to be a part of a group. Nothing we can do now the election is over, but, we need to get with it now.

freep mail me if you are all interested.

[Gilbo_3]

once the economy is completely tanked, then the 'rewards' will become the new welfare carrers of the left...

keyword: ears, hussein, rezko, wright, ayers, indonesia, mud hut...

they will need an army of 'informants' to traffic cop the web and search out those for questioning/re-education...

[waxer1]

I agree. We all had a couple of days to get over the shock. Now is the time to get to work.

We have to start by getting rid of the rinos. They will just tell us to be gracious about it.

I say NO!! Am I supposed to forget how they conducted thier campaign? how they got their funding? ACORN? Calling me a racist? No! again NO!

Lets form a group like I said before.

We need to gather all information about Obama and associates before it all disappears from the net.

[jveritas]

Sarah Palin is out of the national political scene.

[waxer1]

We need to clean house first. One step at a time. We need to be ready. I am motivated bigtime. I am not going to wring my hands any longer.

We need to start a website where people can sign up, have real meeting places.

By the way I do like Jindal/Palin in 2012, but we have to be ready to fight fire with fire and have all our ducks in a row.

[Piquaboy]

FR will be first on his list.

[tsomer]

Joe Trippi, the Internet politics guru...went on to design Obama's socially networked campaign machine, offers a ...guess.
...Obama would use his forces, first and foremost, to intimidate congressional foes of his agenda, rally his allies and forge "one of the most powerful presidencies in American history."

I think I understand why we lost this battle. Intimidation. They use it, we don't. Or didn't.

We need a legal effort to sue anyone calling any of us 'racist' for libel. We need to do this immediately and until we win. The expression "sticks and stones..." no longer counts. Words are now regarded as legal entities.

Do you know any liberals? Dig up dirt all the dirt you can. Expose them. Destroy their careers if you can. Do this before they do unto you.

Want to bring down the pyramid? Start at the base.

[huldah1776]

There have been many links posted on Free Republic, sometimes all in one post, and some people had saved removed items. You may want to put out a call to those here first. Good core group.

[sten]

the ‘one world’ types would like that. they have been pushing against conservatism since Bush sr. took office, while also pushing free trade to export all American production offshore... mostly to china... bleeding us dry for their switchover to worldwide corporations that have no one country as their base

[jveritas]

I have no problem at all with Palin but most of the voters will not accept her. Once thing I learned from this election is that the electorate including most women do not want to have a woman President.