RNC-Ya [GOP's online chair quits suddenly]

http://evoterinstitute.com/?p=416 ^ | Cyrus Krohn

[RatherBiased.com]

Two years ago I left a prominent technology company in Silicon Valley to join the Republican National Committee as e-campaign director to elect the next Republican president. We lost, but there was more than a software glitch that contributed to our November 2008 defeat. Now that I’ve submitted my resignation, I have a few things to say and people to thank.

First, the perception that the GOP is woefully behind online and can’t catch-up is the blog-flogging of political simpletons.

It’s common knowledge now that Republicans held a technological edge until the Democrats improved what the GOP initiated years earlier. Former DNC Chairman Howard Dean confirmed this when he said (at the National Press Club on Nov. 5, 2008) that he modeled his party’s 2009 comeback by copying the RNC’s sophisticated database and online outreach efforts from the Web 1.0 world.

Change comes quickly online and the tide will turn again in favor of the GOP, once we hone our message and harness emerging technologies. To do that, we must match Democrats, programmer-for-programmer. Regrettably, we’re in terribly short supply of professionals focused solely on building platforms and applications. This is where we got dot bombed in 2006 and 2008. Maybe we should start providing computer science scholarships in exchange for a commitment to serve our party?

Yes, we have generational and geographical hurdles stunting our digital spurt. The former will be solved actuarially and the latter the Democrats will solve for us by upgrading the grid. Thanks for the help Sen. Mark Warner! Where the GOP can boast is that we have tweeters and bloggers in droves–although their impact remains unclear.

The RNC made some notable gains during the past election cycle. I soon realized our online network was fragmented, our list of e-mail addresses was minimal and we lacked innovation. Today, we host 31 state parties on our website platform, and our e-mail universe has grown from 1.8 million to 12 million addresses. Based on our voter file matches with major web publishers’ databases, we can advertise online directly to 40 million-plus voters. We outperformed the DNC in several areas, accruing twice as many Facebook friends and producing our 2008 Party Platform using the internet. There is a lot more work to do, but the foundation has been laid for new faces to build upon.

The community of online political activists has grown considerably since 1998 when the e-Voter Institute conducted the ground-breaking study on the effectiveness of the internet. The study documented how Peter Vallone used online advertising against then-Gov. George Pataki. The George Washington University’s Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet also produced invaluable research. In 2004, IPDI’s study, “Putting Online Influentials to Work” served as a precursor to the role Web 2.0 would play in the 2008 presidential election cycle.

Cyrus Krohn, e-Voter Institute Board Member

Full Disclosure: I’m on the Board of Advisors of the e-Voter Institute and George Washington University’s Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet.

I’d like to express appreciation to my former colleagues and others who had the greatest impact on my tour.

Former RNC Chairman Mike Duncan and Chief of Staff Anne Hathaway hired me and I’m forever grateful. Chairman Duncan’s appreciation and understanding of the importance of technology allowed our staff to flourish under difficult circumstances.

Collaborating with Sen. Richard Burr and Rep. Kevin McCarthy to create an interactive 2008 Republican Party Platform using the internet was a first for the nation and my proudest moment.

Karl Rove helped me architect an online strategy that contributed to victories, including those of Gov. Bobby Jindal, Sen. Saxby Chambliss and Rep. Dave Reichert. Rep. John Boehner was kind enough to offer me the floor at the 2009 House Republican Leadership Conference where we set the stage for a technology revival with valuable input from Rep. Eric Cantor and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers.

My staff was one of the most creative and dedicated teams I’ve worked with. Brian, Todd, Liz, James & Eric - you all have bright futures and I’d be honored to work with you—or for you—again. We all miss the late Mike Connell.

It wasn’t all work and partisan partying. President and Mrs. Bush were gracious hosts to my family. I don’t know how I made the invitation list for so many of President Obama’s inaugural parties but I must be in competition for the Democrat’s favorite Republican. Thanks to my long-time friend Arianna Huffington for inviting me to the Huffington Post Inaugural Ball where I met Bob Weir, one of my musical idols. Jerry Rafshoon’s party for my mentor Michael Kinsley’s new book was an intoxicating evening.

I wish RNC Chairman Steele and his new crew the best in 2010.

After taking some time off and relocating my family to the GOP safe-haven of Seattle, I plan to build new online applications for the person best positioned to win in 2012.

Onward & Upward,

@cyrusk

Cyrus Krohn is former e-Campaign Director of the Republican National Committee. Contact him by visiting http://cyruskrohn.com

[Candor7]

[FreeReign]

Why do you have your head in the sand?

[HonestConservative]

Lets just say I won’t disagree with you.

[SunkenCiv]

;’)

[Candor7]

Why do Republicans have THEIR heads in the sand?

Maybe they will listen to Rush Limbaugh.

One can only hope.

Steele needs to do a lot more than get rid of a sacrificial Net Nanny.

He needs some Republican cowboys from Texas,and Bayou hunters from Alabama

Fighters. With bawrs.

[Candor7]

Why do Republicans have THEIR heads in the sand?

Maybe they will listen to Rush Limbaugh.

One can only hope.

Steele needs to do a lot more than get rid of a sacrificial Net Nanny.

He needs some Republican cowboys from Texas,and bayou hunters from Alabama

Fighters. With bawrs.

[Blood of Tyrants]

They only killed us because the zero was quite willing to receive tens of thousands of small donations from outside the country and then cover it up.

[Glenn]

I’d love to work on GOP programming.

Where do I sign up?

[dfwddr]

John McCain still managed to get over 58 million people to vote for him

I thing 58 people voted for Juan.

The rest voted for Sarah.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Correction-—those 58 million people most likely voted for Sarah Palin and NOT McCain.

[techno]

It was actually 59.9 m votes (Wikipedia)only 2.2m short of what Bush got in 2004. All is not lost.

[jessduntno]

“They only killed us because the zero was quite willing to receive tens of thousands of small donations from outside the country and then cover it up.”

And we will be the righteous losers...sorry, I think this is all making me a little unhinged...I think I am getting pretty close to thinking I don’t give a crap what we do to beat these bstrds, time is NOT on our side...I just spent a really shtty half hour on the phone with my brothers widow and she is just about cleaned out...with my temper right now, I am sorry to say, I am ready to fight fire with fire and beat these commie bstrds no matter what, with any means possible...trying to reason with these pukes is a giant waste of time...I see no difference between Achtung-mini-me-jihad and Rahmbo Eeeemanu-el...they both should be treated the same...we do NOT have time to fiddle around with these idiots...our house is on fire...

[Rome2000]

[exit82]

Thanks to my long-time friend Arianna Huffington for inviting me to the Huffington Post Inaugural Ball where I met Bob Weir, one of my musical idols. Jerry Rafshoon’s party for my mentor Michael Kinsley’s new book was an intoxicating evening.

Sure this guy wasn't a mole?

[NonLinear]

WTF?

Who We Are

Karen A.B. Jagoda President and Co-Founder of E-Voter Institute

Sponsors and Advisors

Glenn Kessler, HCD Research

Ben Katz, CompleteCampaigns.com now part of Aristotle Int.

Michael Bassik, Air America

Cyrus Krohn, Republican National Committee

Tony Winders. ValueClick Media

http://evoterinstitute.com/?page_id=15

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

I’ve seen different figures, anywhere from 56 million to 59 million, but i do agree that it was not the landslide that the Rats like to pretend it was.

[tcrlaf]

There was a paid and volunteer blogging room at Princeton, as an example. ACORN paid for a lot, as did MoveOn and The KOS action group. You didn’t think those paid staff sat around and did nothing, did you?

They called talk shows, they spammed every sight they could find on the internet. Google seems to have magicly removed most references to them now, but occasionally a few slip through the Socialist Google Censors...

There were dozens of diaries on KOS about being PAID to Blog for Obama, and how you could get hired. ALL DELETED NOW....

The GAZA boiler rooms for Obama were reported all over the Internet, but only FOX dared to even mention it for Major Media. Of course, it wasn’t “Officially” sanctioned by Obama, but we all know how this works.

You can read about it HERE:
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/palestine_back_obama/2008/09/15/130942.html

Here is another “Confessions of an Obama Paid Blogger”
www.butasforme.com/2008/10/30/confessions-of-an-obama-paid-blogger.

Many HUNDREDS, maybe thousands of others, were getting paid by Obama to blog( “TRIG IS PALIN’S BABY!” thing was done by one of Obama’s paid staff)

[Don W]

I wonder what kind of *surprise* he has LEFT behind in the mess known as the RNC e-outreach/site.

The guy hung out with lotsa leftists and got more invite to 0bama (ptui) parties than Mikey Moore.

The new guy better do a major inspection and disinfection.

[MitchellC]

I was aware of the Gaza ‘volunteers.’ I read the links you provided and I have to say, they sound almost ‘too good to be true’ - the sort of things a McCain voter would have wanted to read the week before the election. And certain elements of it seem obviously false, like ‘we know we can't win most of X Y and Z states’ (which they did in fact end up winning).

That said, the idea of them paying people to troll blogs and YouTube doesn't sound far-fetched. If you find any other links to evidence of this, let me know.

MoveOn was running classified ads in the Charlotte Observer and other local papers in the months leading up to the election looking for ‘paid volunteers’ to “help elect Obama.”

Also, I noticed that nearly all of the Obama supporters who were calling into the local shows on WBT 1110 and WDYT 1220 in the months leading up all sounded like young black males who were reading from the exact same Mad Libs script of “You know, I agree with you 99% of the time but I'm going to vote for Obama this year because (insert DNC talking point).” It sounded like the most transparent case of seminar calling you could imagine.