I have to say, I do think times are changing for the Republicans. But being from the technology side with a strong interest in politics and building our non-partisan platform here at politics4all.com I have watch the parties involvement over the years online. Let’s recognize that Obama’s team has a proven record and everyone else still has a long way to go.
In the time that I have been following and researching the online behaviors of political parties, I have noticed some key points with the GOP that I think need to be focused on; one of these is openness. It seems like everywhere I go, I see closed and membership-only groups from a national to a local level. If you are going to appeal to the masses, you need to be transparent and open yourself up to all of the praise and the criticisms that comes with it. Don’t worry about the “trolls” that come a long, they might be putting a check and balance on the situation. You have to appeal to the masses and not just the registered party members. Recognize that it’s also going to be an online and offline movement that’s going to create a strong position.
Here is a good example of the lack of openness you will see with the GOP. I wanted to post a comment on the RedState.com site which is the leading blog for right of center online activists. It was established in May of 2004 by Ben Domenech, Mike Krempasky, and Josh Trevino, and has played an important role in the right’s fight online against the left. I went to comment on a blog post December 30th called Rebuild the Party: The Technology. It took me registering for an account and waiting 5 days for approval before I could start commenting and posting. By then the conversation was well over on the blog post and I ended up being the last comment to date. This makes it very hard for openness and collaboration to go on. As I return today to the site to see if there were an other comments after mine, I realized that it was going to be hard to find because the site does not have a search feature. I even logged in to see if I was missing something.
I don’t know if it’s being tech savvy is the problem or worried about the openness that it brings. Whichever, it will be nice not to have these barriers anymore.
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