Tim Fullerton

Well, I never thought I’d say it, but the Clinton campaign is getting very good at producing online videos. Of course when a famous Hollywood director pitches in, that might help a little. Below is Hillary’s latest video, one encouraging people to volunteer. It’s short, humorous, and gets the point across (support Hillary by volunteering). Enjoy.

Yesterday, NY Times columnist David Brooks wrote this interesting column arguing that the netroots are not an effective voice within the Democratic party. Not surprisingly the netroots have angrily reacted to this assumption. As with any argument, I believe the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I’ll try and break it down the best I can.

The netroots have yet to establish themselves as a voting force. Not one netroots candidate has won state-wide election to date. In 2004, it was Dean, in 2006 it was Ned Lamont. Neither came close to winning. Yes, Lamont won the Democratic nomination, but that doesn’t really mean much when all you’ve done is remove the D from the winner and made him show his true colors (which probably led to a more conservative voting record as well). In 2008, the candidate is either Obama or Edwards, and both are trailing Hilary in the polls.

With this being said, I don’t think the netroots are irrelevant. The netroots have proven to be a fantastic resource for fundraising. It’s probably because of them alone that John Edwards is even in this race. They have funneled a lot of money to a lot of candidates, and that has made a difference. They are also excellent at spreading outrage about the Republicans. Yesterday, they jumped all over Rudy’s $9.11 fundraiser, and have helped bring Bill O’Reilly’s latest outrages to the mainstream.

Of course I’m overly simplifying this issue, but at the end of the day, the netroots are not in control of the Democratic Party, but they clearly are a force any Dem must (and should) deal with when running for office.

Hi everyone (or no one due to my lack of posts),

After a very busy summer, I’m back and ready to start writing again. There is just too much going on online not to comment. Hopefully there are still some people out there who might be waiting in anticipation for me to say something. Well, I’m working on a post about David Brooks netroots column in the NY Times yesterday. You might be surprised to hear what I think….

A few months ago I mentioned that the Barack Obama/Hillary Clinton mashup video would be the first in a wave of user generated videos this election season? Well this has to be the most unusual so far. I am going to go out on a limb and suggest we’ll be hearing a lot about this video over the next couple of days. The question is whether this helps, hurts or does nothing to Barack Obama. Frankly I think it does nothing, but it is somewhat amusing…….I suppose.

Generally when people are thinking about how many emails is too much, they think about whether sending emails in successive days is going to drive supporters away. Well, I received five emails TODAY from the campaign of Duncan Hunter. The worst part is that none of them really say anything. Here is the entire text of one email.

We won the straw poll at the Anderson County convention in South
Carolina last night! 63 hunter, 33 romney, 9 mccain, 7 guiliani, 5 thompson,
4 brownback, 4 newt, 3 tthomson, 2 huckabee, 2 cox. This is a
significant win!

Really? That is significant? Also, note that Fred Thompson’s (or is it Tommy Thompson?) name is spelled wrong and all are in lower case letters (plus there is an extra space in there).

In some of the other emails they actually include attachments. Unless it’s really important, never do this. It most likely will look like spam to your supporters, take longer to send out, and no one really wants a .pdf from a campaign anyway.

Sloppy and careless messaging like this will drive people away from you. Whether you are a candidate or non-profit, professionalism is key. So to round up:

Sometimes it’s good to see examples of what not to do in order to develop stronger messaging.

Later this week I’ll be traveling to the Non-Profit Technology Conference in Washington, DC. I will do my best to give as many updates as possible throughout the conference. WiFi will be available and I’ll have my brand new MacBook, so it should be pretty easy.

Still waiting on Barack Obama’s online fundraising numbers. I expect to be impressed.

Today the Clinton and Edwards camps announced that they raised $4.2 and $3.2 million online respectively in the first quarter. These numbers are highly impressive, but what I’m really interested in hearing are Barack Obama’s online numbers. He is boasting over 82,000 online donors on his site, so I would expect him to surpass these numbers. The internet is going to be a critical place to raise money for 2008, and it will be interesting to see if Obama’s approach has paid off.

As reported by Tech Crunch and e.Politics, John McCain’s MySpace page was hacked today. On the page was a statement that basically said John McCain was now in favor of gay marriage. What struck me more than a pretty humorous hack, was how his page seems to want to scare people. Look at it here. It is not very inviting to say the least. And then there is this video. Someone needs a lesson in using online videos to help your campaign, not scare people to death. Take a look for yourself.
Stand Up

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Now back to the hack. Campaigns are going to have the be extremely careful in using MySpace. The high profile candidates can expect to have this happen to them. MySpace is not known as the most secure site on earth, so it is a prime target for hackers. That being said, it is certainly still worth each having their own page.

Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani completely revamped his website this week, so I thought I would update my comments. It is certainly an improvement over what he had before (see my grade several posts ago), there still leaves something to be desired (for a much more negative review, check out what one of the guys at TechPresident had to say). There is a lot of unused space on his page, and a massive video front and center. I still don’t understand why these videos are not embedded from YouTube. That way you have a better chance of reaching a broader audience than just people who are coming to your site. The other thing that confuses me is why the email signup doesn’t also ask for the zip code. Presidential races at this point are all about where you live, so one would think that should be a cructial bit of info. There is no blog, but there are some links to social networking sites, which is cool. The one thing that caught my eye is the “call talk radio” feature. But then I went to see what it was all about and it said “coming soon.” If you’re going to release a new feature, it better be live.

it is certainly much better than what he had before, but for a frontrunner, I was expecting more.

Overall Grade: B-

A lot has been made over the last few days about the mash-up video below depicting Hillary Clinton in a not so favorable light (that’s an understatement). However, I’m not going to talk about the guy who got fired from his job for making it, or whether it’s good/bad for Barack Obama. What I find fascinating is how it appears this will change politics forever.

I say that because of the hysteria surrounding the video. Who made it? Were Republicans behind it? Did Obama do this on purpose? The greater impact is that ANYONE could have made this. Someone in their basement in Kansas or a guy in a studio in LA. Video editing software is so cheap and easy to use now, many people have it on their home computers. This is only the beginning everyone, these videos are going to start popping up everwhere (in fact, they already are). This is going to change politics forever. So many ads will be floating around, I would argue that the most interesting and compelling ones will get attention. This generally means it won’t be the ones coming from the campaigns, but individuals themselves. With YouTube and other video sharing sites viewed by millions a day, it is going to be a lot tougher for campaigns to compete. Plus, how will campaigns respond to all these new ads? How will campaign finance laws make sure campaigns aren’t hiding behind fake user names? This video has raised a lot of questions, and not many answers to this point.

If you think campaign attack ads are vicious already, just wait until everyone with a computer can make one.

I promised a more detailed report on the MySpace presidential section they released on Monday. MySpace Impact is designed to give MySpace users an easy way to learn more about the presidential contenders. The format is clear and easy to read, but my biggest question is why not all the campaigns are listed. Where is Bill Richardson? He has an official MySpace page and isn’t on here? MySpace boasts over 160 million accounts - this is a perfect opportunity to introduce yourself to a huge audience. Most of the major contenders are here, but many second-tier ones are missing. Impact might not be a revolution, but it is clearly something worth being involved with at the moment.

The message is simple. If MySpace wants to give you free publicity TAKE IT.

If one thing is different between the presidential race in 2004 and 2008, it clearly is going to be the battle on the internet. Three years ago, an online video would have had little to no impact. Today, it’s a great way to reach thousands, if not millions of potential voters.

Barack Obama’s team just sent out an email to his supporters with the embeded video below. It’s a powerful reminder of Obama’s consistent opposition to the Iraq war. More importantly, it highlights the differences between some of his Democratic rivals who originally voted for the war and are now against (Edwards and Clinton most specifically). YouTube has allowed for easier access to what cadidates have said in the past. Maybe it won’t be on the same level as television ads in ‘08, but clearly YouTube is going to play a vital role in the next election.

They guys over at TechPresident are reporting that MySpace will launch a presidential platform today. So far, 5 Democrats and 5 Republicans have signed up. Right now it is not live, but it will be real interesting to see what it looks like. I’ll be writing more about this when there is something to look at.

According to all the polls, the current Republican frontrunner is former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. As the frontrunner, does he also have a top-flight website? Well, not really.

First up the good stuff. The site’s main goal at this point is to collect emails of supporters. As someone who is very well known throughout the US, this is a good move. There is also an RSS feed (something lacking on most sites), so you do not have to check the site every day for updates. There is also a prominent donation button in case you didn’t know all candidates need money to be successful.

On to the bad stuff: This site just doesn’t do it for me. While the design is clean, it’s just not an inspiring place to visit. There is zero engaging content. No videos, audio, or the slightest hint at any social networking sites. And what is up with the URL: www.joinrudy2008? Who is going to remember that?

There is not a lot of stuff on this site, and to be honest, I expected more from the Giuliani campaign (who has hired many top-flight GOP insiders). What I will assume is that there is much, much more to come. Before Barack Obama announced, his exploratory committee site was very dull. Once he announced it was a different world. If this site changes, I will certainly change my grade.

Overall Grade: D

Tonight’s installment features former Congressman, UN Ambassador, Energy Secretary and now Governor Bill Richardson (D-NM). Clearly he is one of the more experienced candidates in the race, but how does he measure up on the web?

Quite well actually. The Governor’s site is clean, to the point and easy to navigate. It is very easy to sign up for email alerts and he has links to his social networking sites directly on the homepage. That being said, he has a long way to go as he only has 1250 friends on his MySpace page, compared to the tens of thousands for some of his competitors. And how come his interests are not filled out on his profile? People like to vote for candidates whom they like. What better way to start that process than to show some of your likes and interests?

There is also a campaign blog, but I would use that term loosely. No comments, trackbacks or diggs on this blog. It’s more like a short diary than anything interactive. People want to be able to share their opinion. Even if the comments were moderated, at least it would give some flexibility to people who want to participate.

So the campaign has done a decent job of getting a site up that is engaging and one that people might come back to. They are not in the top-tier of websites, but a decent job.

Overal Grade: B

Up tomorrow will be former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani