Seeking Your Advice

OK, so Sean Connaughton needed a lot of help to maximize the political power of the Internet. His homemade site screamed "I'm not ready for statewide!" and I have to assume it's one of the reasons his relatively moderate-minded campaign lost on Tuesday to the bastion of right-wing state senators, Bill Bolling.

I've been massaging some ideas about how to best take small-time Sean who has the heart of gold and the courage to fight for his country into a statewide success. My instinct told me to paint him as "everybody's neighbor." How about this idea?

The Connaughton site would host an online community meeting place where supporters can log in, sound off and organize outside the realms of the campaign. Ideally, these sites would encourage voters to tell their stories -- unedited, unscripted, unfiltered. These online meeting places would serve as the campaign’s service to the communities of Virginia as well as its opportunity to tie the physical campaign to the online campaign by posting events and volunteer opportunities. But, Susie Jones from Richmond could post an entry about her son's middle-school play; Jimmy Jackson could put up a good recipe for apple pie he found; and, Maria S., who just can't avoid being political, could post an announcement for an undecided voters' forum at a nearby coffeehouse. In essence, the campaign would play like a mini-Meetup.com, but more personal and more preciously Virginian.

Not only would this bring in prospective voters who wouldn't already be coming to the site, but it would also allow supporters to feel "plugged in," give the campaign a much-needed feeling of motion and connectedness. Better yet, the candidate's scheduler can use the online events calendar to schedule surprise "drop-ins" from Sean or a friend of the campaign.

Is this too idealistic and hard to carry out for a lieutenant governor's race? Let's hear what you all got.

Selling My Roommate to Playboy

It's about time I spiced things up...

List selling and swapping has been a common practice in the private sector for decades. My roommate, who subscribes to Details among other magazines, recently received a postcard informing him that he had been

"...selected to enjoy PLAYBOY for just $1 an issue, our absolute lowest price! And get a FREE DVD!"

Now this is entertaining for numerous reasons I will not expand on in this post, but particularly because there are very few lists from which Playboy could have received his name. He owns a few credit cards, one of which is tied specifically to his superfluous expenditures at Express Men; he shops at Harris-Teeter and is a member of their "VIC" club; he subscribes to Details. And that's about it.

It's interesting that an organization that you provide not only with your name and contact information, but with your business, would just sell you out like that.

The above situation, however, is by no means limited to the cynic-ready corporate world. The liberal not-for-profits like The Sierra Club, ACLU, People for the American Way, etc., all seem to be operating from the same mailing lists, even though most people only sign up for one initially. As a member of the ACLU and having received a subscription to The Nation as a gift, I was suddenly inundated with material not only asking me for support or action, but money!

This is where the line crosses back once again from permission-based to interruption-based marketing, and it's more annoying than anything I've ever seen on TV. My relationship with the Sierra Club itself has generated so much paper waste that I'm betting we've already gone through at least one recycled forest by now.

In campaigns, the trend seems to be to respect their subscribers. Certainly, all who write on the subject recommend doing so. Dean refused to give up his half-a-million-plus e-mail addresses after the primary, but sent his endorsement of Kerry and repudiation of Nader -- among other campaign updates -- to the list himself and tranferred the list and his organization into an entirely new entity. It's only a matter of time, I fear, before one of my preferred candidates decides to sell me out for a few bucks after his or her political career has come to an end.

NOTE: If anyone has any information about the Playboy investigation above or if anyone is interested in the aforementioned offer, feel free to holla back.

Jakob Doesn't Mess Around

Having subscribed to John Kerry's (and numerous other Democratic candidates') e-mail subscription lists, I was pleased to see Jakob Nielsen bring his usability mantra to the realm of the presidential e-mail newsletters.

Nielsen makes a great point in noting that a vague subject line is a surefire way to get ignored by the recipient. How many times do I want to venture into an e-mail entitled "Don't Stop Now"? I mean, other than when you're engaging in e-mail relations?

The most glaring thing I remember about Kerry's e-mails is that I never really wanted to open them, because they he always seemed to be asking for money. Kerry successfully made me feel like one of two million sugar daddies, but I never could tell of what other value I could be to him and the campaign. Here we see Nielsen make the assessment that, in the last week of campaigning, Kerry was soliciting funds and Bush was turning out the vote. Consequently, Kerry ended up with extra cash and Bush ended up with more votes. I'm not sure one can blame these phenomena directly on the e-mail campaigns, but they do represent a nugget of truth about the two strategies being waged.

Here we find Jakob Nielsen Not Messing Around 

Good Night, Young Sean. Good Night.

Sean Connaughton seemed like a really nice guy -- as far as I could tell from the pictures of him on the website and his seemingly middle-of-the-road appeal.

Last night, young Sean was dealt a political blow the size of his favorite home state, Virginia, losing to his right-wing opponent Bill Bolling by a 58-42 margin. But when fans, supporters, students, journalists, opponents' supporters and his opponent came a-knockin' on his web door looking to console the young chap or boast about his electoral humiliation, this is what they found:

Sean thanks all his supporters from the bottom of his heart. He wishes the winning Republican Team all the best in the November General Elections. He pledges his support to the Kilgore/Bolling/McDonnell Republican Ticket.

Apparently, Sean wasn't hanging around for the afterglow. The site, once overloaded (cluttered, if you will) with pictures and color, now stands devoid of all genuine emotion -- from the "bottom of his heart" cliché to the grudging endorsement of his opponent, which he did only in endorsing the entire ticket.

As Dcae, who covered the Bolling campaign, writes:

"He should have said that while he lost the nomination he would still fight for the issues that he believes in. I also think he should have shown more genuine support for the nominated Republican team."

Yeah, at the very least, keep your site up for the public to see. Incidentally, the frame of his site is still accessible if you know where you're going.

What's clear is that, regardless of its effect upon the turnout, Sean Connaughton lost the online battle big time to his opponent. For a lesser-known candidate with more of an uphill climb, he should chalk this one down as a missed opportunity.

Another Fundraising Tip: Plug Into Blogging Communities

Winning Campaigns Online talks a lot about offline publicity for the campaign site in order to beef up online fundraising. And while the authors suggest a certain degree of online publicity(in sending regular e-mail and in considering banner ads), the book predates the rise of the blog power.

In our class readings, however, Ireland and Nash point specifically to the fundraising power that Daily Kos proved to have during the Green Party's calls for a recount in Ohio. Ultimately because of the blog's fundraising power, the recount happened (alas, to no avail for Kos et al.).

The Dean clan first noticed Kos' prowess when the campaign started getting a flood of donations with an extra penny attached to the amount. The blogging community used this as their "signature" of sorts to demonstrate their ability to help out a candidate. Of course, Kos was an official Deaniac -- on payroll and everything.

What these examples confirm is that good blog relations can come through in the clutch, with big fundraising bucks to show for it.

Unrelated Once Again: A Word on MJV-Day

I'm just now admitting something to myself: I've been secretly rooting for Michael all along.

Of course, I wasn't rooting for this Michael or Dangerous-era Michael or scary-cat-eyed Michael or even "I'm bad, I'm bad, you know it" Michael. For me (at least deep down), I was rooting for the little Michael Jackson 45 record player I got when I was three. That little player - arguably one of my best memories of growing up - may have nothing to do with the real lives caught up in this fiasco, but in a very shallow sense for me, it was vindicated today.

The merits of the case aside, today's verdict was a victory for pop culture. Some might say that Michael's image has been forever marred regardless; I'm not disputing that. Had the jury gone the other way, however, all of those brilliant pop singles - Hell, even just his Thriller LP -- would have gone down in most of our memories with a big-ol' asterisk informing newcomers to his music that "Michael Jackson was later convicted of child molestation."

For example, we all know "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" and "Great Balls of Fire," but we remember Jerry Lee Lewis best for marrying his 13-year-old cousin. We still jam to "Rock and Roll Part 2" at nearly every major sports event ("Hey!"), but the name Gary Glitter is gone forever into the portal of former rock-star perverts.

I'm not trying to justify anything Michael Jackson the Weirdo has ever done, but I think it'll be nice for me to remember Michael at his fictional best, when he was just the King of Pop who sold me a record player and soundtracked my life.

Rheingold Pt. 2: Owning a Piece of the Internet

As Rheingold says in his interview with Reason in 2003, "You don’t have to buy a license to own a piece of the Internet. Anyone can send bits on the Internet. No one owns the whole thing."

Unless I'm wrong, the television and radio air waves are also considered the "commons" -- owned by no one in particular. Rheingold compares the Internet to the highways, in that you don't need to own a highway to use it. But the government does get to regulate it -- the speed we go, the toll rates, etc. -- and maintain it. In reality, though, the Internet is like a circuit of roads that are maintained by private citizens and provided for public use, kind of like when the Jaycees sponsor a road and keep it litter-free.

Just thinking about all of the grey areas surrounding the Internet, ownership and government regulation makes me feel like I just got off the Tilt-a-Whirl. What does it take to "own" a piece of the Internet? I'm running this blog, but it's hosted on Blogger? And when I paid for the webspace on which I post my band's website, whom exactly did I pay? If "no one owns the whole thing," who owned the chunk that I registered before I did? Do I "own" this space now? Am I renting it? Or am I just the litter-free sponsor? Someone please explain.

Adopt a Blogging Grad Student

I have to give the Kucinich campaign a lot of credit, and not just because he's my hometown congressman. You hear a lot about John McCain and Howard Dean, but Dennis! (TM) deserves some kudos as well. Even though he never had a shot at actually winning anything, his campaign stayed alive much longer than the other wing-nuts greatly because of his campaign's creativity and straightforward way of asking for money.

His approach was reflected in his appeal for funds nearing the Iowa caucuses, in which he asked for about $100,000 to fund a 30-second ad that would reach the voters of Iowa.

I particuarly liked his "Adopt an Intern" efforts, as described in the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet. Perhaps I'm a bit swayed by my experience as an intern, but I find this kind of humanizing tactic very persuasive. Putting a face on your donation has worked for starving children in Africa, so why wouldn't it work for starving (I use this term much more loosely) kids who have dropped everything to help the campaign. I wonder whether any of this money actually was paid out to the interns or whether it was "donated" back to the campaign by the interns in question.

As for this post's title, I'm taking applications...