At least not when it comes to running a political campaign in the 21st Century:
Just how far has the GOP fallen behind the Democrats in terms of technology? Well, they sent a telegram.
There are many ways to measure how screwed Republicans are after the last election.
You can look at the avalanche of swing states that broke big for Barack. You can look at the demographic shifts that left McCain-Palin with decisive wins only among voters over age 60 and towns with populations under 50,000. Or you can look at my emergency telegram from John McCain.
(…)
like generals fighting the last war (or campaigns re-running culture war scripts that riff on late-1960s divides), the right-wing direct mail “gurus” who profit from every GOP campaign didn’t feel it necessary to update their templates for the third presidential campaign of the 21st century. Or, arguably worse, they were actually aiming for the very, very old among us.
Either way, it illustrates a comment made to me by a top GOP strategist during the campaign: “Our voters don’t use the Internet.”
No doubt this was a well-researched fact. But accepting it is also the kiss of death, because it becomes justification for inaction. It’s an acceptance that the GOP has become that party that pridefully plays to the low tech, an inevitably declining slice of the demographic pie. They have become the “Party of Memory” that Emerson wrote about in the early days of our democracy, versus “the Party of Hope” as re-branded by Obama.
And the technology gap between the two parties can be seen in the tale of the tape:
The most objective measure of the technology gap can be seen in the effectiveness of their online outreach. Obama had 3.1 million Facebook supporters, compared to 600,000 for McCain. Obama had 950,000 MySpace friends compared to 220,000 for McCain. Obama had 113 million YouTube views compared to 25 million for McCain. And when it came to meetup.com—a site famously used by Dean supporters in 2004—McCain got outhustled not only by Obama but also Bob Barr.
McCain ran a 20th century GOTV campaign—phone calls and mailings to supporters were the key metric. According to filings on opensecrets.org, the McCain campaign spent $18 million in postage and shipping costs, and $3 million on the internet. By comparison, Obama spent $15 million in postage and shipping costs and $14 million on the internet.
The technology gap not only highlighted the age gap between one of the youngest nominees in history and the oldest—it demonstrated how desperately the Republican Party needs to modernize its outreach and its outlook if it wants to regain relevance.
Until they do that, the GOP is going to hopelessly outmatched in state, local, and national levels as Democratic campaign managers learn how to copy Obama’s high-tech campaign tactics for their own use.
So far, the signs aren’t looking good — the newest RNC fundraising effort involves asking for $ 35 in return for a teddy bear:
Just in time to complete your Christmas wish list, meet Nick, the newest member of the Republican National Committee.
Nick is a wonderful plush toy available for a limited time to our most loyal supporters like you. Embroidered with the official logo of the RNC, and wearing a Santa cap and scarf, Nick will make a great stocking stuffer or gift for those special Republicans in your life — and is sure to be snapped up quickly.
Yea, that’s gonna work.
