Waging Politics online

by Jerome Armstrong, Sat Oct 02, 2004 at 03:16:18 AM EDT

BlogPac got some press, from Media Post: Armstrong and other prominent bloggers including Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos have put their money where their blog posts are by forming BlogPac, a political action committee dedicated to "waging politics entirely online." The week-old organization has already begun running Web video ads targeting the Dallas area, according to Armstrong.

"The idea is, we're raising this money on the Internet; let's keep it on here," explains Armstrong. Since launching the ad Monday, the group has raised $6,000.

Atrios is on board with the effort now as well. We are over $8K raised for BlogPac, and the second video internet ad is being cut this weekend.

I'm sure that if you were cruising around the web yesterday, you saw one of the many DNC debate ads that were showing. I particularly enjoyed the effort because it expanded from the pure (and from the standpoint of persuasion, worthless) fundraising effort that Kerry had pursued, to using persuasion tactics in the ads. From Dems' Online Coup D'état:

"Al Gore won the debate on the issues and George Bush's henchmen stole it in the post-debate spin because they got out on online polls and called into radio shows," said Doug Kelly, director of technology for the DNC. "We were determined to not let that happen again."

So to insure that voters "understood" Kerry won the debate, Kelly directed what he called a "comprehensive online multimedia strategy." Friday morning, major media websites were strewn with banner ads linking to the DNC homepage. The McAuliffe email, sent twice Thursday to 5 million users, contributed to the DNC raising a "single-day record" of $3.8 million. During the debate alone, the DNC raised $1 million.

Looks like it continued to payoff too. The real payoff though, will be in using the ads to persuade voters to vote for Kerry.

Tags: General 2008 (all tags)

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Spin is great, but...

I doubt it would word nearly so well if not for the fact that Kerry really did trounce Bush in the debate; even Fox and a lot of the freepers admitted it. Here's hoping he'll do it twice more....

by Alex 2004-10-02 10:27AM | 0 recs

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Politics Online

Thanks for a great blog!!

As for poltics online, it is the wave of the future. Speaking of which, I have put together a web site containing four short films about the Bush Administration.

http://www.hoppervideo.net

Please take a look and forward the web site to as many people as you can. Please incourage those you contact to send the link on to others. In particular, if you know any swing voters or Bush supporters, I encourage you to send them a personal message encouraging them to think about voting for Kerry, including my site and any others that might sway them.

Three of the four films deal with the run-up to the war. While many things disturb me about the Bush Administration, its deceitful overselling of the case for WMD in Iraq is one of the more obvious reasons that these people do not deserve to lead our Nation. Perhaps we will never know in detail the actual reasons we went to war, but there can be little doubt that lies and scare-tactics were used to rush us into this quagmire.

Since the movie files are fairly large, choosing a broadband location will enhance your viewing pleasure.

by robparrish 2004-10-02 12:46PM | 0 recs

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Grass Roots Politics Online

I couldn't agree more with Jerome and robparrish. It is the wave of the future.

The beauty of politics online is the vast creative capabilities that are available to the masses. This can become a very empowering tool for the grass roots.

Like robparrish, I too have tried my hand at a short film; an Internet ad if you will. Sure, it may never see the wider distribution of ads by large 527s or other national organizations. But hey, word of mouth may allow more than just my core group of friends to see it.

The ad, titled Hard Work, is a riff on Bush's multiple debate references to the difficulties he's faced.

The file is 3.1 MB so a high speed connection should improve the experience.

by Apeiron 2004-10-02 04:12PM | 0 recs

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Re: Grass Roots Politics Online: hot new resource

And it goes beyond these blog-based exchanges. Check out www.udecide. org, a powerful web resource for progressive, grass-roots activism.

This site is amazingly useful. lets you print flyers that spell out how badly the country has been damaged by Republican leadership in the past four years. On one side, you get a white-paper style bullet list of key points, customizable by issue and even by state. On the flip side you get a detailed source and reference list for the data on side one. These could work for any canvasser; ACT has approved them for their canvassing. They can be customized for local races, anywhere in the nation.

Think Michael Moore with footnotes.

Plus, there's a Spanish-language version of each flyer. (Something too few web-resources have a clue about).

The site was developed and paid for by Dick Rowe, who was part of the team that launched Howard Dean's web org.

by Anandi in PA 2004-10-03 06:33AM | 0 recs

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cult psychology and online debate

Let me get to the point. It may not be clear to most Democrats, but it is clear to me that what we are dealing with is in many ways a cult, and so 'political' tactics that a normal, sane person would use - say, debating issues on their merits - are not as valuable with the core 'believers' in this cult-like kind of opponent.

The reason is cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance 'theory' is no longer a theory, it has been proven.

Leon Festinger proved that once people have invested a great deal of energy in a particular viewpoint, that they will ignore or forget immediately a very great deal of evidence that contradicts that belief.

Democrats should familiarize themselves with the techniques used by anti-cult fighters as well as the key underlying theories of how totalistic cults indoctrinate (and isolate) people.

One could posit that we are in the early stage of cult formation.

Before you brush this off, please take a few moments to read the following papers..

See http://www.afirstlook.com/archive/cogdiss.cfm?source=archther
http://www.reveal.org/library/psych/totalism.html
http://www.rickross.com/reference/brainwashing/brainwashing1.html

and finally
http://www.rickross.com/ethics.html

The last URL has a history of cult intervention work..

Some of the work done with narcissists and narcissistic personality disorder may also be useful.. Because Bush and the Republican party leadership clearly exhibit many symptoms of NPD.

Many (all?) of the very worst world leaders have shown clear symptoms of NPD. (Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Kim Jong Il/Kim Il Sung/Pol Pot, etc.)

They seem to be drawn to politics, unfortunately..
They are also delusional.. We can see that in many of the (bad) decisions they make..

We have our work cut out for us..

by ultraworld 2004-10-03 04:38PM | 0 recs