Gary Bivings and I attended last week’s Politics Online Conference here in DC. Here are some (completely personally biased) highlights from one of my conference favorite panels. Over the week I’ll be posting other things I thought were interesting from some of the other panels I attended at the conference.

Presence in Second Life by politicians has limited effect within Second Life but gets great mainstream coverage. Jerome Armstrong, founder of the liberal blog MyDD and consultant for Mark Warner’s Forward Together PAC said that Warner’s virtual presence in Second Life was not well received at all by political bloggers, but very well received by non-political bloggers, and also received lots of good mainstream press coverage.
My thoughts: Politicians in Second Life has always seemed gimmicky to me. As the novelty of a politician being in Second Life wears off (and it’s wearing off quickly) so will the resulting mainstream coverage.

Campaigns are having big online-only events. Patrick Ruffini , previous eCampaign director for the RNC and currently an online strategy adviser to Mayor Giuliani, suggested that, unlike previous in campaign cycles, ’08 Campaigns are using the web to make major announcements. By having some big events offline and other big events online, the impact of the online event expands beyond the political blogosphere where a candidate. For example Hillary Clinton can have a big online event and in doing so reach out beyond the political blogosphere where she’s not particularly well received (at the moment).
My thoughts: Great observations – I’ll be watching big online announcements with this perspective from now on.

“Flooding the Zone.” Chuck DeFeo, General Manager of conservative hangout TownHall.com fame and eCampaign Manager for Bush-Cheney ‘04, suggested that politicians need to react quickly to bad press, even if it’s in the form of unfavorable YouTube videos. After the Allen Macaca incident, someone searching YouTube for “Macaca” should have found lots of pro-Allen stuff instead of just the Macaca video. DeFeo calls overtaking the negative message with a positive message “Flooding the zone”.
My thoughts: Love the term – campaigns can and should prepare for the worst to happen in new media because when it takes off it will take off virally and like a rocket. Incidentally, everyone at the conference was talking about Macaca and future Macaca moments, but I’ll have more on that in another post.

YouTube is a massive video focus group. Chuck DeFeo suggests that with YouTube campaigns have a huge focus group to help them find out “what’s going to pop and what’s not.”
My thoughts: Chuck is right and campaigns will begin to use YouTube to “test the waters” routinely.

Leverage supporters to be experimental for a campaign. While the general consensus was that politics on the web is not just about raising money and that web campaigns need freedom from the top in order to succeed, Chuck DeFeo noted that “Campaigns are not good R&D environments”. Joe Trippi , Howard Dean’s campaign guru in ’04, agreed but suggested instead that, “Campaigns need to provide tools for supporters to be experimental.”
My thoughts: Trippi is right and campaigns can be good R&D environments if it isn’t the campaign itself doing the R&D but rather the supporters – organize and leverage campaign supporters properly and give them the tools they need to make the experimentation happen. While campaigns are by nature super-cautious, I think things will end up going in this direction sooner or later, but maybe not in a big way in this cycle.

Prediction: the end of big money? Joe Trippi, credited with helping Dean raise more money than any other Democratic presidential campaign in history, thinks that online fundraising is going to take over altogether. “One of the candidates will hit a home run with fundraising in a big way and take over big money and PAC’s.” One message in one debate that appeals to a large grassroots contingency “can totally trip over and change politics.” He thinks it will happen in this cycle.
My thoughts: Either way, we’re definitely in for a great online ride in this campaign cycle.

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