This afternoon I attended the Conservative Bloggers Briefing during which The Heritage Foundation's President Ed Feulner discussed the current state of conservatism. 

I expected to hear that Feulner is optimistic, but I was pleasantly surprised to listen to him extol the importance of new and social media.  He spoke about how often he hears congressmen and women mention that they were thrilled to receive a flood of e-mails urging them to vote one way or another on a piece of legislation and ignore the potential to use those e-mail addresses to promote action and improve constituent relationships.  Obama's use of e-mail and text messaging was an example of he would like to see more conservatives harness grassroot action.

However, Feulner seems to do more than merely talk the talk when it comes to social media.  He did attend a luncheon for bloggers and new media strategists that was broadcast on The Heritage Foundation's BlogTalkRadio channel today.  He has a Facebook profile as well.  Further, at the end after speaking with someone, he yelled across the room to Rob Bluey, who runs the Bloggers Briefings for Heritage, something to the effect of: "Rob, can I Twitter, too?"  

It is interesting to see the attitude change among conservatives towards social media; it was a lot different a year and a half ago when I moved to the DC area a year and half ago.  Of course, this is helpful for the conservatives to answer the left's strong use of the Internet, but using social media also boosts transparency in politics.  That's why I'm excited to see more politicos — of all ideological positions — embrace social media.

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