Comments on: Thoughts on McCain’s “Spread the Word” Program

By: Jesse

Jesse — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:21:05 +0000

Todd,
Great post. It’s interesting the McCain campaign has to give talking points along with a list of blogs to comment on. His campaign must realize that it cannot manufacture word of mouth. Rather, it must inspire word of mouth. He’ll have a better chance of success with the latter.

By: Sean Hackbarth

Sean Hackbarth — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:01:44 +0000

Turk, I know of one McCain call where lefties not only called in but got to ask questions. Grist has gotten to ask McCain a question, but I still haven’t.

This is a tool like the forward-to-friends feature found on most campaign webpages and e-mails. Making things easier and more customer-centric for supporters to get more active only helps a campaign. It’s useful but can be abused.

I agree with Todd that education is key to not turn it into an astroturfing device. I also hope there’s some level of monitoring going on to prevent abuse and ban abusing IP addresses.

By: Bill Armstrong

Bill Armstrong — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:24:29 +0000

I think the whole thing is a bad idea. If your supporters want to do this on their own – great. Let them have at it.

But putting up a piece like this to manufacture it is pretty much the definition of astroturf.

By: Dave Mastio

Dave Mastio — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:21:26 +0000

This is the cousin of the letters to the editor astroturfing campaigns have been doing for years. (As I recall, Bob Dole 1996 went crazy with fake prewritten letters to the editor).

The worst mistake is giving people explicit talking points. The kind of supporters you want engaging in the comment sections of the blogosphere are the ones who follow the news enough to figure out the talking points for themselves.

By: Todd Zeigler

Todd Zeigler — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:59:26 +0000

Turk – I personally would have skipped the liberal blogs altogether and just listed conservative communities. Having McCain commenters invade Kos is a waste of time. If done well, McCain people might be able to fire people up on conservative communities.

By: Turk

Turk — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:52:31 +0000

If the campaign wants to reach lefty blogs, why not have McCain do blogger conference calls with those bloggers? They’ll be heated, to be sure, but at least they’ll give you credit for opening the lines of discussion and engaging them directly.

That would be better as a storyline than “we had our people go to their community and piss them all off”.

By: Leslie Carbone

Leslie Carbone — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:42:16 +0000

Good tips. The McCain campaign seems pretty clumsy in its efforts to reach out. They didn’t even notify Virginia bloggers about events they held here this week.