McCain camp said no to text messaging

The only thing DUMBER than this is how Gary Jones and Oklahoma GOP still DO NOT GET HOW TO USE NEW MEDIA !

Republicans have been kicking themselves for not thinking of some innovations that Barack Obama's campaign rolled out one after another, but in some cases John McCain's strategists were presented the same ideas and gave them a thumbs-down.

One infamous case: text messaging supporters with the announcement of a vice presidential pick. Online GOP strategist Patrick Ruffini writes on TheNextRight.com that he's heard from "numerous" people inside the McCain campaign who say the idea of announcing online or via text message was floated "months before" the Obama camp made its announcement. Senior staff "shot down" the proposal as "undignified."

That's a dangerous mindset, Ruffini warns. "The notion that this is somehow not mainstream enough, that this is somehow not dignified, too cutting edge, too bleeding edge, is just so self-defeating and so illustrative of the problem that I think it must be discussed," Ruffini said.

Former McCain Web staff denied any notion texting was dismissed for being "undignified" but confirmed that it was considered before being disapproved on concerns it would disrupt the rollout of a surprise pick.

The campaign strategy was to "ride the wave of the pop," and "anything that would have mitigated that pop we couldn't do," said the McCain Web staffer. The surprise factor (announcing little-known Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin while the media focused on Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty) successfully drove thousands to JohnMcCain.com, and the campaign raked in $4.5 million in donations from the Web during the 24 hours after the pick, with thousands signing up for campaign e-mails.

No single tactic would have been likely to change the outcome of the election, but the Obama campaign used anticipation of its VP announcement to harvest thousands of e-mail addresses and phone numbers that fed its database and later were used to drive turnout and raise money. Ruffini says Obama's decision "clearly fueled his dominance in swing states and on the airwaves."

But McCain's staff was focused on stepping on Obama's post-convention bounce with a splashy announcement on television, with its much larger audience, just one day after the end of the Democratic National Convention. Ruffini dismisses that strategy as "a very old-school mentality" that disregards the importance of building the database.

The media would have covered the announcement no matter where it was made and would have broadcast a Web video if it were posted, while the campaign raked in voter contact information and generated buzz for an eventual televised press conference, Ruffini contends.

Still, back-to-back conventions restricted what the McCain campaign could do without risking an accidental leak coming before Obama even left the podium as he accepted the nomination, which could have been perceived as "dirty politics."

And then there are the polls. McCain's surprise strategy resulted in one of his only leads of the campaign after the Republican National Convention.

Although both the McCain surprise strategy and the Obama database-building strategy have their merits, Andrew Rasiej, co-founder of the Personal Democracy Forum, suspects that if the McCain campaign had enough time and resources, it would have done both. In other words, they are not mutually exclusive.

The campaign's mistake was in having to make a choice at all. "His Internet team was strapped for cash from their very beginning," Rasiej said. "The fundamental problem was not enough time and not enough understanding of the potential for technologies -- whatever they were, you name it -- at a high enough level."

McCain Throws Aide Under the Bus for Twittering YouTube Link

Soren Dayton was a Twitter friend (Soren has deleted his Twitter account) and STILL is a Facebook friend ! And I am a member on the "Support Soren Dayton!" facebook group !

McCain Throws Aide Under the Bus for Twittering YouTube Link

Posted by: Matt Lewis

Today, John McCain suspended an aide -- Soren Dayton -- for distributing this controversial YouTube video about Barack Obama and Rev. Wright. As campaigns spokesperson Jill Hazelbaker told Jonathan Martin, Dayton was "reprimanded by campaign leadership."

I defended John McCain when he distanced himself from that radio show host in Ohio who repeatedly invoked Obama's middle name. To me, the radio host was making a tawdry attack, meant to imply Obama was Muslim. And McCain was doing the right thing by not engaging in that sort of campaign.

But this situation is a bit different.

In reading his Twitter message (shown above), Dayton merely wrote: "Good video on Obama and Wright," and included the link. That's it. And for that, he was suspended.

Here's why I think this move might have been politically unwise. Suspending Dayton for passing this video on implies by extension that the message of this video was in some way incorrect, or, at least, not respectable. But, as I've written in the past, it is entirely legitimate to question Obama's affiliation with Rev. Wright -- as well as to highlight Obama's evolving positions.

From Geraldine Ferraro to Samantha Power, this has been the year for apologies and terminations. My question is whether John McCain is willing to throw everyone under the bus the minute they do something that might be embarrassing to him.

Perhaps I'm naive, but I've been told that campaigns actually attack their opponents from time to time. It is unclear precisely what Dayton's job for McCain was (a source tells Jonathan Martin that Dayton was doing "low-level political work for [deputy political director] John Yob."

Dayton was a fairly prominent blogger, and one would suppose he was doing more than simply "low-level" work. Perhaps he wasn't -- or perhaps this is an example of a McCain aide taking another shot at a guy who is already down.

Still, reprimanding him may cause future McCain operatives to think twice before doing their job. Is McCain recommending a sort of "limited war" in which the enemy can shoot at us, but we can't shoot back?

Standing on principle is a good value, but so is supporting your subordinates and so is loyalty. It takes political courage to stand up for your team -- even if it may cost you politically. Is McCain too concerned about wanting to come across as a nice guy?

Hazelbaker emailed me the following statement (which is the same thing she sent Martin):

We have been very clear on the type of campaign we intend to run and this staffer acted in violation of our policy. He has been reprimanded by campaign leadership and suspended from the campaign.

Though they have been clear on the type of campaign they want to run, it is still unclear if, or when, Dayton will be reinstated.

Of course, it is not unheard of for campaigns to engage in a bit of deception involving the leaking of negative information. For example, it is entirely possible that Dayton distributed it under the direction of a campaign superior. It is possible Dayton believed the campaign would have wanted this out there -- but that not telling them would give them plausible deniably.

It is also entirely possible that he has agreed to be the "fall guy" in an effort to save Senator McCain face. In fact, it is likely this little controversy will result in more people viewing this video -- which would obviously be a net-plus for McCain (who gets to remain above the fray).

But -- because this particular video added little to the narrative -- it is more likely that Dayton merely passed this link on, not knowing it would be a big deal -- and that the McCain campaign has chosen to punish him for this. What Dayton is really guilty of is failing to follow the maxim that you should never interfere when the enemy is in the process of committing suicide.

If McCain has any cause to be angry, it's not that Dayton made an ethical lapse -- it's that he made a political one.

Dayton distributed the video via Twitter. The default setting on Twitter allows anyone to "follow" a Twitterer. In other words, it would have been easy for anybody who wanted to catch Dayton (or any other operative, for that matter) in a gaffe, to sign up to receive his messages.

Most folks who use Twitter, do so in a very casual and personal manner. One source who follows Dayton told me that Dayton most likely didn't think he was Twittering in an "official" capacity. Still, anything you write can and will be used against you.

Dayton has since deleted his Twitter account.

Did the 'So call Power's' in the McCain camp goof up ?

Soren Dayton was a Twitter friend (Soren has deleted his Twitter account) and STILL is a Facebook friend ! And I am a member on the "Support Soren Dayton!" facebook group !

Defending Soren Dayton
Posted by: Patrick Ruffini

Earlier today, Soren Dayton, a friend and frequent collaborator in the blogosphere, was suspended from the McCain campaign for making a note of this video in his Twitter account.

To see Video, click here

A few notes here. I use Twitter a lot. And I'm "looser" on Twitter than I would be on my blog. My Twitter account has been updated 2,863 times since last June, while I've only penned no more than a couple hundred mostly long-form blog entries. My Twitter posts contain a lot of rough thoughts that are then refined into blog posts. So, there's a greater volume of chatter, and the sense that the tool operates more like a secure backchannel than a public blog.

Of course, this is really an illusion. Everything you say on Twitter is publicly accessible, unless you choose to protect your updates for friends only. If you can screencap it, folks in Peoria on the other side of the Fox News filter won't care if it was Twittered or blogged. This is a stark reminder that anything that you write on a social media site, now matter how "protected" is ultimately just as accessible as anything you put out in any other medium. (It didn't take long for people to sniff out "Kristen's" Facebook profile.)

I'm not going to argue that Soren was right in posting the link. But I do agree with Matt Lewis that there was some overreaction here. If they go further with this civility routine, they risk alienating conservatives in talk radio and the blogosphere who are doing the necessary work of defining Obama and rendering him just as radioactive with the base as Hillary.

A month ago, McCain-Obama looked like a bad matchup for us: a Republican nominee who didn't do much to galvanize the base against a Democrat who didn't either.

The New York Times kerfuffle and now the Wright story is slowly changing that. With an assist from Hillary Clinton's overtures to the right-wing of the Democratic Party, Obama is now a more polarizing figure in key swing states than she is. It is now clear that conservative media will do to Obama what they did to Kerry, Gore, and Clinton. This can be an unalloyed boon to the McCain campaign, as it pretty much takes care of his conservative problem and frees him to go after swing voters.

This is not about "Barack Hussein Obama" or Muslim smear emails, which need to be repudiated. It is about a Presidential candidate's literary muse going all Susan Sontag on us on the Sunday after 9/11. It is connecting the dots on the post-patriotic milieu that surrounds Obama seemingly everywhere he goes. These are legitimate issues for public discussion, if not by McCain himself, then certainly by talk radio and the blogs. If McCain doesn't want to be part of that, that's understandable. But he should get out of the way and let talk radio do its thing.

In many ways, the Bush campaign had the right approach with the Swift Boat Veterans. Any functionary or board member who had been connected in any way with the Swift Vets resigned from the campaign. The campaign told them -- and, crucially, any 527 -- to take down their ads. They repeated that they respected Kerry's service -- without turning into a mouthpiece for the Kerry Vietnam narrative.

But nothing was done to single out or disrespect John O'Neill and the other veterans who had earned their right to speak. The tone was firm but respectful.

With this campaign, there has been a tendency to do the necessary distancing, but with sharper words and a sense that freelancers are thrown willfully under the bus. First, Bill Cunningham, who was an important part of Ohio GOTV in the '04 election. Now this.

It is pretty well understood by most serious people that the Rev. Wright is not a racial/foreigner/Muslim issue, nor was it an unprovoked attack on Obama on these grounds, not in the way Ferraro was, or the Somali email that Clinton's staff circulated without reprimand (which was 10x worse than this, btw), or Bill Clinton's South Carolina comments.

I'm not suggesting the McCain campaign traffic in it directly. Politically, they probably had to do what they did today. Most people in this business understand that moves like are a game -- a show -- that the campaigns put on for the media, that won't swing a single vote at the end of the day -- but that if handled poorly, could cascade into a larger issue. See: Clinton, Bill -- South Carolina.

But what I am suggesting is that McCain in the future calibrate his response to different situations, and recognize the value in drawing certain personal contrasts with Obama. Voters are motivated less and less by issues, and more by personalities and narratives. So, a key McCain strategic goal is to turn the Obama persona in against itself, so that the rock star/Messiah/hopeandchange routine turns into a liability in dead-serious times when people are worried about losing their jobs and/or getting killed.

The challenge in modern Presidential campaign is not simply to paint your opponent as wrong on the issues, and to prevail in a civil debate. It is to render the opponent unacceptable to 48% of the electorate, and merely less preferable to 3%. Despite McCain's troubles with the base, conservative media (and Hillary) are doing the heavy lifting on the unacceptable part. McCain should get out of the way, and jump in ONLY when someone crosses a racial and/or religious line.

The GOP eCampaign guru's for the 21st Century ..

The upcoming edition of Campaigns and Elections Magazine will feature Republican eCampaign guru's and my Twitter/Facebook buddys (from left to right), Erick Erickson, David All, Patrick Ruffini, and Robert Bluey.

Hat Tip to Buzz Brockway @ Peach Pundit