Absolutely Free Advice For Chris Coons, Part 1
Part 1 – New Media
On the blogs, we all act as armchair pundits. Many people think our advice is worth what you pay for it, but the blogs do provide an insight into what the netroots is thinking. The netroots is fairly small compared to the whole Democratic party, but it does have outsize influence and is a source of money and “buzz.” So, what can Chris Coons do to generate some excitement in the netroots and translate that into the grassroots? Here’s my take:
Rock the New Media
What do I mean by new media? I mean blogs, social networking and You Tube.
— Hire at least one, possibly more aides to monitor and post on blogs. The blogs I recommend be monitored daily, if not more are the following: Daily Kos, Open Left, Think Progress, Fivethirtyeight, Talking Points Memo and Paul Krugman’s Conscience of a Liberal. Pundits to follow would include Ezra Klein (health care reform), Jonathan Cohn (health care reform), Glenn Greenwald (civil liberties), Spencer Ackerman (international policy) and TV pundits Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann. If you monitor these people you will definitely know what is exciting the netroots.
— Sign up for a Twitter account. Use it! Use the account to direct followers to articles of interest (Castle does this), position papers, appearances and hopefully give everyone a taste of your personality.
— Use Facebook. For an example of how Facebook was used effectively, look at Rob Robinson’s campaign. He used Facebook to contact his followers about events and opportunities for volunteering. I thought it was quite effective.
— Hire a videographer. Have your videographer record your public appearances and put them on You Tube. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I say a video is worth a thousand op-eds. Have your videographer tape Mike Castle’s public appearances as well. You want to know what he’s saying and also if he makes a gaffe, you want to be able to take advantage of it. Also, be prepared for Mike Castle’s team to have a videographer follow you as well.
Part 2 will be published tomorrow and will discuss the issues that motivate the netroots.
Now it’s your turn. Is my advice good or bad? What advice would you give Chris Coons regarding the new media? What blogs and pundits have I left off the list? The floor is yours.
Tags: Chris Coons, DE-Sen
The blogs I recommend be monitored daily, if not more are the following: Daily Kos, Open Left, Think Progress, Fivethirtyeight, Talking Points Memo and Paul Krugman’s Conscience of a Liberal.
Good selection, but you’re missing delawareliberal. 😉
Knock it off UI, some people out there are trying to make a LIVING telling people to sign up for Facebook/Twitter/Youtube, and here you are giving it away for free! 🙂
As much as I’d like to knock off Castle, I don’t want another Tom Carper. I want to hear Coons make some noises that sound like they are coming from the Democratic wing of the Democratic party.
As soon as that happens I will offer my time and money to the Coons campaign. But first I gotta believe. Maybe it’s my fault for not following NCC politics, but right now Coons is a political blank slate to me.
Exactly anon. I think Part 2 will cover the issues the netroots find interesting. I think we all want to hear what he says on these issues.
pandora,
I thought it went without saying that he should monitor Delaware Liberal.
Posting on blogs is an excellent idea. Nationalized races definitely benefit from national activists hearing from you, especially on those topics of greatest interest to this audience. But you can’t post and run — you have to be able to interact with people and answer questions for awhile. There is nothing worse than a candidate who does not get the community aspects of blogs.
I’d also recommend that he have an aide looking at some of the wingnut blogs. You don’t need to read many — they all pretty much have the same POV at some point — to know the talking points and be ready to slice them back.
One of the few places where there is outstanding reporting/discussion of the economy are on economics blogs. The WSJ is no longer reliable (altho the FT definitely is) — the blogs I’d add to Krugman’s would be Brad Delong’s blog and Baseline Scenario.
Yes, Brad DeLong’s blog and Baseline Scenario are excellent economics blogs, I might also add Calculated Risk to the reading list. Posting on national blogs like Daily Kos is a way to get the netroots excited and to raise some money.
Cassandra’s point about posting and running is vital. If a politician takes the blog route they have to commit to the medium.
Maybe not. This race is on the map now. Coons could set off a netroots money bomb pretty easily at this point. The post above, however, indicates that he probably isn’t interested in that.
You can’t set off a netroots moneybomb without mentioning your Republican opponent.
That is probably true. And unfortunate. It would be awesome, really, if we could convince both Coons and Carney to attend Netroots Nation this year. But I’d bet that neither are going to be interested.
. It would be awesome, really, if we could convince both Coons and Carney to attend Netroots Nation this year. But I’d bet that neither are going to be interested.
Not only awesome, but essential. If they don’t get the money from the base and the netroots, they are going to get it from corporations. I’d rather have them owing us than the corporations.
I mean essential that they show some interest in the netroots – not necessarily that they have to show up at the event.
But shunning the netroots altogether means they are headed for Carperville.
I am already following his facebook and twitter feed–go to his campaign page to link….
Good, I’m glad Coons is on FB and Twitter. Is he using them effectively?
I like Feldman’s http://www.frameshopisopen.com to help craft good frames in the talking points that go against wingnut POVs.