Strategists say GOP catching up online

The Republican Party has made significant progress on leveraging the Internet for campaign purposes, according to a panel of strategists at the Personal Democracy Forum.

Republicans have made great strides in recent years in online campaigning, said Web strategist Mindy Finn of Engage. Finn recalled her time as deputy director of the Republican National Committee's eCampaign effort in 2005, emphasizing how frustrating it was to convey the importance of Web communications to party bosses.

"There's still a dent in the wall where I used to bang my head," Finn said, describing how RNC leaders shut down the party's most popular Web video program because the production values weren't on par with CNN. Finn said RNC staff were also quick to panic whenever a member of the public posted something even mildly critical or off-message on one of the party's social media platforms.

"We certainly have progressed, but I understand the skepticism as well," Finn said.

Rob Willington contrasted the RNC's former mindset with that of Scott Brown's Senate campaign, for which he was a Web strategist. Brown's campaign made extensive use of social media to recruit volunteers and mobilize supporters.

Willington said the campaign made acquiring supporters' cell phone numbers a priority so they could be easily mobilized via mass text messages. Whenver Brown or his opponent, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, appeared on talk radio Brown supporters would get a text blast urging them to call in.

"We saw the marriage between texting and talk radio," Willington said, noting that with one text blast a commuter stuck in traffic could be converted into an activist. He said when Coakley appeared on talk radio the calls were almost all negative, while Brown almost always received support and encouragement from callers.

The Brown campaign also used a Google Ad blast one week before the election to recruit volunteers, directing them via customized ads to the field office closest to their location. Willington also oversaw the late-stage creation of a smartphone application that was used in lieu of traditional walkbooks for volunteers knocking on doors. He said over 1,000 people downloaded the application immediately after its launch.

Ryan Gravatt of Texas Gov. Rick Perry's reelection campaign said Perry's camp elected to go paperless during the primary against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison with great success. Gravatt said the campaign received "zero negative feedback" from its decision not to print direct mailers or yard signs.

"We knew it wouldn't sway Republican primary voters," Gravatt said.

Instead, Perry's campaign focused on driving Web traffic to 11 issue-based Web pages that provided voters with Perry's stances on important political issues. By doing so, they were able to capture the interest of voters that weren't yet fully engaged or monitoring the race, he said.