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One Word: "Email"

BY Nancy Scola | Monday, August 9 2010

AdAge's Edmund Lee reports on the increasing centrality of online search-tied ads as part of the campaign repertoire. But a voice of caution comes to us from Joe Rospars, Blue State Digital co-founder and, of course, the guy who helped use the Internet to get Barack Obama delivered to the White House. It might not be cutting edge, or sexy, or really the least bit exciting to anyone not in the field ("open rate...zzzzzzzzz"), but don't, warns Rospars, forget about good ol' electronic mail:

[W]hile search, display and Facebook are quickly becoming emerging mainstays of political advertising, many campaigns say the killer app is still the humble email address.

"Pound for pound, it's the most powerful tool in the box," said Joe Rospars, creative director for online ad firm Blue State Digital. Mr. Rospars served as President Barack Obama's new-media director for his presidential run and is advising a number of Democratic candidates for the midterms. "Email continues to be the core way in which money is raised and volunteers are driven to go to events. ... In terms of response rates, email will come out on top."

News Briefs

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Claire McCaskill Hires Blue State Digital's Alex Kellner As Digital Director

Missouri's senior Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill has hired Blue State Digital's Alex Kellner as its digital director. GO

Controversial Hoekstra Microsite Targeting Debbie Stabenow Created By The Prosper Group

Michigan Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra has caused a firestorm in the past 24 hours with a new campaign ad that depicts China as a young woman riding a bike in a rural area speaking in broken English. The thirty second spot aired in Michigan during the Super Bowl on Sunday, and it accuses Democratic incumbent Debbie Stabenow of aiding ... GO

White House CTO Aneesh Chopra's Exit Interview

On his way out of the White House and back to Virginia, where he is expected to run for public office — but will neither confirm or deny that's the plan — Aneesh Chopra describes the shape of the post he pioneered as the country's first-ever chief technology officer.

As a result of Chopra's interview with The Atlantic's tech/politics correspondent, Nancy Scola, there's now a public record of what this first-ever CTO thinks the CTO's job actually is ("On any topic that is a priority for the president, my role is evaluate how technology, data, and innovation can advance, support, and improve upon those strategies," among other things) and how it might be improved.

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friday >

Slovenian ambassador apologizes for signing ACTA, Poland halts ratification

Apparently, some EU countries are reconsidering their support to ACTA, only a week after signing the agreement.
Helena Drnovsek Zorko, Slovenia's ambassador to Japan, has in fact issued a public apology to her country for signing it. Meanwhile, Poland Prime Minister Donald Tusk says he's halting the ratification process of the international treaty.
Last week people took the streets in Poland, and a protest is planned in Ljubljana tomorrow. GO

thursday >

Did Newt Gingrich Lose Florida for Want of a Better API?

Slate's Sasha Issenberg has a great story outlining one narrative about Newt Gingrich's loss in Florida: He inspired a group of tech-savvy volunteers, but gave them no way to plug in to the campaign. GO

House GOP Hosts Legislative Data and Transparency Conference

Today, House Republicans are hosting a conference on legislative data and transparency. The goal, as it's been explained to me, is to set the table for a conversation between House leadership and open government/open data advocates about what the House could or should do next.

More information on the conference is here. It's being live streamed.

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When House Republicans Aren't Winning With Transparency

House Republicans have been pushing the results of their transparency initiatives, such as a pilot project to archive video of some committee hearings.

But other committee hearings are apparently off-limits. Politico reports today that documentary filmmaker Josh Fox was arrested while attempting to videotape a House Science Committee hearing on hydrofracking. Only credentialed members of the Congressional press corps can film hearings of that committee.

The archived webcast of that hearing, which was streamed live, is here, if you can get the software to work. Each committee chair has discretion over what to do with video of their hearings, although there's also an office of in-House broadcasters who keep archival footage of everything, staffers have told me previously. As a result, there's no universal standard for how hearings are streamed or archived. The Science Committee uses a content delivery platform powered by Akamai.

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Komen's Planned Parenthood Decision Raising Eyebrows Online

Online campaigns have begun to organize in response to news that the breast cancer group Susan G. Komen for the Cure would be cutting its financing to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screening and education programs. According to the news reports, Komen says the decision is not in response to pressure from anti-abortion groups, as Planned Parenthood alleges. Rather, a spokesperson told the A.P., the main factor is a new rule adopted by Komen that prohibits grants to organizations being investigated by local, state or federal authorities. Currently, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) is looking in to how Planned Parenthood spends and reports its money. "Susan D. Komen" has been trending on Google since yesterday. GO

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