Erick Erickson at RedState.com gets it:
That a person can run a blog, has a Twitter account, edits and posts video to YouTube, has 1000 friends on Facebook, or can install a Joomla/Drupal/WordPress/MovableType/etc. site and customize the CSS does not make that person a technologist.
The great irony of this past campaign season is that several of the entrepreneurs who created the technologies Barack Obama’s campaign so famously and successfully used are, in fact, Republicans or at least by philosophy if not registration. The challenge that seems to have plagued the GOP for quite some time is understanding how to use technology, not how to deploy it. Many a campaign have launched with blogs, videos, SMS/text messaging, websites, Facebook groups, LinkedIn profiles, and dozens of features. Few have integrated them successfully. Even fewer have realized that the old saying “if you build it, they will come” does not apply. Perhaps it may at first, but it does not keep people returning, much less engaged. The GOP has treated technology as a way to broadcast information or make a statement, not a way to conduct transactions, build coalitions, and encourage active political engagement.
This will change soon. Not only must it change soon (lest the GOP continue to lose its grasp on an entire generation of Americans), but for the first time I am hearing campaigns ask for help from Silicon Valley.
