From Patrick Ruffini over at Hugh Hewitt:

Labels: Internet

Patrick Ruffini, talented polibiz guru, has entered the fray following remarks from Soren Dayton (Eyeon08) about my post on Fred Thompson trying his best to imitate Max Headroom.

That's a bit confusing... Let's try this recap:

• I questioned the viability of a Thompson candidacy tethered to an Internet-only campaign (or at least a predominately Internet-only campaign). I used the blogosphere as an example where outreach seems impactful but the numbers just don't add up to much. (I.E. if you rely just on the blogosphere you'll be swimming with Tom Tancredo)
  
  
• Soren counters this argument indicating that Thompson could yet wax Romney-esque, produce a gambit of "content", and/or drive a voter-to-voter approach.
  
  
• Patrick takes me to task for my reckoning of activist influences pointing to a larger outreach group if you include non-blog sites such as FreeRepublic and Townhall.com.

Both Soren and Patrick make some excellent points but I stand by my two main points: 1) that Thompson will need to press more flesh than he will Qwerty keys and 2) that the blogosphere has some influence but it ain't all that and a box of chocolates - yet - (I think that's the phrase my 9 year old used the other day ?)

I did allude to one thing: Fred might be one election too early on this. I can imagine virtual campaigns becoming the norm circa 2012 when the learning curve on all things Internet is brought to an acceptable levels.

Patrick updates his post with a cool clip of Mitt slapping down a question raised by a person citing something on the blogosphere. So yes, the blogosphere has some decent dynamic influence that, ripple-like, can make a splash; but notice Mitt's effectiveness is that he is in person, in front of a large crowd, speaking extemporaneously about a sensitive subject in an articulate and dynamic way. Then again, I was watching it on YouTube on a blog... so go figure.

Here's a chart that I produced for one of my clients that shows the various mediums of reaching and affecting an audience, along with the cost and ease of getting your message out over a particular channel. Click to enlarge


KEY
+ means positive
- means negative or difficult
+ / - means somewhere in the middle

Blogs have yet to reach their full potential of reach and effectiveness, but it doesn't cost much and it's pretty easy to do. Thoughts?

Labels: fred thompson, Internet

Recent reports indicate that Thompson is beefing up his virtual team of advisers. In fact, it seems that most of what Thompson is doing is virtual. The question in my mind is this: will Fred "Max Headroom" Thompson come out of his Internet box?

Early leaks to the blogosphere indicated that the Thompson campaign would be radically "different" relying on Internet efforts rather than "trudging through Iowa and New Hampshire". Yesterday, the Hotline reported a gambit of internet savvy Thompson-ites including Mike Turk, Jon Henke, and William Beutler. This is a very capable team.

However, this is one of the critical questions in political campaign history. Will a predominately virtual campaign make the same impact as pressing the flesh?

I remain convinced that it will not and cannot.

Take for instance two facts on the table here.

First, the reach of the blogosphere. Now obviously the Thompson campaign isn't limiting its efforts to the blogosphere but it's a good comparative sample data point to begin with.

If you look at the top 5 conservative blogs on the Internet (according the TTLB) and look at their average rate of "daily visits" you get the following:

Malkin - 105,000
Instapundit - 125,000
LGF - 195,000
Powerline - 58,000
Captain's Quarters - 29,000

Experience has shown that "Absolute Unique Visitors" (that is true warm bodies) is about a third of "daily visits". In other words, real advocates of specific blogs visit the blog about 3 times a day or more. Many times from different computers.

If we assume that 60% of these visitors are shared visitors (i.e. I visit Michelle and Powerline everyday myself) and factor in the 1/3rd calculation we get about 100,000 unique visitors.

Don't get me wrong... I think the blogosphere is the bomb! But it ain't the election bomb - yet.

One more stat. According to a recent survey from the Chronicle of Philantropy, the 20 largest charities are raising only 1% of their funds from online donations.

Now, these are not directly correlated to the Thompson campaign but neither are they anecdotal.

In short, I think Fred is one cycle too early. Relying heavily on an Internet-driven campaign won't win you the election in my mind, but it will be a great learning process.

Labels: Internet, Technology