Online Strategy Fuels Brown Surge
Scott Brown is on the verge of one of the great political upsets in recent memory. And it may have started with a simple hashtag.
Well before many political watchers latched on to his candidacy, the campaign of the Republican state senator was cultivating an army of grassroots supporters online that helped fuel his insurgent effort. Brown has been able to leverage a simmering unease about the nation's direction - even in deeply blue Massachusetts - with the enthusiasm for his candidacy among national Republican activists thanks in part to a new force in electoral politics: Twitter.
On December 28, Brown announced what became the signature force behind his campaign, his pledge to be a 41st vote against President Obama's national health care reform legislation. Accompanying that news on his Twitter feed was this notation: #41stvote. Referred to as a hashtag, those nine characters became a mechanism to attract like-minded activists and identify new ones. Reflecting an enthusiasm gap not just in the state but among national politicos, Brown now boasts more than 11,000 Twitter followers, compared to barely 4,000 for Democrat Martha Coakley.
That following paid dividends last Monday when, aided by a strong Twitter campaign from Brown and dozens of his newest online advocates, the Republican smashed a fundraising goal of $500,000 for a one-day "money bomb," generating instead well beyond $1 million. That total from just 24 hours was well beyond what he had raised in the entire previous fundraising period. Where there had been skepticism before about what kind of impact Twitter could have, the Brown campaign is making a convincing case.
In 2008, the presidential candidates had Twitter accounts and made some use of them, "but the public really wasn't there yet," according to Bill Beutler, innovation manager for New Media Strategies, which advises clients on social media. There were signs of the impact Twitter could have during the gubernatorial and special elections for Congress in 2009, especially in the free-for-all in New York 23. But the midterm elections of 2010 will be the first major national campaign in which Twitter will be a factor, and campaigns and campaign committees have taken notice.
"When I started, everyone joked that I was the director of shiny objects," said John Randall, director of new media for the National Republican Congressional Committee. "This is not a shiny object. This is industry standard now. It's definitely something that I point out to all the campaigns."
Brown's campaign shows how Twitter can be used to raise money. But several campaign officials and consultants said the real value that Twitter has brought so far to campaigns is as a conduit for providing instant and direct communication with potential voters and the reporters who cover elections and shape public opinion.
"It's absolutely the quickest, most accessible, most open platform for sharing information on the Web," said Jordan Raynor, a Florida-based Republican online strategist. "Twitter by nature makes information valuable, if it's valuable information. If you've got a juicy piece of news it's going to spread fastest through Twitter."
"Immediacy is one of the incredible values that Twitter brings to the table. And immediacy in campaigns is sometimes life and death," said Justin Hart, director of new media for the Senate campaign of Chuck DeVore in California.
The White House seems to have caught on as well. Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton just in the past week has begun using his Twitter feed to amplify the administration's message and directly rebut what it considers false storylines. The president himself sent his first "tweet" Monday, though it was for the Red Cross's account and not his own.
In Virginia's gubernatorial campaign, Republicans credit an effective use of social media by the campaign of Bob McDonnell to respond to potentially damaging claims coming from traditional media sources, most obviously the Washington Post's coverage of "Thesis-gate." The Republican Governors Association found based on its polling that many more voters said they were getting their news about the race online, and among that subset, their won handily - 50-38 in New Jersey, and 62-38 in Virginia.
"We realized there is a changing phenomenon. More folks, particularly young people in that demographic that frankly our party has not done that well in the past, are getting their information there," McDonnell said at an RGA conference after the campaign.
DeVore's campaign is seen today as one of the more innovative in terms of how it's used Twitter and other social media platforms from a very early stage to build a campaign. The "Tweet for Chuck" effort has drawn notice as a means of attracting online donations. Hart concedes that because this will likely be the first true Twitter campaign cycle, questions remain.
"I've seen it translate into dollars. I've seen it translate into traffic. I've seen it translate into media news stories," he said. "How that translates into votes, I don't think people have figured that out yet."
Republicans believe they have built a real advantage over Democrats with Twitter, though some concede that similar tools tend to favor those out of power. But Democrats say Republicans are simply catching up.
"A lot of folks are following the lead of the Obama campaign," DNC press secretary Hari Sevugan said. "We set that standard in terms of innovation and I think people are looking at that model."
He and other Democratic officials also say that Republicans quick to embrace the medium have also been quick to find trouble. Just this month, RGA executive director Nick Ayers had to apologize to New York Gov. David Paterson for making a joke on Twitter about his blindness. Strategists are constantly emphasizing to their campaigns the risks that come with these new tools.
"Even though it's an informal way to communicate, it still carries the weight of your campaign, your organization just as a press release or candidate's statement would," the NRCC's Randall said.
No matter what the medium, the challenge for campaigns remains the same: finding a message that resonates.
"It has never been easier to be as influential as you can be today," Raynor said. "Information is cheap. Information is easier to produce. And if you have a quality message, it's never been cheaper to get out."