Media

Literature review

Former Republican operatives turn to blogging in attempt to rebuild party

McCain reaches out to non-conservative blogs

EchoDitto Nicool Mele (webmaster for Dean) talks about organic process of Dean blog relationship

Hill, Yes! O., No! The Battle Isn't Over for Many Women Who Fought for Clinton

• On June 8, the evening after Clinton conceded the Democratic presidential contest to Barack Obama, Mantouvalos organized a conference call with some 40 bloggers, political activists and other hardened loyalists of the New York senator's, in what became "a jam session of very intense opinion" -- about the party, its leadership, its presumptive nominee, the media. Five hours later, Mantouvalos, age "north of 35," had built a new Web site, JustSayNoDeal.com, which has become a clearinghouse for the renegade forces that are now confounding Democratic Party officials and Obama campaign operatives.

McCain's Web Team (National Journal)

Obama's Wide Web WaPost, August 20, 2008

America Is Suddenly Bursting With Concerned Christian Conservatives Expressing Conservatively Christian Concern over McCain/Palin Ace of Spades on Obama astroturfing

Bloggers sniff out anti-Palin astroturf campaign– and the cover-up begins

How ghost-writing letters to the editor for McCain works Salon,Sept. 24, 2008

PUMAs are Swiftboats

Portrait of the candidate as a pile of words What’s the most frequent word on McCain’s blog? ‘Obama’, The Boston Globe, August 3, 2008

• Both of this year’s major party presidential candidates have made official campaign blogs a central part of their virtual headquarters. John McCain’s campaign hired former Weekly Standard blogger Michael Goldfarb as its deputy communications director and made the "McCain Report" into his one-man show. The Obama team has taken a more collaborative approach, allowing supporters to create their own blogs and then moving some of that content, together with snippets of news coverage and messages from campaign officials, to the official "ObamaBlog" front page.

YouTube video of Diane Mantouvalos on Cavuto re: Just say no deal

• "Republicans are definitely courting us." - Diane Mantouvalos

Just Say No Deal Answers Questions on Sirius Radio

“I ghost-wrote letters to the editor for the McCain campaign.”

• After today we are supposed to use our free moments at home to create a flow of fictional fan mail for McCain. "Your letters," says Phil Tuchman, "will be sent to our campaign offices in battle states. Ohio. Pennsylvania. Virginia. New Hampshire. There we'll place them in local newspapers."

Political bloggers fear publicists will infiltrate sites, Boston Globe, February 23, 2007

• Erick Erickson has been running the popular blog Redstate.com long enough to know what his readers' postings sound like: red-meat conservative rhetoric served up with a little dash of populist anger.

So when postings from an unknown writer on the site showed up praising Senator John McCain -- one of the site's least-popular Republicans for his deviations from hard-core conservative orthodoxy -- Erickson thought he smelled a rat.

Or maybe a sock puppet, shill, or a troll -- Web slang for bloggers who pretend to be grass-roots political commentators but instead are paid public relations agents.

The author of the pro-McCain articles on Redstate.com, Erickson determined after a Google search, was a Michigan political operative whose firm worked for McCain's political action committee.

• "You need to engage them as if they are any other powerful constituency," said Peter Greenberger of New Media Strategies, an Arlington, Va.-based consulting firm that works with candidates and corporations to improve their image on the Internet.

Greenberger said his firm was not working for any 2008 candidates, but had turned away requests by some candidates to woo activists through online "astroturf" campaigns. Astroturf, in political parlance, refers to campaigns organized by public relations firms to create a false image of grass-roots support.

BAM TRIPS ON NET. BARACK INTERNET STAFFER REVEALED AS BRAIN BEHIND HILLARY ATTACK AD, Daily News, March 22, 2007

• The mystery man behind the scathing "1984" Internet video slamming Hillary Clinton as "Big Sister" was unmasked yesterday as a staffer in the consulting firm that runs Barack Obama's Web site. In a revelation that stunned the Obama campaign and could damage his presidential prospects, Philip de Vellis, a worker at the company Blue State Digital, admitted creating the video that has riveted the political and Internet worlds.

Win Points for McCain!; Rewards Program for Online Commenters, WaPost, August 7, 2008

• On McCain's Web site, visitors are invited to "Spread the Word" about the presumptive Republican nominee by sending campaign-supplied comments to blogs and Web sites under the visitor's screen name. The site offers sample comments ("John McCain has a comprehensive economic plan . . .") and a list of dozens of suggested destinations, conveniently broken down into "conservative," "liberal," "moderate" and "other" categories. Just cut and paste.

Activists and political operatives have used volunteers or paid staff to seed radio call-in shows or letters-to-the-editor pages for years, typically without disclosing the caller or letter writer's connection to a candidate or cause. Like the fake grass for which the practice is named, such AstroTurf messages look as though they come from the grass roots but are ersatz.

2003 Slate article on GOP points

Planting the Rightroots

McCain Campaign Makes Comeback -- In Use Of New Media

Also interesting...

Connell, Rove and the GOP Boys, Positioned for McCain?, examines Mike Connell, the RNC's IT guru. Connell is the C in CD Inc, which received $ from McCain campaign for media and list management services - both for CD Inc and for New Media Communications. The D is for Rebecca "Becky" Donatelli of Donatelli Group, a conservative political support firm. She is also chairman of eDonation.com, Campaign Solutions and Connell Donatelli Inc., all of which are closely aligned with Republicans and at least one conservative cause McCain once criticized - CD Inc. was the registrant for Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, according to Network Solutions.

From a 4/28/08 USA Today article: ...Matt Grossman, a political science professor at Michigan State University, said it is not surprising McCain would continue to use Donatelli's service.

"The Republican consulting world is a small world. People tend to use the same people," Grossman said. He compared the relationship to that between Obama, an advertising firm he hired and one of its employees who, on his own time, made an Internet ad endorsing Obama while denigrating Clinton.

On its website, eDonation.com notes that it has handled credit-card transactions for President Bush's 2004 campaign, McCain's 2000 campaign, the Republican National Committee and GOP organizations in at least six states. Campaign Solutions has worked for 14 senators, including McCain, and for 20 state Republican Party organizations.

Donatelli, who has been lauded for her political work and for her fundraising for non-profit organizations, referred questions to the campaign, which did not comment. She is married to Frank Donatelli, whom McCain named deputy chairman of the Republican National Committee last month, shortly after winning enough delegates to secure the nomination.

• CD Inc work on McCain campaign, Internet Angling

• The Group was the "first to raise donations online in the realm of political consulting firms and helped launch the movement in its developing stages in the years leading up to its explosion during Howard Dean's presidential drive," Erin McPike reported August 20, 2004. More in [Sourcewatch]

The average presidential candidate will only devote about 1 percent of his or her ad budget to the Web, and lead candidates are likely to dedicate about 5 percent, according to TNS. "There's no candidate who's really put historic dollars into the Internet. Most of what's going on has been free—the YouTubes, the blogs, the MySpaces," says Tracey.

But some candidates are reaping the rewards. "For every dollar we spend on search, we're getting $3 to $4 in donations," says Eric Frenchman, chief Internet strategist for Connell Donatelli, a Cleveland and D.C.-based agency working on the McCain campaign. "We focus on search to drive awareness of John McCain's position on certain issues, and to generate effective conversation, whether it results in donations or joining the team."

Frenchman buys thousands of key words on portals like Yahoo and Google on behalf of McCain. "We're adding hundreds every couple of days. I'll swap some in and swap some out. We buy thousands. We're constantly [changing the mix] to optimize the campaign," says Frenchman, adding that it wouldn't "shock" him if the number of key words McCain's campaign buys hits 10,000.

Peter Greenberger, manager of Google's elections and issue advocacy sales team, says that while candidates used key words in the 2004 election cycle, it was in a much more limited capacity than this go-round. "We're seeing a large amount of activity," he says. "Candidates are being more savvy and strategic about words they buy, and they're also starting to buy issue terms, like the war in Iraq and healthcare."

"Internet usage is going to be huge in 2008," predicts SmartMedia's Roberts. "The research is so much better for media buyers and planners to utilize. We can see with great accuracy where people are getting their information on the Internet by party I.D. or persuasion. We can go right down to the ZIP code, if necessary."

Although Internet spending is often separated into a different budget than ad spend, Roberts says, depending on the candidate, those he represents could spend 5 percent to 10 percent of their ad budgets on the Internet.

Press coverage of formation of No Deal...

http://tinyurl.com/6e2wak

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/06/12/2008-06-12_hillary_clinton_fanatics_keep_fight_aliv-1.html

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/06/13/1138240.aspx#comments

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/06/13/a-clinton-backer-turns-to-mccain/

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/256106

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0608/McCain_mingles_with_Clinton_sup

PUMA=Republicans?

More PUMA Proof: registered in Red States

Clintons for McCain was created on MAY 15, 2008 by the RNC

Republican bloggers on stop-obama.org