I'm on my way to Austin, TX for American for Prosperity's Defending the American Dream Summit.

I'm not alone.

Countless others are making the trek to train local Texas activists and bloggers to be effective:

David All, Joe Mansour, Matt Sheffield, Sendhil Panchadsaram, David Almacy, Vincent Harris, Steve Stapleton, William Beutler, Danny Glover and Robert Bluey are all traveling to make a difference for the conservative movement.

All of these people (and many more) are engaged in Leadership Institute New Media training tomorrow.

Look forward to live updates from the event and please feel free to offer comments & to suggest prime locations to hang out in Austin.

The Leadership Institute is working with Americans for Prosperity's Erik Telford to put together top-notch Internet training for local conservative activists and bloggers at AFP's RightOnline, Defending the American Dream Summit on July 18th & 19th in Austin, TX.

The result is a cutting-edge program and a step in the right direction for the conservative movement.  This is the first of many more opportunities for online trainers to go where our local activists are -- to train them on the ground to be more effective online. 

I'm so grateful to the speakers who are a part of this important training on July 18th:

David All (Slatecard.com), Sendhil Panchadsaram(Slatecard.com), Joe Mansour (David All Group), Robert Bluey (Heritage Foundation), David Almacy (Waggener Edstrom), William Beutler (New Media Strategies), Steve Stapleton (KMA Communications), Vincent Harris (Senator John Cornyn), Danny Glover (Eyeblast.tv) and Matt Sheffield (Newsbusters) and so many other prominent conservative voices.

 You can check out the entire program and register at Rightonline. 

At today's Blogger's Briefing at the Heritage Foundation, Andrew Wheeler, Director of the Senate's Committee on Environment and Public Works expressed the importance of getting out the conservative response to June's Climate Security Act.

Wheeler hopes the Committee's website is a one-stop shop for bloggers to get important information. I checked out the site and noticed that EPW also has a blog that's updated several times a month. To go a step further, the committee can consider incorporating the blog into its homepage to make the process easier for bloggers looking for more information.

Today, Wheeler offered a 10-page summary of an Amendment to the Act that would cost American taxpayers & consumers a hefty $1.2 trillion in new spending through 2050.

The Leiberman-Warner Climate Security Act calls for the largest tax increase in American political history and arguably, is the largest re-distribution of wealth, ever.

Wheeler believes that a majority of Senate Republicans will want a full debate on this Act, even though a majority oppose it.

The goal: to get our conservative message out.

To Republicans, a 2-3 week debate on "climate change" is ideal, but may be stifled my Senate democrats like Harry Reid who will try to play gatekeeper on amendments. I hope the blogosphere can serve as an extension to the debate that will take place on the Senate floor.

Bloggers can get more information on this Act at the EPW's Committee Website.

I hosted a panel discussion yesterday at the Leadership Institute on "Why the Internet Matters" for a group of young conservatives. Robert Bluey (Heritage Foundation), Cyrus Krohn (RNC) and Matt Lira (John McCain 2008) offered insight into how the Internet is shaping conservative politics in 2008 and beyond.

The general consensus? The Internet is empowering real people to get involved in the electoral process at a level never before witnessed in American politics. Soon, the Internet will dominate political elections as more and more voters prefer to communicate with their peers online.

I think the right is beginning to recognize that political trend, which is why a select group of conservatives are pushing organizations, candidates and elected officials to be more effective online. This is why Robert Bluey began holding weekly Conservative Blogger Briefings to facillitate conversations between major figures and prominent bloggers at the Heritage Foundation.  And I think the conservative movement is making progress in our effort to surpass the left on the Internet.

I asked Robert Bluey to talk about how the Conservative Movement is using the Internet to affect policy change. He cited Heritage's involvement in the immigration debate in 2007 as a key example of how two-way online communication enhanced the conservative agenda.In 2007, Bluey believes he created a model that the movement is re-creating. This was a moment in which a conservative organization promoted social networks & used YouTube to simplify complex messages.

By encouraging grassroots supporters to join the discussion and add content, organizations did away with the tried and true Top Down way of communication and began to focus on Bottom-Up involvement.

Now for the first time, countless organizations are using new media tools to empower supporters to be effective at the local level and in turn, we are affecting policy change even if our progress is recorded in micromovements.

To Cyrus Krohn, baby steps for the movement now lead to major strides down the road.

Cyrus Krohn mentioned that he realized the non-partisan value of the medium to the electoral process in the mid-1990’s. It was a realization that in the 1990’s and perhaps even today, many political parties did not want to hear.Flash forward to 2008, and the RNC’s phone is ringing off the hook. More and more campaigns are wondering how they can use the Internet to win elections. So, conservatives see the need, but Cyrus notes a generational gap.

Many conservative generations understand the importance of new media skills, but still don’t know how to use them.

This is why the Leadership Institute is expanding its Internet training programs and expanding its reach across the country. To be successful, I think all organizations need to work together. Each organization serves a role in the movement and a better stream of communication between each party is only going to help hone our efforts.

Matt Lira took our discussion a step further to state that 2008 is the most important year for the Internet.And 2009 will be the most important year for the Internet. And 2010. And so on.The goal is to constantly re-evaluate where we stand online as the communication dynamic changes.

I enjoyed Matt’s discussion of his time with Eric Cantor and now at John McCain. He talked about how he went from a high resource environment at the RNC to a lower resource environment on the Hill.

I had to sharpen my blade and learn to be more efficient with the resources available. When every penny counts, you strive to be more effective in everything that you do.

To Matt, Web 2.0 reenables Americans to be involved in the decision making process.

So what’s next?

Cyrus foresees the movement from Horizontal Social Networks, like Facebook, to Vertical Networks in which voters can connect with other people and rally around niche interests. This is only going to make our job more difficult as we become less able to penetrate those silos of networks.

Thoughts?

I’m interested to know how you think the conservative movement can work together to address these issues to be more effective online.

Today's blogger's briefing at the NRSC featured NRSC's Political Director, Mike Slanker, and NRSC's Chairman, Senator John Ensign to focus on the electoral outlook for the 2008 senate races.

The forecast? Too soon to tell. When asked about the 2008 election outcomes, Ensign said, "Predictions this time of year are stupid." Senator Ensign feels that anything can happen between now and November. Especially in this age of Youtube moments, elections are as volatile as ever.

While David All began this conversation this morning, Ensign continued the discussion to say that the conservative's biggest problem is the ability to bring in organized cash flow. Compulsory unionism is the problem. "We need to firewall against bad legislation. Preserving the right to a secret ballot with no intimidation is fundamental to the way America runs elections" Ensign says that unions are trying to take that right away from Americans via card checks.

In the event that liberals hold 56 or 57 senate seats and take back the White House, pro-union card check legislation will pass, which means more money funnelled into Democatic campaigns via union dues.

Mike Slanker went on to give a state by state breakdown. The most worrisome states are: New Hampshire, Alaska, and Minnesota (in that order).

Slanker admitted that 2008 is not a great year for Republicans, expect to see some records set.

Expect that conservatives will be outspent 3:1.

The Brightside: We will win more competitive, in-play, seats than we lose, especially now that the Iraq and President Bush rhetoric continues to fall off America's list of national debate priorities.

Slanker believes the Democrat nominee can change everything now that Obama's negative numbers continue to rise daily.

The bottomline: Each race is candidate specific and unique and the quality of the candidate is everything.

To see what the NRSC is doing online, check out: Mark Begich Facts.

I'm sitting in a talk at PodCampDC featuring Jim Long, Verge New Media, and Andy
Carvin, NPR about Social Media and the New Journalism. They're talking
about tools like Twitter, Utterz and Qik and how each tool is changing
the way new coverage happens in real time.

Wildfires in California.

An unprecedented earthquake in the Mid-West.

A tragic shooting at Virginia Tech.

All newstories that featured first person accounts via Twitter.

For the first time ever, Twitter empowers citizen journalists to tell their side of the story and make news.

A tool like Utterz allows real people to ask the mainstream media serious and important real-time questions.

You can check out the entire discussion here: http://qik.com/andycarvin

This morning, I woke up early, threw on my "Blog Off" T-Shirt and got ready for an UnConference at PodCampDC. So far, I'm learning many cool things from folks like Christopher Penn & Joel Mark Witt about marketing online and finding a place for social media.

This topic is important to TechRepublican readers. We aim to establish our organization's/campaign's/member's message or brand online, but often our bosses don' t buy the hype.

Maybe The Powers that Be don't always understand the words we use or don't understand how new media will effect the bottomline. We can't assume that it's because they're not using the technology.

Christopher Penn's Talking Points:

Every organization should go where the people are. (Did you know that Myspace currently has a user population that surpasses that of Indonesia or even of the United States?)

When talking to your boss, find the Old Media Analogy:

*Google Reader is your own personal newspaper

*RSS Feeds are online deliveries of your newspaper

*Social Networks are the new water cooler

In reality, new media isn't so much new as it is a different way of communicating to different people, on their terms.

Penn goes on to say that being online is essential, but not enough.

To be effective, you have to be a regular publisher of content.

You have to have something to say.

You have to have a goal.

Otherwise, your boss will not see the big picture.

ID your brand. Penn quoted someone who said that a brand is merely an "emotional aftertaste" that results from a unique experience with your product.

Test market your brand. Get out there.

Joel Mark Witt says, Don't ask permission, just do...then emphasize results.

Social media is like a no man's land in which organizations can open up a new world of opportunities. We need to break out of our comfort zone and snap out of our geek bubble.

Translate new media language into words your boss can understand and relate to.

This is just a snippet of what's going on here. We're having some fun.

Up next: Andy Carvin & Jim Long on "Social Media & New Journalism" -- expect a post on how twitter is changing journalism and affecting information distribution. See Also: Patrick Ruffini's The Year of Twitter.

Ron Paul supporters just created Paulville, an online community that takes online-to-offline activism to the extreme.

According to the website, Paulville.org's mission is to:

"Establish gated communities containing 100% Ron Paul supporters and or people that live by the ideals of freedom and liberty..."

Both Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee and his F3Coalition, now have a large base of online grassroots support to tap into; however, it's clear that there still exists a lack of control from the top, especially for Ron Paul supporters.

I'm sure Ron Paul's organization can think of better things for its supporters to do other than set up cult-like communities in rural America.

What's next?

Freedomworks is at it again -- now with a clever online petition campaign. The site, Angry Renter, unveiled today, is a space for concerned renters to sign on to protest government bailouts on foreclosed mortgages.

This time, the folks at Freedomworks include a clever video that outlines the organization's argument.

Perhaps Freedomworks can encourage renters to submit their own videos.

You can also show your support at the facebook page.

The Club For Growth just launched a new blog, VP Watch, that aims to monitor potential VP nominations.

Another cool move by the Club since Andy Roth revamped the organization's website.