Liberal blogger Matt Stoller of OpenLeft draws our attention to a new widget produced by Rock The Vote, which he's calling, the "ActBlue for voter registration."
Stoller cautiously concludes that this widget *might* be a big deal and includes some screeners:
I've been playing around with this new widget from Rock the Vote, which lets anyone create their own voter registration program, kind of like Actblue for voter registration. It's potentially groundbreaking, and you can sign up here.
If I mounted a serious voter registration drive on my site, I would be able to keep the contact information of whoever registered. That means that I can contact them the day they vote, and go to politicians and say 'hey, 1834 voters, including 23 in your district', registered to vote through this site. You ought to listen to their concerns.
Stoller shouldn't have been so cautious. This widget is a really big deal, because it's going to help activists do exactly what James Durbin wrote about, "Go where the youth are." Let's dig in a bit more.
When you read about Karl Rove and Lee Atwater's early days as young GOP operatives, they spent a lot of their time traveling to college campuses, training college Republicans how to hold effective voter registration drives. As Karl Rove said back when he had more hair:
“First of all voter registration is probably the most important function that we are undertaking now. We are also seeking to train college students to run voter registration drives and work to involve young people in campaigns. You can’t get a 35 year old to teach the Republican Party how to get the young people…just can’t rely upon it. Young people have to reach other young people and that’s what we’re seeking to do.â€
Tomorrow's Karl Rove's and Lee Atwater's need to follow their role models and start registering their friends and colleagues as Republicans.
The campus registration drives should absolutely remain a part of the strategy, but thanks to modern tools like this Rock The Vote widget, we can now go where everyone in college spends a lot of their time: online.
The further we lower the barrier of entry to the democratic process the better (for both sides). However, it's my hope that we'll be able to hold our ground with the Gen Next GOP which we're currently losing.
Comments
Engaging Young Conservatives
It seems to me that resources are better spent finding web spaces where conservative young people hang out. When I have attended the national right to life march in D.C. I am always impressed by the hundreds of thousands of high school and college age students who are marching through the snow. I don't see much web-activity trying to engage these people between marches.
We should be concentrating our resources on targeted groups of young people. This can be done (and I am sure is but to a lesser degree than should be the case) on Facebook, MY Space, message boards, chat rooms, and on the web-sites of conservative organizations. As examples, if you look at the ACU or the National Right To Life sites you will see no attempts to engage young voters. Even though ACU hosts thousands of young people at CPAC. Between CPACs there is no direct communication.
Young people are undoubtedly engaging on Redstate and Townhall but we are missing golden opportunities to communicate with millions who are not part of these communities. The traditional bricks and mortar organizations that played an important part in building a conservative majority must use the web more effectively. There is a lot of room for expanding contacts with young conservatives.
Young Conservatives + Life
I blogged about the exact same thing back in January:
I've noticed this too
The right to life movement just seems very disconnected and behind. It's crazy because large percentages of the movement are homeschoolers or Evangelicals. Both of those groups have a presence on the web.
National Right to Life's web site is dismal. Students for Life are trying to connect with college and high school students. There are a lot of smaller activities like Wash for Life, but these aren't promoted very well.
It's frustrating because right to life issues transfer to the web so easily. There are great visuals. It's controversal subject, so blogs or sites devoted to the issue get traffic. It's always in the news, and it's an easy issue to rally people around.
The right to life movement lacks cohesion. The sheer number of supporters still make it powerful, but there hasn't been the impact like what Operation Rescue had in the 80s.
This issue is a motivating factor for most conservatives. If we got the life movement on the web, I think a lot of our problems would be worked out.
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