On Tuesday, March 4, 2008 at 3:30 PM, I'll be moderating a panel on the Long Tail of Politics at the Politics Online Conference hosted by the George Washington University's Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet. Today is the final day to Register Online to attend the two-day conference.

Last summer, Julie Barko Germany (who is doing a tremendous job as the Director of IPDI), approached me with an opportunity to moderate a panel for POLC on an issue that I thought would be relevant. For me, the choice was simple.

The thought of a panel on the Long Tail of Politics has risen slowly after reading Chris Anderson’s book, The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More, and also based on my experience working on Congressional and Senate races.

In my experience working on campaigns, we would receive polling memorandums focusing on dozens of potential issues/messages that would “move votes.” However, due to limited resources, the focus of our efforts with regard to our paid media campaign was always on the top 3-5 messages that “moved” the most votes. Therefore, most of the candidate’s time on the stump and our earned media efforts focused on those 3-5 messages.

In other words, we spent all of our time and money talking about big picture issues (safety and security, immigration, and spending) because we never had a way to talk about niche issues, like school choice and second amendment rights, that moved votes but did so by the handfuls. Because the tools we used were expensive, it wasn’t feasible to do it any other way.

After reading the Long Tail, I changed my strategy and started focusing, like a laser, on the issues at the bottom of the polling memo. The neglected issues if you will.

We used tools like our blog, effective blogger outreach by issues, YouTube and socnets to target and disseminate our message. We talked about issues like how to keep women and children safe from online predators. We built micro-sites to help amplify our message and push it out to the mainstream.

With regard to fundraising, the Long Tail has never been more effective. The notion that Barack Obama hauled in $32M in the month of January with 90% coming from online donations only further justifies the point.

In 2004, President Bush was smart to focus on large dollar donors who could tap their networks to help bundle hundreds of thousands of dollars for their effort. But in 2008, we’re finding that it’s those candidates who embrace the low-dollar bundlers (the individual with 1,000 facebook friends who can raise $10 from each friend) who are changing the landscape of politics forever. And by the way, most of those low-dollar contributors have never given to a candidate before and will likely give more over their lifetime.

Now at Slatecard (ActBlue has of course been providing a similar platform for years), we have created quite simply a tool to help encourage low-dollar bundlers and have created an intuitive way to give those bundlers “credit” for the good work they are able to do. We’re in our infancy as a utility, but already we’re seeing signs of great success.

In my opinion, the future of online fundraising and effectively communicating is harnessing the Long Tail supporters and less on “moving” giant segments of the population at once.

That’s the gist of why I think this panel is absolutely critical to any discussion about how the Internet has changed politics forever.

I'm honored to have a great bipartisan crew of panelists to help contribute to the discussion. Here are some details:

LONG TAIL POLITICS: The Revolution of People-Powered Politics
In 2004, Presidential candidates tasked their largest contributors to tap in to their networks to raise enormous sums of money through large dollar contributions. In the 2008 cycle, candidates have improved the model and are focusing on small-dollar donors who can contribute smaller amounts in monthly contributions. What impact has this Revolution of People-Powered Politics had on the 2008 election cycle?

Panelists
David All (moderator) - Co-Founder, Slatecard.com
Cyrus Krohn – RNC eCampaign Director
Zack Exley — Co-Founder and President, New Organizing Institute
Matt Salisbury – Republican Candidate for Congress (Idaho-1)
Clay Johnson — Founder, Blue State Digital

I hope to see you next Tuesday for this important discussion.

Revolution.