The other day, I sat down with Connell Donatelli’s new president, Chuck DeFeo, to talk about how he likes the new gig and to gather where he thinks the GOP stands online.

Here’s what he had to say.

So, how are your first two weeks?

Well, I’ve been a little sidetracked – my first week on the job, my wife delivered our baby early, so this is really my first week.

What made you decide to join Connell Donatelli?

This was just a great opportunity for me. I’ve been working in Washington, DC for about 13 years, 8 of which were spent working on Capitol Hill under the umbrella of election politics and 4 of which were spent finding out how to use the web to build online grassroots communities to foster the debate of ideas…Now, I have the ability to combine those two sets of experiences to use the Internet to win elections, so I’m looking forward to the challenge.

I would argue that the Right has come a long way, in the past two years even, when it comes to embracing modern media. Where do you think we stand right now? Have we met the Left online? Are we still catching up? Are there areas where we’ve surpassed the Left? Areas for improvement?

First, I think the Right has wrongly allowed the Left to define our movement as always being behind online, when in fact there was a time in election politics when we were in the lead.

I would argue that we were in the lead in the presidential race against John Kerry in 2004 and even against the Dean campaign in 2003 & 2004.  Certainly, post 2004, the right has embraced 2.0 media and the social web.

The problem is – we didn’t embrace where the web was going. In 2008, the Democrats did a phenomenal job of using the web to pull individual people into the political process and that’s where we fall behind.

That being said, the sky is not falling & it’s never as bad as some people might say it is.

Who do you see right now in this current election cycle as the shining star, if you will, of the Right when it comes to utilizing the Internet?

To be fair, there aren’t a lot of races going on in the here and now – there just simply aren’t a lot of candidates running right now in 2009, but there are exceptions.

Some of the bright spots I see are coming from the Chuck DeVore campaign in California. I think Justin Hart is doing a lot of great work online for that senate race and I look forward to seeing what’s coming down the pipeline.

But Virginia is going to be in the spotlight this year and frankly, the Democrats aren’t really impressing me there. It’s clear that Organizing for America is still a powerhouse when it comes to engaging its grassroots base, but it is to be seen, whether that group is able to use that power to its advantage in November.

Chuck DeFeo Joins Connell Donatelli

Yesterday, the Donatelli Group announced campaign and online media veteran Chuck DeFeo as President and CEO of Connell Donatelli, Inc. DeFeo joins a team of nineteen, where he will oversee all new media communications planning and advertising on behalf of political, corporate, and public affairs clients. Connell Donatelli, along with sister firm Campaign Solutions, specializes in online strategy, fundraising, advertising, and social media.

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There’s a lot of hype that goes on when talking about the intersection of Internet & Politics. To many of us on this site, things like Myspace, Youtube & Facebook are the next best things since sliced bread.

Tonite, Chuck DeFeo offered an intuitive conclusion to my Internet Technologies Workshop. Below is a synopsis of his remarks.

He quoted former Kansas City Cheif's head coach, “the main thing is the main thing & as long as you remember the main thing is the main thing, it will be the main thing.”

To DeFeo, the main thing = getting 51% of the vote.

The main thing is not really about having the coolest widget, or the sweetest Youtube video. Instead, every action you take, every framework you put in place needs to answer the question: What is your organization trying to accomplish?

Your answer is these three things: Raise Money, Organize a Volunteer Base & Communicate a Message. It gets more complicated when you start to think about how the Internet will help you achieve those goals.

Today it’s all about tapping into the communities that exist out there and then deciding how to funnel them into your organization.

At the dawn of the industrial revolution, the smart candidates realized they needed to go where the people were as those people started to convene at work for the very first time.

Today, YouTube, Facebook, Myspace are communities where people are gathering.

What do you do to get attention when you are not the RNC or the President?

*recognize who your audience is in each and every social network.

*introduce yourself properly. talk to them. get to know them.

It’s like meeting someone at a bar. You don’t call them and ask for $15 the first call. NO, you ask them out for a drink first.

Liberals are beating us on the Internet & we don’t know what we’re doing.

Fundamental truths: There exists a much more energized base of support on the left — our base is demoralized.

In 2004 we had two Internet Campaign Models: Bush & Howard Dean

*Bush had the right model for an incumbent president.

*Howard Dean allowed comments on his blog & any Joe 6-pack could post. “You are the message, you have the power” said Dean

The Dean campaign used earned media & viral communities to bring people in and congregate on his website. (Myspace, Facebook, Youtube didn’t really exist)

Pros of the Dean Model — He was an unknown candidate trying to be the cool, hip place to hangout. Cons — At some point he lost message control, when he allowed people to create their own messages.

Howard Dean became who everyone wanted him to be.

On the flip-side, President Bush had a large, existing base of support already. The question for Chuck was how do we most effectively make use of that audience — going back to that 51% goal.

Chuck’s job was to get folks off that website as quickly as possible and offer unique visitors a set of goals, outline the presiden'ts record and finally, communicate a streamlined message. *empower grassroots supporters to carry president’s message*

1_ sign up to volunteer

2_give you a list of other people in your community to contact

You only get, at best, 7-8 minutes with a first-time visitor to your website.

What are you doing with your first 7-8 minutes?