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Valleywag
Why are the Republicans hiring, and then suspending, the likes of "consultants" Soren Dayton? Because they're desperate to catch up to the Democrats when it comes to building candidate support online, and will pay anyone armed with buzzwords, apparently. When lovable nutjob Ron Paul can pull a bigger audience of Web supporters than someone who might actually win the ticket, your party has problems. Don't worry, GOP! Valleywag is here to help with a handy guide on how to game social networks for political advantage without getting caught.
- Hide behind anonymity: For chrissake, the Grand Old Party isn't about transparency, it's about shady dirty tricks organizations like C.R.E.E.P. and Vietnam Veterans for Truth! (The only thing different about the Democrats is that they haven't been caught (yet), and don't pick names that are nearly as catchy). The rules: Don't let your campaign staffers hold social network accounts in their own names unless they're doing nothing but disseminating thoroughly vetted talking points. Use online anonymity to your advantage. Create fake "sock puppet" accounts, and lots of 'em. There are certainly security consultants mercenary enough to teach you the finer points of spoofing IP addresses, emails and phone numbers to protect your schemes from being discovered.
- Think alternate reality, not astroturfing: If you're going to game the Web to literally scare up votes, you need to start thinking like Alternate Reality Game (ARG) designers. Hire an army of twentysomethings to create an even larger army of fake Americans across the country and the demographic spectrum. Give them back stories with linked accounts on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, et al. The next step: figuring out their artfully fakes stance.
- Moderate, not extremist: This army of sock puppets should all be moderate voters who claim to be undecided. Republicans already have the overtly racist right-wing extremist vote, and they're already blogging. What the GOP needs is moderate voices who will subtly tip voters in your direction by doing things like expressing fears about neighborhood safety while linking to local news reports of violent crimes which just happen to be committed by immigrants and people of color. Use nuance when pointing to the other party's extremist element by also linking to more reasoned articles criticising your opponent as a centrist.
- Engage with the online audience: Once you've assembled hundreds of fleshed-out fakesters, start weighing in on debates — everywhere from blog comments to Wikipedia. And have your virtual voters pretend to fight amongst themselves over policy points. Only then do you use your real soldiers to weigh in with a reasonable compromise that agrees with party policy. A few fake Democrats who turn the debate in a less-than-civil direction might be handy to gain sympathy for your argument, but you can probably count on the Kossacks — fans of DailyKos — to do that work for you.
Yes, this is all incredibly evil. If your party isn't doing it you can bet the other party is.
Comments
Joe Lieberman-Sith Lord of the Evil Empire
[www.docudharma.com]
I disagree with your premise that nuance is required. If you're trying to tell people that Obama is a Muslim and they're using the internet and don't take the time to enter it into google then nuance isn't really the strategy to get this information across to those people. Rumor-mongering is far superior.
I also disagree that the Republicans aren't doing a good job with the internet. Yes, internet contributions are behind Hillary and Obama, but very little of the talk has focused on the downsides of McCain while all of it has focused on Hillary being some NAFTA supporting socialist and Obama being a covert terrorist. If anything, the people that have no power (ie, young, whiny white college students) have coalesced around their stupid communities and made it easier to marginalize them.
@Lasthorseman: The crazy is strong with this link.
A closer scrutiny of Soren Dayton's "modern" ("new") interweb skilz seems to suggest that he blogged a lot. Then he discovered social networking and then somehow bullshitted his way into the McCain campaign.
"Beware of fake dorks" is the lesson candidates can learn from this.
Ahem... they already did all that... Clearly ALL republicans not in office are fakes. NO civilian actually admits to being a republican...
Windows Vista for President 2008!
Could you be more servicey: please post contact deets of the hiring exec. Uh, for the public interest, of course.
The only problem with this is the fact any technology of a date later than that which went into the design of a 1964 Chevy II scares the living shit out of Republicans,unless it can be used to actually kill someone.
If you had a net rifle aimed at Barack Obama,they'd be signing up in droves.
Can't help but imagine that kool aid you have been drinking will give you the nastiest hangover come November.
@BluntObjects: Not to get into some political argument on an blog or anything, but your smug "HAHA REPUBLICANS ARE OLD AND STUPD" attitude is what got us 8 years of that swivel-eyed greedhead.
When are you self-absorbed intellectual elitists going to get your heads out of your asses and realize that you've been outsmarted by these "dumb dinosaurs" for the last decade?
Hint: you're only supposed to pat yourself on the back when you WIN.
@matto: It's funny because McCain is going to win the presidency in a change election, with a failed economy under a Republican president and Republican congress, with nothing done on immigration when Republicans controlled Washington for basically 6 years, when we're stuck in the middle of a poorly planned war and when McCain doesn't know shit about the economy. I find it incredibly entertaining.
@Dweezil: I'm glad our social, economic and foreign policy failures are entertaining to you.
Paging Roger Stone, please pick up the white courtesy phone.
@matto: It's more the inability of liberals to get anything done that's entertaining to me. The economic situation will take care of itself if the Fed doesn't set us up for a depression by dropping the interest rate as much as they have, our foreign policy has always been questionable and socially as long as Britney Spears is acting crazy I think we're alright.
Show of hands: How many people think only Republicans will resort to this kind of shit? Keep your hands up. Thank you. Those of you with your hands up: I need to tell you about a little problem I have with my bank account in Nigeria. I have inherited over $ 1 million US and now must transfer the money to accounts in various...
@matto: So, the responsibility for the way the Republicans have fucked up the US lies with...the Democrats? The clarity! It's so confusing!
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