Maybe it’s because a group of Tea Party / conservative bloggers helped launch Marco Rubio’s primary fight against Charlie Crist, in a story rarely told anywhere except here, Give Some Credit To “Not One Red Cent”. That group of scrappy misfits (I’m going to catch hell for that characterization) rose up in response to the NRSC deciding to preordain Crist the Republican nominee.
Or maybe it’s because Ted Cruz launched his campaign, in his words, on a conference call with bloggers, while the establishment fought for David Dewhurst.
Or because the conservative blogosphere backed Mike Lee and Rand Paul, but did not back a challenge to Orrin Hatch.
It’s not just who won, but who worries about winning.
My post the other day, RNC Report — 100 pages and not a single word about bloggers, has received a great response.
I don’t think this was a response, but it seems others have noticed as well, via Jeff Reynolds of FreedomWorks yesterday, NRSC Creates Blogger Outreach Position To Facilitate Communications:
This week, the Republican National Committee released an “autopsy” on how the GOP lost the election in 2012 and where it can improve its branding going forward. William Jacobsen [sic] of Legal Insurrection noted that the 100 page report failed to mention New Media and bloggers as an opportunity to improve communications. However, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has seen the power of New Media and has decided to take a more proactive approach. The NRSC recently hired Bill Murphy to direct blogger outreach.Murphy, Director of BlogBash, appeared at a blogger’s briefing at CPAC this past weekend and said, “They get it now. Their whole team is fired up and ready to reach out to all the conservative online activists and all the bloggers. You (bloggers) will start getting a lot of emails from us, and if you have any comments or any kind of criticism, we will appreciate hearing from you.” Murphy previously served in a similar capacity on the Romney campaign.It will be interesting to see if they reach out to bloggers and activists that are aligned with groups such as FreedomWorks where there has been pushback against the incumbent protection machines. Will they make a concerted effort to strengthen the party by choosing many voices instead of one? Many believed that the RNC report served as a roadmap for centralizing power at the top, instead of allowing the grassroots to help craft new election strategies. The true power of the decentralized media is the ability to have many voices and perspectives. Time will tell if the NRSC will embrace the democratization of media, or will rather seek to homogenize the message.
Time will tell.
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