A little over a month ago I noticed that Joe Carter was looking to work with someone or a group to enhance and take the #diggcons project to a new level. Joe had originally offered the project to #TCOT, but according to him his offer was never answered for one reason or another.

I contacted Joe letting him know that the #dontgo Movement was quietly working on a social news network and we would gladly move the project under the #diggcons label. Joe was quick to get the ball rolling, and now the #diggcons Twitter account is officially an account of the #dontgo Movement.

The #diggcons Project
The ultimate goal of #diggcons is to network eActivists in a way that encourages social bookmarking within the center-right movement online. We badly need a network of individuals who can share news and bookmarks, and work together to promote these URL’s in social bookmarking sites.

Our focus in the beginning will be Digg, StumbleUpon and R-igg.

How do I get involved?
To join in on the fun, you need to become active in the social bookmarking network you see here. In order for this to work, everyone “taking” from the community must also “give”.

How do I give? It’s simple. When you see a link in the #diggcon Tweet stream, click on it and Digg it, Stumble it, R-igg, it, etc. That is… if you find it interesting of course.

When you have a link that you think others will find interesting, tweet it and include the #diggcons hashtag. We’ll all go and vote for your link if we like it.

It’s a win-win for everyone!

So what are you waiting for? Go check out the new DiggCons website.

-Eric Odom

The website, Tennessee News Platoon (www.tennessee.newsplatoon.com), will work to promote local government transparency and accountability, provide a news platform for local activism networks, and aggregate the top news stories happening across the state.

State Representative Stacey Campfield (TN-18) states, “I look forward to #dontgo getting together; we’ll be able to finally get out our clear concise message that will push for open government and good conservative values. Now more than ever we need people out there rallying conservatives to get more involved and to spread our message. I strongly feel that #dontgo will be able to help in making this happen.”

#dontgo originally began as a simple Twitter tag that the founders used to track the energy debate by the US Congress on August 1st. Hundreds of activists, including members of Congress, began using the tag not just to track the energy bill, but to energize supporters and champion fiscal conservative values. Soon thereafter the site http://www.dontgomovement.com/ was created and to date has over 30,000 opt-in email subscribers.

The #dontgo Revolution uses web-based strategies and tactics to advance free-market values. Its mission is to develop a fifty state strategy of blogs and internet social networks that would activate more free market conservatives in their communities leading into the 2010 elections.

###

During the first hour (7:00 PM Eastern) we’ll have our normal show with Tricia Cunningham and I hosting, but we’ll be joined by social media loving candidate for United States Senate, Chuck DeVore.

For those who don’t know, Chuck DeVore is running against Barbera Boxer in 2010. Chuck is a candidate of interest to the #dontgo Movement because A) His campaign is quickly becoming fully immersed in new media/social media, and B) He is a strong supporter of free-markets and offshore drilling.

During the second hour (8:00 PM Eastern) we’ll be hosting a few Tennesseans with our official launch of the new #dontgo Movement’s Tennessee project. This is a HUGE announcement and you don’t want to miss it!

Please retweet this announcement and invite everyone you know to join us during the show tonight. Callers and chatters are welcome, and we hope to talk to all of you during the show.

Click here for the Blog Talk Radio show page.

Call in at (646) 595-2816

-Eric Odom

On Monday, December 8th www.dontgomovement.com will unveil its Social Media Platoon, a social media and technology blog. The website, found at http://social.newsplatoon.com, will serve as a place for technology-minded conservatives to meet and work together. The focus of the website will be to advance the free-market agenda through social media and inject social media into the existing fiscal conservative movement. Chris Faulkner, VP of Faulkner Strategies states, “I tell candidates and organizations that engagement with Social Media is like having a dog…the more you play with it and feed it …the less it tends to bite you.”

With the launch of the Social Media Platoon, #dontgo hopes to alleviate some of the fears and uncertainties that conservatives have with social media and to help them use the tools to successfully advance free-market ideas. Faulkner says, “Free-market conservatives are now back in a guerilla position that can only make us stronger. We are in a better position than ever to take risks and break new ground.”

#dontgo originally began as a simple Twitter tag that the founders used to track the energy debate by the US Congress on August 1st. Hundreds of activists, including members of Congress, began using the tag not just to track the energy bill, but to energize and champion fiscal conservative values. Soon thereafter the site was created and to date has over 30,000 opt-in email subscribers.

The #dontgo Revolution uses web-based strategies and tactics to advance free-market values. Its mission is to develop a fifty state strategy of blogs and internet social networks that would activate more conservatives in their communities leading into the 2010 elections.

###

CONTACT: Juliana Johnson
(312) 575-9500 (office)
(847) 691-9278 (cell)
julianatjohnson@gmail.com

View Press Release Archive Here

“The Republican Party has been hijacked by right wing ideologues,” the former school bureaucrat wrote in a letter published in the Appeal on Wednesday. “I hate to resort to name calling, but it’s difficult to identify these anti-government, anti-public school, anti-tax radicals as anything other than ideologues.”

Here’s another name for such persons: “Founding Fathers.”

Indeed, if Mr. Paslov can somehow find an American history book in one of his old government schools and blow the dust off its covers, he would discover that this nation’s very creation came about thanks to what he considers radical right-wing hostility to government and taxation.

For example, radical right-wing ideologue Thomas Jefferson said, “The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive.” Radical right-wing ideologue Thomas Paine added, “Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”

And get a load of this anti-government sentiment by radical right-wing ideologue George Washington: “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence–it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and fearful master.”

As for hostility toward taxes, Mr. Paslov might want to read up on a certain tea party hosted in Boston Harbor by radical right-wing ideologues John Hancock and Sam Adams (who went on to have a rather right-tasting beer named after him). Or consider the words of radical right-wing ideologue Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall who declared in 1819 that “the power to tax involves the power to destroy.”

The stated purpose of government, in the “spread the wealth” socialist mind of Gene Paslov, is to provide “needed government services to the greatest number of citizens.”

But radical right-wing ideologue Thomas Jefferson disagreed. “Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but only those specifically enumerated,” declared the author of our Declaration of Independence. Radical right-wing ideologue James Madison chimed in that “Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”

Further showing an alarming, but not totally surprising, misunderstanding of our governmental system and history, Mr. Paslov also wrote, “Muth would do well to remember that in our democracy the government is, ‘We the people.’”

How embarrassing. The enormity of the error of that statement is breath-taking, especially when one considers this man was in charge of the government schools in Nevada for almost a decade.

We do not live in a “democracy” here in the United States. We live under a governing system explained by radical right-wing ideologue Benjamin Franklin at the end of the Constitutional Convention of 1787. In response to a woman’s question about what type of government the convention delegates had agreed upon, Franklin responded, “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.”

“We the people” do not vote on every issue or every lame-brained, touchy-feely proposal that comes down the pike. That would be a “democracy.” Instead, we elect representatives who cast votes on our behalf - preferably within the confines of our Constitution. But when elected representatives exceed their authority, the courts may strike down their lame-brained legislation as unconstitutional. It’s part of what is called our system of “checks and balances.” You could look it up.

One would hope a former head of the Nevada public schools would know and understand the difference between a “republic” and a “democracy.” The fact that Mr. Paslov apparently doesn’t goes a long way toward explaining why the kids who go to his public schools don’t either.

Fortunately, I’m here to take up the slack. And that concludes our history/civics lesson for the day, kids. Class dismissed.

By Chuck Muth
Special to the Nevada Appeal
November 28, 2008

Please Stumble this page and spread the link around to people you know.

Ultimate Free Market Quotes List
# A government which robs Peter to pay Paul, can always count on the support of Paul. – George Bernard Shaw

# Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. – P.J. O’Rourke

# There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him. – Robert Heinlein

# When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators. – P.J. O’Rourke

# A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away. – Barry Goldwater (1964)

# There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as “caring” and “sensitive” because he wants to expand the government’s charitable programs is merely saying that he’s willing to try to do good with other people’s money. Well, who isn’t? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that he’ll do good with his own money – if a gun is held to his head. – P.J. O’Rourke

# If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else’s expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves. – Thomas Sowell (1992)

# America’s abundance was not created by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. – Ayn Rand

# When you subsidize poverty and failure, you get more of both. – James Dale Davidson, National Taxpayers Union

# Manufacturing and commercial monopolies owe their origin not to a tendency imminent in a capitalist economy but to governmental interventionist policy directed against free trade and laissez faire. – Ludwig Mises,

# Tariffs, quotas and other import restrictions protect the business of the rich at the expense of high cost of living for the poor. Their intent is to deprive you of the right to choose, and to force you to buy the high-priced inferior products of politically favored companies. – Alan Burris, “A Liberty Primer”

# If we were directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we would soon want for bread. – Thomas Jefferson

# The free market punishes irresponsibility. Government rewards it. – Harry Browne

# The “private sector” of the economy is, in fact, the voluntary sector; and…the “public sector” is, in fact, the coercive sector. – Henry Hazlitt

# The welfare state is the oldest con game in the world. First you take people’s money away quietly, and then you give some of it back to them flamboyantly. – Thomas Sowell

# Economic history is a long record of government policies that failed because they were designed with a bold disregard for the laws of economics. – Ludwig von Mises

# Capitalism has created the highest standard of living ever known on earth. The evidence is incontrovertible. The contrast between West and East Berlin is the latest demonstration, like a laboratory experiment for all to see. Yet those who are loudest in proclaiming their desire to eliminate poverty are loudest in denouncing capitalism. Man’s well-being is not their goal. – Ayn Rand, Theory and Practice

# It is a free market that makes monopolies impossible. – Ayn Rand

# Taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor. Seizing the results of someone’s labor is equivalent to seizing hours from him and directing him to carry on various activities. – Robert Nozick, Harvard philosopher

# There are many farm handouts; but let’s call them what they really are: a form of legalized theft. Essentially, a congressman tells his farm constituency, “Vote for me. I’ll use my office to take another American’s money and give it to you.” – Walter Williams, economist and syndicated columnist

# National Health Insurance means combining the efficiency of the Postal Service with the compassion of the I.R.S. … and the cost accounting of the Pentagon. – Louis Sullivan/Connie Horner quoted by Novak

# To tax the larger incomes at a higher percentage than the smaller, is to lay a tax on industry and economy; to impose a penalty on people for having worked harder and saved more than their neighbors. – John Stuart Mill

# Everyone wants to live at the expense of the State. They forget that the State lives at the expense of everyone. – Frédéric Bastiat

# The American Dream was not about government’s taking huge sums of money (under the label of “taxation”) from citizens by force. The American Dream was about individualism and the opportunity to achieve success without interference from others. – Robert Ringer

# People who create things nowadays can expect to be prosecuted by highly moralistic people who are incapable of creating anything. There is no way to measure the chilling effect on innovation that results from the threats of taxation, regulation and prosecution against anything that succeeds. We’ll never know how many ideas our government has aborted in the name protecting us. – Joseph Sobran May 13, 1998 (commenting on US vs Microsoft)

# Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin. Bankruptcies and losses concentrate the mind on prudent behavior. – Allan H. Meltzer

# Taxation with representation ain’t so hot either. – Gerald Barzan

# A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. – Thomas Jefferson (1801)

# The power to tax is the power to destroy. – John Marshall

# [On ancient Athens]: In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again. – Edward Gibbon

# Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. – C. S. Lewis

# A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury. – Alexander Tytler

# A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money. – G. Gordon Liddy

# It is sobering to reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence. – Charles A. Beard

# No one can read our Constitution without concluding that the people who wrote it wanted their government severely limited; the words “no” and “not” employed in restraint of government power occur 24 times in the first seven articles of the Constitution and 22 more times in the Bill of Rights. – Edmund A. Opitz

# The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin. – Mark Twain

# What this country needs are more unemployed politicians. – Edward Langley

# Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt. – Herbert Hoover

# Government never furthered any enterprise but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. – Henry David Thoreau

# Governments harangue about deficits to get more revenue so they can spend more. – Allan H. Meltzer (1993)

# The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another. – Milton Friedman

# If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free. – P.J. O’Rourke (1993)

# The Government is like a baby’s alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other. – Ronald Reagan

# The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. – Winston Churchill

# There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences. – P.J. O’Rourke (1993)

# Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. – Ronald Reagan (1986)

# I was guilty of judging capitalism by its operations and socialism by its hopes and aspirations; capitalism by its works and socialism by its literature. – Sidney Hook

Although BCM included a paragraph on Christians valuing the works of Hayek, Rand and von Mises, it was pretty clear to me that “Unity” was written by a primarily fiscal conservative speaking to other fiscal conservatives. BCM exposed the value in not “politically excommunicating” the religious right from the movement as it would be detrimental to our cause. I agree whole heartedly and in the same spirit of unity I’d like to beg the same question of social conservatives: Consider the Libertarians. What is to be gained and what lost if we politically excommunicate them?

The argument for dismissing the libertarian wing, just like the argument for dismissing the religious right, lies primarily in campaign expedience. This was clearly evident in this year’s election cycle. It is close to impossible to sell a hard-line free market point of view in a retail political world when the free market is collapsing. The populist message is so much more comforting to the average American. Imagine the uproar if Senator McCain had stood up and said, “This is the market correcting itself. This correction will be unbelievably painful. Hundreds of thousands of you will lose your jobs, your homes will devalue, and you will earn less money. And as president I assure you that I will do nothing to stop it, but work to make sure the federal government prevents a repeat by not meddling in the market again.” This seems politically suicidal; however, I believe that acting by what is politically expedient has put us where we are. The benefits of free market principals far outweigh the diligence required to defend the sentiment of this statement.

To understand these benefits from a Christian perspective we must understand the liberty that a valuable life demands. We work tirelessly to defend the unborn life because of the belief that life created in God’s image has supreme value. This value does not lose relevance after birth. This value is what makes the “truths” that the Founders spoke of “self evident.” If individual life has value how dare we use the police power of the state to make it the slave of any other earthly cause? This sentiment is the base of the philosophical argument for libertarianism. In his article “THE ARGUMENT FOR FREE MARKETS: MORALITY VS. EFFICIENCY,” Walter E. Williams of the Cato institute writes:

All too often defenders of free-market capitalism base their defense on the demonstration that capitalism is more efficient in terms of resource allocation and, hence, leads to a larger bundle of goods than socialism and other forms of statism. However, as Milton Friedman frequently points out, economic efficiency and greater wealth should be promoted as simply a side-benefit of free markets. The intellectual defense of free-market capitalism should focus on its moral superiority. In other words, even if free enterprise were not more efficient than other forms of human organization, it is morally superior because it is rooted in voluntary relationships rather than force and coercion, and it respects the sanctity of the individual.

Look at this again and replace “the individual” with the synonym “life.” “…and it respects the sanctity of life.” Looks a lot like the platform of the Christian right, doesn’t it? Americans who value life should be terrified of notions such as using tax policy to achieve “fairness.” By understanding the liberty that valuable life demands we learn the value of an entire movement built around defending this liberty.

It is my belief that this isn’t an impossible sell. That if we understand that a belief in free-market principles doesn’t necessarily stem from greed or selfishness we can convince the majority of Americans to vote on the clearly morally superior message. The common good is a collection of individual lives not some government generated statistic. It is attained by default if we work towards the good of all individuals, not by weighing the relative success and failure of individuals in some sort of social equal-arm balance where a net balance is considered “fair.”

-Scott Thornberry

Usually it’s kept from public view. But not always. The very public spat between Ron Paul supporters and the rest of the Right is a good example of a “not always” moment. So is Mike Huckabee’s lambasting of Libertarians. And Christians are being scape-goated for the GOP’s declining brand popularity due to strongly held views on social issues and Creationism.

Unchecked, the Right may succeed in disemboweling itself. Staunching the bleeding is hard as restricting faith to the heart prevents mental use of biblical warnings about divided houses. Worse, successful “kills” deplete the Right’s strength. We agree on more than we disagree. There are some very real differences and these will need to be worked out. But using exclusion as a tool in this working out is precisely the wrong approach.

Coexisting is not the same as embracing. Social Conservatives can work with Libertarians without embracing the legalization of all drugs and eradication of all borders. Libertarians can reciprocate without “walking an aisle” or surrendering any presumed intellectual superiority. This strengthens us all at little cost. Intentionally devouring one another, on the other hand, not only thins the ranks physically, it depletes stores of philosophical and principle based strength as well.

Consider the Christians. What is to be gained and what lost if we politically excommunicate them?

No more sheep bleating about abortion and the sanctity of marriage. No more accusations of ignorance over Creationism or Intelligent Design. If that is all that’s lost, perhaps it’s a good thing to give believers the “Left Foot of Fellowship” as they exit the building. But what else do we lose?

We lose the stature and strength Christianity has to speak truth to power. From Nathan to King David and John the Baptist to Herod to William Wilberforce to Slavers and today’s Pro-Lifers, Christianity has been the platform from which many a naked emperor’s exposure has been exposed.

We lose the foundation from which to fight the relativism of the Left. The culture we enjoy did not simply arise from nothing. Christianity provides instruction to those who value it. Imperfectly built structure? Absolutely. But a valuable structure, nonetheless. 16th Century Europe birthed two influences on developing Western Civilization. The Renaissance, steeped in “Man is the measure of all things”, gave us Humanism and the French Revolution with its horrors. The Reformation, steeped in “God is the measure of all things”, gave us the means to judge the behavior of all men, even Kings, and the American Revolution with its Freedoms and Rights.

Evangelicals who would force Libertarians from the ranks produce a similar drain. The works of Hayek, Rand and von Mises may not be theological masterpieces in the Christian sense. But their impact on Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness cannot be overestimated. We need people who champion their beliefs as we need those who champion Christian faith.

Those with their minds made up will accept no argument to the contrary. To them I offer a hearty Godspeed and Fair Winds. You are going where I cannot and dare not follow. But for those who agree, and more importantly to those who are unsure, I offer a welcome to the Don’t Go Movement. Based on the premise that which unites us is more important than that which divides us, DGM is a community dedicated to working together despite differences. The New Testament word for “unity” is “symphonia”. The unity of the disparate instruments in a modern symphony is not all sounding the same. Rather it is all sounding together, at the proper time and with their individual contributions.

At DGM you’ll find a broad range of philosophies and principles. While all are Right of Center, not all who are Right of Center hold them. It makes for spirited debate. It makes for a learning experience. And serving in unity makes us a near unstoppable force when we turn, as one, to focus on that which we both hold dear.

Join us won’t you? Woodwind or brass, percussion or string, we’ve got a chair with your name on it. Come lend your passion to the pieces we play. You won’t be sorry!

Written by: Blue Collar Muse

First, we’d like to thank the thousands of activists, bloggers, and concerned voters who have reached out to us since August 1st. I’ve personally spent many years working in community development, collaborative politics, new media and online activism, and I’ve never seen anything remotely close to what we have happening with the #dontgo Movement.

It’s encouraging to know that I’m not alone in my quest to push back against bankrupt liberal policies and those who seek to destroy everything the free-market movement has acheived since this great country began.

To each of you who have emailed us, sent us words of encouragement, and offered your assistance, we thank you and wish you a Happy Thanksgiving.

Secondly, we’re in the unfortunate position as a country to literally have to watch Nationalism and Socialism roll out right before our eyes. Bad Government is now dominating in Washington, and people who have no clue what they are doing are throwing hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars, along with enormous amounts of government involvement, in to the free-market realm.

This is a dangerous attack on our free-market system, and we need to make sure that those who are truly representing the taxpayers by opposing this madness know that we appreciate them.

So, to each and every member of Congress who opposes anti-American bailouts, we thank you!

And finally, a HUGE thank you is in order for the core group of individuals who have worked to bring the #dontgo Movement to where it is today.

#dontgo Movement Board
Allen Fuller, Elizabeth Blackney, Sherri Reese, and Richard Disney.

Communications
Juliana Johnson

Tech/Web Dev
Ali Akbar, Aaron Marks, Darrin Dickey, Bradley Hankins, and the group that hasn’t yet started working but have agreed to.

Oh… and Leslie Harrington for her AMAZING graphic design ninja skills.

SEO/Marketing
Brian Horn, Kelly Berry, Beth Cleaver and Michael Martin.

News Platoon Team
Matt Wolking, John McJunkin, Ken Marrero, David West, Chris Arndt, Willie Lawson, Scott Thornberry, Truman Bean, Joshua Arrowood, Nathan Moore, Rob Shearer, Krystle Weeks, Doug Welch, Dillon Roark, Josh Shroeder, Michael Emlong, John Brodigan, Alo Konsen, David Hill, Shanan Glandz, Kimberly West, Anne Winkler, Michael Francis, Martin Stytz, Andrew Cardarelli, Walt Gilbert, Dawn Maldonado, John Olsen.

#dontgo Radio
Tricia Cunningham and Nikki Star (who ROCKS btw…)

There are many, MANY who have not been named here, but I can assure each of you that you’re on our thoughts as we work to develop one of the most ambitious TRUE grassroots, collaborative movements our country has ever seen.

That being said, THANK YOU and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

And to everyone not on the list, to everyone on Twitter, to anyone celebrating Thanksgiving today… HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

In fact, I had stayed up two nights in a row to design and develop a website that would rally conservatives in Washoe County to get out the votes for Bush. My website was located at washoerepublicans.com, the official website was located at washoerepublicans.org.

I had created the website, with full intentions of giving it to the GOP so they could use it to help get Bush elected. I was young, excited, and thrilled to have designed a state of the art website unlike anything the Nevada GOP had ever seen. Granted, the site was terrible when compared to today’s standards, but back then it was a pretty good attempt at building a tool that could foster online community.

In fact, this is what the Washoe Republicans had at the time… this is what I was providing.

One would think that the GOP would have been excited about this new site, especially considering the fact that a 24 year old kid walked in off the street and built it for free, right?

Wrong.

Instead, Jane Maxfield, a terrible excuse for leadership, called the Bush campaign guy and demanded that I immediately remove the website. You see, Maxfield couldn’t fathom the idea that someone had built and understood a platform that utilized the power of the web without the GOP having a say or understanding of it themselves. So instead of embracing my actions and integrating it into their plans, they kicked me to the curb and insulted my work for them.

That was my first time volunteering for the Nevada GOP, and from that day on I felt like I was at constant war with them when it came to engaging new, young individuals to be politically active while using the internet to organize.

But that was 2004… surely things have changed, right?

Well, yes and no. Yes, because the GOP at least acknowledges a need for online infrastructure/organization/activism. No, because the GOP still believes this is a realm they need to control.

Note to GOP… you cannot control new media. The second you think you can is the same second you FAIL.

Today I found, via Leslie Carbone, another prime example of the GOP establishment’s complete failure to understand new media. For the record, I believe that it can be seen as innocent to misunderstand something such as new media, but I also believe that if you refuse to admit you lack the understanding, and instead assert yourself king of the realm, you FAIL.

As you can see, the Virginia GOP establishment, along with several key GOP insiders, have committed the ultimate new media sin. They did this by attempting to inject themselves into the Virginia blogosphere as a dominate resource that, according to them, will be the “ONLY major Republican blog in all of Virginia”.

This ultimate FAIL action was committed by the Hampton Roads GOP. While they’ve since changed the language on their website and removed the assertion of being the “ONLY” major Republican blog in all of Virginia, they still have what I would consider offensive comments.

Such as “Yes there are numerous blogs on the web currently; however, we are a venue for Republicans.”

What is that supposed to mean? Is BearingDrift not a venue for Republicans? Is it just one of those “numerous blogs on the web”?

BearingDrift, in fact, called Hampton Roads GOP out on this.

There are two ways the Hampton Roads GOP could have responded to this.

A) The right way
HRGOP should have written a post of apology, admitting it was badly worded and admitting that they should have worked with the Virginia blogosphere as a network of people looking to promote free-market conservatism.

b) The wrong way
HRGOP should enter the comment war happening on the post, dig their heels in, and defend their pitiful attempt to assert themselves king of new media in Virginia.

The HRGOP chose to go with option B. Read through the comments on the post at Bearing Drift and you’ll see what I mean.

The GOP has a hard lesson to learn here. In summary, that lesson is that you can never, under any circumstance, control new media. You can’t control the message, you can’t control the technology, and you can’t control the people. You can’t “use” new media, and you can’t make it push your agenda.

And you can never, NEVER insult the blogosphere and then expect it to embrace you.

The real trick is to roll your sleeves up and immerse yourself. Don’t claim to be a “professional”. Instead, claim to be someone wanting to learn and build relationships. Work to develop networks and build friendships. Work to help people trust you.

Then, and ONLY then can you launch a website and integrate it safely in to the center-right blogosphere. As an individual you can do whatever you like, but as an organization with a partisan agenda, you have everything to lose.

And in this case, HRGOP… you lost.

As a final parting note, I would like to offer this last list of ideas. When pitching yourselves as “A project of the Republican Professionals Network”, you should probably be professional enough to consult with actual bloggers to ensure you know the following.

1) A site built by Yahoo Hosting is not ground breaking in new media. In fact, it’s rather archaic.
2) A site with no RSS feeds that claims to be a “blog”… really?
3) A “Helpful Links” page that doesn’t link to a single Virginia blog is not really helping your pledge of being a new media source
4) If you’re going to ask me to volunteer, perhaps you should tell me what I’m volunteering for, and what I can do to help.
5) You should really have a phone number somewhere on your website
6) Admit you were wrong, get over it, and move on

Nuff said…

-Eric Odom