Obama’s New Media Guru Slams RNC’s Steele, GOP Internet Strategy

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Michael Steele, the new chairman of the Republican National Committee, has promised to take his party “beyond cutting edge.” But Joe Rospars, the man behind the Obama campaign’s incredibly successful new media outreach, said that the RNC’s current internet strategy is “all smoke and mirrors marketing.”

On Tuesday, Rospars took part in a question-and-answer session about the impact of technology on politics hosted by the left-leaning think tank NDN. Rospars dinged the Republicans’ much-criticized request for a proposal (PDF) to redesign its website, laughing that his company, Blue State Digital, certainly won’t be competing for the business. (Lefty BSD probably wouldn’t respond to the RFP anyway, of course, but Rospars brought it up out of the blue—he was obviously referring to the widespread mockery it had already received.) He criticized the GOP’s email list, boasting that the Obama campaign’s 13-million-strong list was developed in an “organic” way. “We didn’t purchase lists and just add people to our email list,” he said. “The point of having a big email list isn’t just to say you have a big email list. The RNC says they have a however big email list, but the point is to actually have relationships with people so they open the message, they listen to what you’re saying, and they’re willing to do something,” he said.

Rospars suggested that it’s a mistake to see the use of social networking technologies and new media as ends in themselves—in other words, using tools like twitter and facebook are ways of mobilizing a following, but they don’t ensure you’ll get one. Without adopting “the ethos of building an organization from the bottom-up,” the GOP will have trouble catching up, Rospars said.

Meanwhile, Rospars is doing his best to make sure the GOP doesn’t catch up. He says that of the 100 best ideas he and his team came up with during the campaign, they only used about 15. He’s won’t be talking about those in public. He doesn’t want to “give anybody any ideas.”

Too bad for Michael Steele.

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate