Republican sharpening tools online for 2012

"Hi, everyone," Mr. Obama said in the video of YouTube 30 seconds published Monday on its Facebook page. "" "". I want just to take a minute to invite you to a meeting of City Hall on the economy that I am held this Wednesday, April 20, at the headquarters of Facebook. It will be streamed live, and I will answer questions from people across the country.

Tuesday afternoon, more than 22,000 people had signed.

All this is part of the effort of the re-election of Mr. Obama to use social media and other online tools to galvanize supporters. But, unlike the last presidential campaign, Republicans are better prepared to compete online in the 2012 competition.

"The idea that the Internet was the property of Liberals, held by the left following the victory of Obama, has been proven false," said Republican Patrick Ruffini, a political strategist who now advises the exploratory campaign of Tim Pawlentythe former Governor of Minnesota, after working as a digital campaign of President George w. Bush in 2004 and later Republican National Committee Advisor.

In the elections of last year, Republican caught with Democrats in the use of technology and social networks, and many Republicans, elected to the House and the Senate now are the use of these tools more than DemocratsAccording to several policies and technology experts.

"This will be the first election in modern history that the two parties are understanding the potential of technology to change the results of the election,", said Andrew Rasiej, co-founder TechPresident.com, a blog which covers politics and technology and to advise digital Democrats since the presidential campaign of Howard Dean in 2004. "Republicans and Democrats are ready to use online platforms and are more skeptical about its potential."

What the Republicans acknowledged after the defeat of bruising Senator John McCain in 2008, it is that Mr. Obama digital strategy has been deeply integrated in its campaign in the real world. The team of Mr. Obama used its Web site, e-mails and text messages to further spread his message of the campaign. Tools easy for people to make a donation online, to volunteer for the operation on the ground, particularly in the States of the caucus and to assume responsibility for other aspects of the campaign, as the Assembly of neighbours for a chat groups and the creation of the Obama ' 08 iPhone application.

"You learn more to lose than to win sometimes," said Matt Lira, who worked on the digital team for the presidential campaign of Mr. McCain and who is now Director of new media for representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the leader of the House Republican majority.

Mr. Lira said that the Republicans in the House, meeting in January 2009, is committed to enter the digital game and stingy in the elections of the year last mid-term to register for the members and potential candidates on Twitter and Facebook.

"You do not become a top home recruit unless you intend to make robust use of the Web," said Mr. Lira.

Sarah Palin, who started a whole new Web site Tuesday with features that allow supporters to easily make a donation to his political action Committee, has since long a presence established and robust on Twitter and Facebook, where it has nearly 2.9 million fans. Other Republican possible presidential contenders in 2012, including Newt Gingrich, representative Michele Bachmann and Mike Huckabee, thus use of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Mitt Romney announced his exploratory Committee week last with a video, an update on his Facebook page, which has nearly 845,000 members, a post to Twitter with the hashtag # mitt2012 and a new Web site.

Mr. Pawlenty introduced an innovative twist: a layer social gaming borrowed to Farmville and Foursquare grants insignia and supporters who fully participate in the campaign. For example, supporters get 10 points for their Facebook account to login to the website of the campaign and 5 points for adding their Twitter account. If you post a message on your Facebook page or create your own group, you get a badge.

Facebook, in particular, allows candidates to collect valuable data. By obtaining permission from advocates to use their Facebook account to log on, campaigns can have access, within the parameters of confidentiality of the user, a fan email address, hometown and personal network. "Days to go to a Web site and entering and waiting to hear a volunteer coordinator on how you can get involved are completed," said Mr. Ruffini.

No Republican or democratic digital strategists say that social media, mobile and other tools digital only will win a campaign. While Facebook and other social media channels will no doubt powerful tools for 2012 presidential candidates, voters can still expect a deluge of advertising mail and the traditional television campaign.

"We look at the number of Facebook fans, visits to the Web, and it is not anywhere near the scope of television," said Mr. Ruffini. "" "". "But things like the Facebook RSS news feed gives us the ability to provide information in the popular average feeds."

Democrats paired Republican voters in their use of these tools, with 40 percent of online users Republican with respect to social media to get politically involved in a campaign, compared to 38% of democratic voters, according to a study by the Pew Research Center for the Internet and Society. Tea Party supporters are particularly likely to use social media to connect with a candidate or a political group.

"It is not necessarily that Democrats or young liberals have become less active," said Aaron Smith, the author of the study. "It is more than older adults, conservative voters and Tea Party activists come to join the party."

Republican presidential candidates still face a formidable foe online at Mr. Obama. He announced his re-election campaign this month with an explosion of email and text message, posts on Twitter, a short video on YouTube and a new app that connects their Facebook friends on his site campaign with a question and supporters"Are you in?"

"We will use social media and the latest available technology neighbourhood by neighbourhood, home to all corners of the country, to supply the energy and commitment of the people on the ground, by a community," said Katie Hogan, a spokesman for the campaign for the re-election of Mr. Obama.

View the original article here

Sharing of Republican Votes pass Budget Bill

The House and Senate planned to vote on the spending plan on Thursday, the time limit before the expiry of a palliative very short-term funding measure worked on late Friday night. About two days between the revelation of details of the plan Tuesday morning and the Thursday vote, Republicans and Democrats have a chance to express their skepticism about the Bill.

Jordan's Jim representative of Ohio, who is Chairman of the study Commission Republican of the influential House, said Tuesday that he would oppose the measure because it does not cut in federal spending.

"Even if I respect that some Republican colleagues will be finally support this deal spending," Mr. Jordan said in a statement. "" "". I think voters are asking us to set our sights higher. ?

The Committee, composed of approximately 175 Republican House, forced the House Appropriations Committee to push higher reductions in its beak original spending, ultimately failed in the Senate.

While only 28 Republicans voted against the deck plan to keep money flowing to the vote on Thursday, it is likely that some of the Republicans who supported the measure sought to avoid a Government shutdown and will vote nay on the Bill to fund the Government through the rest of the year.

In a meeting with journalists, the majority leader House, representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, while saying that he understood that the Bill was "strong Republican support," conceded Tuesday that he was not sure that the Bill would pass without the support of Democrats. "Certainly we will always ask for them," he said about the Democrats.

House Democrats also largely supported the agreement reached on Friday evening, but it was a little unclear where they would be held this week on a Bill hacks away at some of their favorite programs, although reductions are less than Republicans had requested.

"My presumption, it is we do not know where are our people," representative, h. Steny Hoyer, the minority whip, said Tuesday morning in a meeting with journalists. "I do not think that they know where their people are," he said of Republicans.

If more than 24 members Republican defects, Democrats would be necessary to pass the legislation. The failure of the law - a project unlikely but not impossible, prospect - would lead to a decision of Government.

Large Republican defections would not necessarily lead to this result, but it would be an embarrassment for President John a. Boehner.

Republican leaders moved to show the unit for the measurement, which incorporates meaningful concessions from Democrats, who has been a success of the environmental and education programs, and the Republicans, who did not get anywhere near $ 61 billion in reductions they sought.

"I applaud the leadership of Chairman Boehner in securing tens of billions of dollars in spending cuts, forcing the President and the leaders of his party to the retirement of their wanton profligacy," representative Paul d. Ryan of Wisconsinthe Chairman of the House Budget Committee, said in a news release. "The history of cut spending in turn the page of pervasive culture of spending Washington, to send a welcome signal to creators of jobs and cleaning the damage without previous budget left by the last Congress.

The plan of spending cuts in the current financial year $ 38 billion. The House will also vote on two separate measures: one at the end of the federal funding of family planning and the second cancel the redesign of the health of 2009. If the invoices are approved, they will go to the Senate for a vote on the same day, where family planning and health measures are almost certainly doomed.

Last week, a fight over money for family planning has threatened to derail negotiations on the measure to fund the Government through September 30. House Republicans sought to withdraw all federal funding for family planning and other family planning services and to deliver those dollars to the States instead of this. The President Obama and Senate Democrats firmly to rider of this policy, and it was finally abandoned.

On Tuesday, Mr. Cantor said that Republicans would continue to seek ways to take federal money to family planning. "Where I think that we have always been," he said, "is to reflect that we believe very strongly that the Government $ should not be used to fund abortion." (In fact it is already in a federal statute to use Federal dollars to get an abortion.)

With the Senate, the expenditure face skepticism of the more conservative members plan, which do not make enough cups, and most liberal members, such as Senator Bernard Sanders, independent of Vermont, who said Tuesday that he would reject the measure because it was "Reverse Robin Hood in meaning." Again, passing in this Chamber appeared likely.

View the original article here