Six months after its worst defeat in a Presidential Election since 1996, Republican’s battle for party leadership, modernization

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second of a three part series about the future of the Republican Party.

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President Barack Obama’s ascent to the White House left the Republican Party scrambling to match his unprecedented and groundbreaking use of technology on the campaign trail.

John McCain, once seen as an innovator in the use of online campaigning, was no match to Obama’s presence on social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace, leaving him incapable of reaching young voters.

Now, over six months since Obama’s inauguration, the GOP is working to bring its online presence up to snuff. In May the GOP announced it had hired new developers for it’s website in an attempt to revamp the party’s “digital presence.”

The press release cited Pew poll results which found Republicans as a whole (68%) are actually more likely to be online political users then Democrats (53%).

New party chairman Michael Steele has vocalized that online improvement and presence will be a priority during his rein. So far this has included an increased presence on social networking sites as well as on YouTube, which the party has used to debut political ads and other campaigns.

Republicans for a Reason website

Another new site birthed after Obama’s victory, grassroots site RepublicanForAReason.com was developed by the RNC with the goal of giving voters a platform to share their opinions about the future direction of the party. When the site was launched, former RNC Chairman Mike Duncan said “we need to hear what our volunteers, activists, elected leaders, and party members think about the Republican Party as we rebuild, re-focus, and renew our bond with the American people.”

But while new website may help inspire a new generation of Republicans, social networking possibly played a much larger role in 2008.

According to blogger Pete Quilty, Obama clearly had the edge on social networking sites.

As of the day after the election, Obama had 2,444,384 Facebook supporters, while McCain had only 627,459. On Myspace, Obama could boast 859,000 friends, almost three times as many as McCain’s 319,000. The Obama campaign had posted 1,819 YouTube videos, 451% more than McCain’s 330.

As for Twitter, one of the newest social networking sites, Obama had 115,623 followers and had posted 262 updates, while McCain had a mere 4911 followers and had posted a minuscule 25 updates.

Some GOP presidential hopefuls have jumped on the Twitter bandwagon. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal joined the site in March and has already amassed 28,584 followers, while former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has a stunning 562,281 followers and has posted over 600 updates.

The 2008 presidential cycle wasn’t a complete wash for Republicans in terms of online innovation.

One area in which some GOP candidates did well was online fundraising.

Voters contributed over 1673 million dollars to presidential candidates last year, with donations to GOP candidates making up about 600 million of that.

Yet, Republicans trailed significantly behind Democrats in online fundraising.

One candidate who was able to master both social networking and online fundraising was Texas Congressman Ron Paul, who’s online presence kept his seemingly Dark Horse campaign living late into the primary season.

Utilizing the “money bomb” technique, in which a mass of donors pledge to donate a set amount of money, Paul campaign set multiple campaigning records.

On November 5, 2007, his campaign raised over $4.3 million, the largest amount collected on a single day by any Republican candidate the largest amount of online fundraising in a single day ever. The campaign broke both of those records with its second money bomb on December 16. The fundraiser, held on the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, brought in over $6 million.

Future GOP candidates would be wise to carefully analyze Paul’s campaigning tactics, and emulate his online presence if they hope to unseat President Obama.

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