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Everyone's On The Internet Stump
While congressional Republicans and Democrats hardly agree on anything these days, they are on the same page when it comes to the Internet. The congressional campaign committees on both sides of the aisle are gearing up to use the medium in this year's congressional races and a big component of their strategy is fund raising.
Almost every day during the past month there has been a news reference to the success that presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, has had in using the Internet to raise millions, enabling him to challenge the better-funded GOP favorite Texas Gov. George W. Bush. In a Republican presidential candidate debate Thursday night in Los Angeles, McCain said his campaign had reaped $7 million in Internet contributions.
The campaign committees have taken notice. The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) are revamping their Web sites to allow contributions over the Internet. They plan to help their candidates on the trail to use the Web as part of their campaign strategies.
"McCain's experience shows that if you have a candidate who is hot, you can use the Internet to really tap into the momentum and get people jazzed up" about giving money and volunteering, said Eric London, spokesman for House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-MO. "If a candidate doesn't have a Web site this year, they are just wasting opportunity."
For months, the DCCC has been sending e-mail alerts to donors, the public and the media about news stories that are favorable to Democratic candidates, helping to build a general perception that the party has an edge in retaking the leadership of the House.
The NRCC has started its own e-mail alert to donors and the media with quotes, polls and other information showing that the GOP will hold on to the leadership. The NRCC is using the Web to collect daily, local headline stories across the country in districts with close races. The NRCC uses the stories to develop targeted policy agendas for candidates running in those districts.
"The Internet is a weapon for us to use to win," said NRCC spokesman Jim Wilkinson.
Over in the Senate, the National Republican Senatorial Committee also has an Internet fund-raising component, as well as a targeted e-mail alert on Republican issues. Additionally, the NRSC last summer developed an outreach program to the high-tech community to help with its fund-raising efforts and recently brought in more than 50 high-tech lobbyists to spend more than an hour discussing their policy agendas with about a dozen Republican senators.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) hasn't been far behind. Although the DSCC decided against creating an Internet fund-raising component, it is advising its individual candidates to include fund-raising abilities on their Web sites. The committee also named Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-VT, and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-OR, to co-chair a task force on developing a long-term fund-raising strategy aimed at the high-tech business community.
"High-tech voters are now almost every American. People are doing so many things on the Internet, from buying stock to buying clothes," said Wilkinson. "Without a doubt, the Internet will be important to this election. People are starting to see which candidate is with them and who isn't when it comes to Internet issues…and anyone who doesn't see that has missed the train."
The campaign committees are gearing up now for the November election. Mike Cornfield, a professor at George Washington University's graduate school of political management, said it takes months to build a good Web site that includes creating e-mail lists and integrating the site into an overall campaign strategy.
Still, he cautioned candidates not to expect to harvest Net contributions the way McCain has over the past month. He said McCain's success was a reflection of the combination of the candidate's charisma as well as a good Web and fund-raising strategy.
"The Internet doesn't create political momentum," said Cornfield, who will be releasing an informational book on how to use the Internet in campaigns. "You can convert momentum into tangible political assets with greater speed and efficiency than ever before. That will change politics."
Beyond using the medium for fund-raising, the DCCC and the NRCC have developed a policy agenda for their candidates to woo the support of high-tech voters. CapNet, the Washington, DC, area's high-tech lobbying group, recently invited DCCC Chairman Patrick Kennedy, D-RI, and NRCC Chairman Tom Davis, R-VA, to give their pitch to high-tech executives.
Kennedy said DCCC candidates will focus on improving education to train future high-tech workers for the new economy, will work to make the research and development tax credit permanent and will push to extend the moratorium on new Internet taxes. Davis told the group that Republicans would lift the cap on skilled worker visas to help relieve the current worker shortage, would work to pass permanent normal trade relations with China, would pass digital signature legislation and would keep regulators' hands off the Internet.
The jury is still out on whether high-tech policy issues will resonate with most voters in November. Several political analysts have said that until a high-tech company comes out in opposition to a particular candidate or party, high-tech issues will remain second tier to Social Security, health care and education. Others, however, said it is a matter of explaining to voters why high-tech policy should matter to them.
For example, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-VA, represents Roanoke, VA, a region that has very little high-tech industry. Still, Goodlatte has become a leader on high-tech issues and co-chairs the congressional Internet Caucus as well as a working group on high-tech for the House GOP leadership.
"You can make high-tech play if you can identify the issues, explain it to voters and show them why it is important," Goodlatte said. "In Roanoke, voters didn't realize how important it is until we started asking them about it and talking to them about it."
 | - by Bara Vaida |
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