Online and Grassroots Campaigning… What Do You Think?

With the lull in campaign related news right now, I thought it might be a good time to brainstorm, borrow and discuss ideas for implementing an effective grassroots movement online.  Hopefully, this will be a work in progress as people comment.  If not, I guess it will just be a bulleted list of what I think various online campaigns are doing right.  Feel free and be encouraged to add your ideas or thoughts in the comments. 

So, here it is (follow the links to see the ideas in action):

• - Team Huckabee’s “Tell Us Why You Like Mike” YouTube series is a great idea.  YouTube, obviously, has endless possibilities.  Vincent is doing a great job and judging by the progress, working hard on the Explorehuckabee.com Blog.  If you have the means, Upload videos telling the world (in any way you choose – within reason) why you like Mike to YouTube, and tag them as Huckabee, or e-mail them to vincent.harris@explorehuckabee.com.
• - Team Huckabee’s Barber Pole idea for fundraising, capitalizing on the Edwards joke, was brilliant.  Speaking of Fundraising and good ideas…when you Contribute to the Huckabee Campaign, make sure you head over to Ktracy.com and Sloane Reality to let them know.  They are both matching contributions 100% right now.  Also, Lisa from Massachusetts for Huckabee is offering up control of her blog for a day if you make a contribution and have it matched the 200% from Kevin and Sloane.
• - Fred (or Friends of Fred – because I’m pretty sure he is resting), on imwithfred.com, asks his supporters to call Talk Radio.  They even provide you with a form to select your state and media market in order to get a list of talk radio stations (and their numbers) that serve your area.
• - Again from imwithfred.com, the Fred campaign wants his supporters to get the word out by writing “Letters to the Editor.”  Understanding that most people are lazy and/or have A.D.D., the Fred Team supplies the Fredheads with a simple three-step form where you select the newspapers, provide your contact information, compose a brief letter and click submit.  I assume, at this point, it automatically sends the letter to each of the papers you selected.  Very Nice.  Well done.
• - I have also noticed that on each candidate’s site, there are small links to their relative social networking pages…such as, and .  Twitter, btw, has great potential in a presidential campaign application.  I first came across twitter in a social application and it seemed a tad trite, in a stalker kind of way.  But, in a campaign, it provides the candidate with an effective method to keep his supporters feeling connected.  If you want to see it in action, check out John Edwards’ Twitter Site or Obama or Chris Dodd.
• - The “Hillary for President” campaign asks her Hillbots to become “HillRaisers.”  They create an account and get a raiser code.  Then, they set a personal fundraising goal and try to reach it.  Using hillaryclinton.com/contribute/[yourcode], they track their progress.  Team Hillary also implements the same method to encourage and track recruiting activity.
• - A few of the candidates have sections of their websites devoted to States and/or Communities.  That seems like it should be a given.
• - Bill Richardson has an excellent “Action Center.”  Check it out…plethora of ideas there.
• - Chris Dodd uses a simple calendar in an effective way to keep track of events for the Dodd Squad.  Sounds simple…but, not every campaign does it.
• - Then there is Ron Paul.  The man could start a grassroots campaign in the Himalayas and 45,000 people would trek there the next day.  Nevertheless, I like how he uses Meetup.  I also like that he has download items to print and links to Cafepress Items.
• - Pardon me, but I need to yell this…A CAMPAIGN STORE!!!  Power it by Cafepress, if need be, but a campaign store is pretty important.  Maybe, even solicit campaign supporters to submit their designs for t-shirts, mugs, bumper stickers, etc.
• - UPDATE:  John Edwards’ OneCorps “Online Community for Offline Action” is genius. (Thanks Hawt)
• - UPDATE:  GOP Team Leaders also have a very good “Action Center.” (Thanks, Kevin)
• - UPDATE:  Kathy from Michigan Redneck has created a message board.  Check it out here.
• - UPDATE:  Elephantbiz.com recently gave Explorehuckabee.com a good grade, A-.  While it is an overall positive review, they do seem to agree with us (those of you in the comments) about the Social Networking and Action segments, or lack thereof. 
  

  “What’s missing from Huckabee’s campaign website is links to official Huckabee pages on MySpace, YouTube and Facebook. Also, Huckabee should make it easy for bloggers to add a “Help Huckabee” button or donations box to their web sites. It wouldn’t cost much and might help him bring in some desperately needed cash.  In terms of effective and broad use of social media, I’d give the overall effort a grade of A-.”