The Other McCain

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Post-Mortem: CSI Illinois

Posted on | February 3, 2010 | 6 Comments

Dan Riehl says he doesn’t want to engage in hindsight recriminations over the Illinois gubernatorial campaign. As I explained at The American Spectator in the wee hours this morning, the evident narrow victory for state Sen. Bill Brady appears to be a less-bad outcome for conservatives, however disappointing it may be for Adam Andrzejewski’s Tea Party supporters.

In addressing what he sees as a failure of the conservative blogosphere, Riehl writes:

Brady never did make it on our radar.

OK, so whose fault was that? I didn’t see any online activism from the Brady campaign. Maybe Brady’s operatives figured they could win without New Media coverage — and, at this point, who can argue with that calculation? — but if they wanted to generate such coverage, they didn’t make any discernible effort.

Meanwhile, Andrzejewski had Tea Party activists who were employing social networking tools to spread their message. And near the end of the campaign (a bit too late, probably) they engaged the services of a very strong New Media team. An extra week’s advance notice of the Lech Walesa Tea Party appearance in Chicago would have been priceless. But rather than try explaining Andrzejewski, let’s let Brady explain his own victory:

“It’s clean break from the politics of the past,” Brady said. “We’re going to go on to victory in November.” . . .
“Our strategy was simple,” said Brady, the only downstate candidate. “We were running against five, six Chicago guys. We needed to solidify our base. But we did that 11 months ago by deciding we had to build the strongest grassroots effort this state has ever seen.”

Second-guessing campaign strategies is a fascinating sport. However, if there is any New Media takeaway from the Illinois gubernatorial primary, it is this: Campaigns would be wise to engage the blogosphere early in the election cycle, rather than to treat online outreach as an afterthought. (My friend JSF at Valley of the Shadow has been trying to explain this to the California GOP.)

You’ll excuse me for not writing a complete thesis on this subject, but I’m in a hurry today. Tomorrow evening, I’m expected at dinner in Birmingham, Ala., and it’s a 14-hour drive.

Category: Blogging, Dan Riehl, Election, Illinois

Comments

6 Responses to “Post-Mortem: CSI Illinois”

  1. Phineas
    February 3rd, 2010 @ 2:19 pm

    The CA GOP is largely clueless, but we do have a candidate for the nomination who “gets” social networking and the tea-party movement, and has from the start: Chuck DeVore. Carpetbagging Tom Campbell may lead the race right now, but I wouldn’t count out DeVore’s online presence, nor his own shoe-leather work in traveling all over the state.

  2. Phineas
    February 3rd, 2010 @ 7:19 pm

    The CA GOP is largely clueless, but we do have a candidate for the nomination who “gets” social networking and the tea-party movement, and has from the start: Chuck DeVore. Carpetbagging Tom Campbell may lead the race right now, but I wouldn’t count out DeVore’s online presence, nor his own shoe-leather work in traveling all over the state.

  3. Because of the local stuff… « DaTechguy's Blog
    February 3rd, 2010 @ 6:48 pm

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