E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Republicans will embark upon a major restructuring of their digital strategy as part of the Republican National Committee's new autopsy of the 2012 elections, NBC News has learned.
When the RNC on Monday releases the findings of its "Growth and Opportunity Project" — the report ordered by Chairman Reince Priebus on the party's losses in the 2012 campaign — it will emphasize closing the GOP's widely-reported technological gap versus Democrats.
RNC chief of staff Mike Shields, whom Priebus recently hired to help shepherd the RNC's modernization, said he is working on "fundamentally restructuring the way the RNC works so it is centered around the technology department."
Shields said that the release of the RNC's report on Monday "kicks off the 2016 election cycle," pledging an unprecedented commitment to data and technology.
Republicans have repeatedly and openly talked since the election about their data disadvantage versus the Obama campaign. The president's re-election team's sophisticated, cutting-edge digital operation has been robustly chronicled since the election, and credited with helping propel Obama to a second term.
Shields was reluctant to divulge any specifics of the RNC's new commitment to digital efforts, but said it would be far broader than any simple social media campaign. The RNC also intends to take its new tech operation on the road, to showcase the party's new capabilities for state parties, campaigns and activists.
"By first combining digital, data and tech, you are creating synergy in all of those areas based upon what data you are creating and what it tells you about voters," he said. "But further, by putting that entire department at the center of the organization, you are making your fundraising pitches better and your voter contact much better to ultimately help you win elections."
Republicans' new emphasis was spurred, in part, by Priebus's own meetings with various factions of the party across the country since the election to hear out concerns. To that end, he recently went to Silicon Valley and met with Facebook in order to deal with a recurrent theme he was hearing — that the Republican party was not technically on par with their Democratic counterparts.
RNC spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski belied that holding a digital team in such high esteem was a rarity in the party, even during Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's presidential campaign.
"The digital campaign was not intergrated into daily decisions," said Kukowski. "But the digital department is not just in some basement anymore."
Leave a Comment:
Try as they will, they just can't bring the Republican party into the 21st Century. Maybe it would be better to just scrap it and start from scratch. You know, have a diverse group - in age, race, ethnicity, sex - maybe actually represent the PEOPLE of this country!
Sorry, lost it there for a moment and actually thought about reality - something the GOP is sorely trying to avoid!
too late, the RNC has missed their bus into the 21st century... the GOP will stay in the Stone Age for some time to come. The RNC is there to merely digitalize their caveman possessions.
ya mean the tin foil hat and aluminum foil don't work......maybe they can train to use an abacus instead....
Maybe if they started treating women, blacks, asians, latinos, gays, straights, non religious and any other minority with a little respect instead of catering to the stale, male, pale crowd they might get somewhere....
This is the same pointless idea as, they don't have to change their "principles" they just need to change their messaging . . . .
as long as they continue to wage their war on women by pushing things like vaginal ultrasound bills & trying to deny access to birth control; as long as they oppose comprehensive immigration reform; as long as they oppose raising the minimum wage; as long as they refuse to raise taxes a bit on the 1%; as long as they are the fear-mongering/science-denying/pro-gun violence/voter suppression/going back to the 1950's/regressive/47% party . . . .
it doesn't matter how good they get at manipulating technology, because the majority of people will still reject their policies . . . only ~22% of voters will even admit to being "Republican" anymore. Meanwhile, Progressives continue to move . . .
.
FORWARD! :-)
They need to put a gag on Paul Ryan, in no way will very many vote to end medicare, Social Security as this WI. clown has proposed. Throwing granny and grandpa under the bus is one thing, but the future grannies and grandpa's want and will use those things and Ryan and the republican party was told in Nov. that a voucher is not acceptable, and yet here he is back with a voucher. Boo to Paul Ryan, and to the republican party.
Part of the reason the GOP is not connected, digitally, is that the core of their base is not. The majority of the supporters of the Republican Party, particularly the Tea Party extremists are either over the age of 65 or under educated. Embracing technology means expanding your mind and your understanding of the world. That is inherently antithetical to the ultra-conservative, evangelical Christian way of thinking.
Republicans only hire firms willing to tickle their ears. No one else. What good will 21st century technology do when people voting for them hardly know how to use a computer themselves? Much like the GOP. their voters are stuck in the 1950s and unable to make good use of technology. A smart move would be to park yourself in colleges across the country and listen to your future leaders. Mold a message designed around their ideas. Don't even bother trying to mold those students to your ideas because that would be a big fail. Tomorrows leaders aren't interested in the 1950s. Want to have a future of go by way of the Wigs? Keep tickling old ears and you are gone.
Correction "Whigs" Spelling police please forgive me.
I mis-take 'Wigs' for 'Pigs,' not because I'm dislexic.
Signed: Pigotry
How can a party embrace technology when it still rejects science?
Buying 1,000 Atari computers and joining MySpace isn't going to bring the GOP into this century.
The problem with the Republican Party in the 21st century isn't a technology gap, it's a message gap. When you keep telling people that cutting your income balances your budget, that people don't have the absolute right to say what happens to their own bodies, that much of accepted science is refuted by a book of ancient superstitions, that starting wars anywhere and everywhere is a good way to keep the peace, that providing education for everyone is a good thing to hand over to greedy corporations, that people everywhere don't deserve decent and affordable healthcare, and that the government should break long-kept promises to its senior citizens in order to enrich the wealthy -- well, no matter how you deliver it, that message isn't going to be very popular with the ordinary people.
They finally realized just how difficult it is to state a position on stone tablets which is one of the reasons they seem to not have any position at all. The consultants also pointed out how much easier it would be for them to hide the deceit and slight of hand using rewriteable materials.
Before they do the digital overhaul, perhaps Republicans should overhaul their present policy of Deceit and Obstruction.