The GOP and Technology = Water and Oil

Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly at 4:58 AM on January 6, 2009.

When the six men hoping to lead the Republican National Committee weren't promising to build a religion around Ronald Reagan, they were talking about how hip they are to the tools the kids are using on the tubes.

"We have to do it in the Facebook, with the Twittering, the different technology that young people are using today," Duncan ventured.

"Let me just say that I have 4,000 friends on Facebook," contributed Blackwell, putting his hand on Dawson's and Anuzis's knees. "That's probably more than these two guys put together, but who's counting, you know?" Acknowledged Saltsman: "I'm not sure all of us combined Twitter as much as Saul."

Anuzis claimed he had "somewhere between 2- and 3,000" Facebook friends, which prompted Blackwell to remind the audience that he has 4,000 friends on the social networking site by waving four fingers behind Anuzis's head.

Well, if one candidate has more Facebook friends than another candidate, it's obvious who the superior visionary is.

Listening to Republican officials talk about technology is becoming increasingly painful. It's a bit like listening to an inept advertising agency promising a business that they'll have a strong "online presence" because it'll have a blog and its commercials will be on YouTube.

Let's call it the Republicans' Underpants Gnomes' Innovation Agenda. It's a three-part plan:

Step 1: Embrace blogs, twitter, and social networking websites
Step 2: (awkward silence)
Step 3: Electoral victory!

The Republican Party has deep and systemic problems. Its ideas are unpopular and its policies have failed. The GOP's agenda and ideology are out of sync with the nation's needs. Whether a candidate for RNC chairman has 3,000 or 4,000 friends on Facebook is hopelessly irrelevant.

As Oliver Willis recently noted, as long as the Republican Party is "debating whether a racially insensitive song is really that bad, listens to marching orders from Rush Limbaugh, and consistently defends the failed presidency of George W. Bush, they will stay in the wilderness. Even if they Twitter the eff out of it."

Tagged as: technology, republicans, gop, internet, rnc, twitter, facebook, ronald reagan, saltsman, duncan, dawson, anuzi