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MyGOP


MyGOPLast week, I signed up for the GOP’s new “MyGOP tool”. I had not had a chance to delve much deeper into the tool than the signup process before the weekend.

Having taken a shot at the GOP guys last week for the obscenity filter they’re using on the sign up process, I should be fair and share my thoughts on the rest of the tool. Obscenity filter aside, what they have built is really pretty cool. It takes the canned activism that was pioneered in 2004 and really opens up the throttle. It’s not as open as I would like, but I’m not going down that road again, so I’ll be happy with the baby steps.

On the campaign we were always debating how high we should set the online activity goals. Set them too high, and you turn off people with a limited amount of time. Set them too low, and people think you’re jerking them around and the activity doesn’t really matter.

MyGOP solves this by letting you set your own goals. As an activist, I tell you how many people I’ll recruit. I’ll tell you how much money I will raise. Once I set my goals, I can send the e-mails to friends from the same page. Everything I need to manage my campaign within the campaign is right there. It’s as friendly and accessible as the rest of their action center, but with a lot more under the hood.

The site even comes with your own version of the fundraising thermometer for your blog. You can track your progress against goals from your blog, and let your readers see their contribution. It’s really good to see them adding viral fundraising, so let’s hope the GOP blog community adopts it.

As with many tools rolled out by the national committees, I think they’ll be much more effective when employed by campaigns. By underwriting the initial development of these tools, the RNC makes them available to the lower tier. It may take another cycle before you see tools like this in local campaigns since most of this year’s candidates are taking their queues from the ’04 Presidentials – but ’08 is starting to look interesting.



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Written by Michael Turk