The fighting Washington-from-within strategy is standard, but what’s up with all the techy stuff?
The August House Republican Conference planning kit, titled “Fighting Washington for All Americans,” offers a rare glimpse into the constituent outreach efforts of the GOP. Those efforts, it turns out, are highly calculated, hashtag-heavy and rife with references to the video app Vine.
The best way to stay in Washington appears to be to deride Washington, and Republican leadership isn’t going to deviate from that familiar formula.
This August’s town hall meetings could be interesting. There could be demonstrations by pro-immigration reform groups and Jah knows what from NO AMNESTY teahadists. I hope (sincerely) that no one gets hurt.
Redshirt
#Hashtags will save the Republican party!
aimai
Oh, I am going to enjoy the class between open carry and everyone else on the far right who is encouraged to go to these meetings. Reading GunFail, as I do semi religiously, it is a natural fact that a gun shown in the first act must go off in the third. If enough of these lunatics gets together a gun is going to go off by accident or through negligence or both. I hope someone’s medicare scooter, and not someone’s angry grandma, is the only casualty but I’ll take what I get since I don’t have any control over any segment of the GOP coalition.
schrodinger's cat
Republican office holders are always hating on Washington, so what’s so different about this strategy to be classified “new”?
Amir Khalid
I’m in awe of the political talent and discipline it must take to get away with such blatant humbug.
Marmot
Funny–I’ve read elsewhere that Repubs focus more on Twitter (and Vine, I suppose) than Dems. I suspect they believe broadcast-style media are more well suited to their propaganda. Radio, TV, email forwards.
Still, there’s a l
Roger Moore
Poo flinging goes high tech.
Marmot
Funny–I’ve read elsewhere that Repubs focus more on Twitter (and Vine, I suppose) than Dems. I suspect they believe broadcast-style media are more well suited to their propaganda. Radio, TV, email forwards. As opposed to blogs, I mean.
Still, you can get a lot of unanticipated and uncontrollable feedback on Twitter.
[Oops! Sorry for double-posting!]
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
A comical part for me is that many of these reps will head home armed with the “constituent meeting kit” with not a clue what any of the techy stuff even means. Could make for some comedy. It will also get interesting should any um, interested and informed town hall attendees challenge some of the talking points.
I hope no one gets hurt, as it could happen.
Roger Moore
@Marmot:
140 characters is great for their argumentative style. Twitter is great for sloganeering and name calling, not for complex argument.
Petorado
Republicans can only be unified by their shared hatreds. It would be nice if one day they were actually FOR something constructive. #notgonnahappen
piratedan
@Roger Moore: bumper sticker politics, they’re entire thought process and reasoning can fit on a pithy bumper sticker, i.e. Obummer
Violet
Dare we hope that the town hall meetings this time are something of a reverse of the health care ones, but this time it’s immigration advocates screaming at teabag reps.
Chris
“The best way to stay in Washington appears to be to deride Washington.”
Much the same way virtually every media pundit and opinion maker agrees that the media is too liberal and this is a Very Bad Thing.
Ash Can
Meh. The Republican congresstwits who don’t blow off August town hall meetings altogether will limit them to hand-picked, invitation-only audiences. There won’t be much, if anything, in the way of fireworks.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid:
Alas, many Americans have extremely high tolerances for humbug.
I think it has to do with exposure to industrial grade humbug over the bewb tewb from toddlerhood on.
Marmot
@Roger Moore: That might actually be the clincher. Radio, Fox News, email forwards all have that bias toward simplistic arguments too.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore:
Twitter is for twits.
End of discussion.
Redshirt
@Villago Delenda Est: Twitter can be amazing. It can also be a black hole of suck. It’s who you follow, I suppose.
It’s great for breaking news – for example, I learned and followed the Texas abortion filibuster via Twitter and the Tubes, NOT “The News”.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
The bane of Twitter is writing too fast, not lack of space. 140 characters is plenty if you take time to write carefully.
Yatsuno
@Roger Moore: I still find it useless, although my teenage cousins want me to join up so I can follow them. I’m capable of limiting myself to 140 characters, I just don’t see the need to share every. single. moment. with the world.
Snarki, child of Loki
@Villago Delenda Est: “Alas, many Americans have extremely high tolerances for humbug.
I think it has to do with exposure to industrial grade humbug over the bewb tewb from toddlerhood on.”
One can still hope that there’s a strong reaction against the GOP’s new level of weaponized humbug. It remains to be seen if they’ve learned anything from Romney’s “moar lying” strategery.
Roger Moore
@Yatsuno:
I find that Twitter is useful for a couple of things:
1) Lots of bloggers tweet to announce their postings, so following them is a good alternative to RSS or the like as a way of following your favorites.
2) Breaking news.
Villago Delenda Est
Newt Gingrich seems to love Twitter.
Need I say more?
Jay
Vine?
I’ve been watching YouTube for years, almost obsessively…but I’ve never been to Vine once. And I’m not sure if I knew it was a video thingy until today…
GRANDPA john
@Villago iDelenda Est: Mostly , it has to do with
with the ignorant indifference of large segments of the population
fuckwit
Most Vine videos look like a last-moments death montage (said someone clever on Twitter, I forgot who).