Prop 8 Battle Shows that the Left has No Monopoly on Internet Activism

Online politics a progressive monopoly? Not in California, at least judging from the battle waged over the internet to pass Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot initiative that banned gay marriage in that state:

The ProtectMarriage.com coalition used the Web to fuel fundraising, volunteerism, and voter persuasion, and two tactics in particular may have given them an edge: online ads targeted using voter file data, and a last-minute get-out-the-vote ad blitz.

The “Yes on 8” campaign got attention, not only for taking a forward-thinking and integrated approach to using the Internet, but for demonstrating that having a younger, more liberal base doesn’t necessitate Web prowess. Schubert-Flint Public Affairs, the firm that ran the overall campaign, along with its Internet ad and e-mail strategy partner Connell Donatelli, recently won multiple awards from the Association of Political and Public Affairs Professionals for its digital “Yes on Prop 8” campaign.

The Left’s success online in the past three election cycles risks complacency, but it’s a simple fact that the tools don’t care who uses them. The web is a natural haven for the out-of-power — part of its brilliance is that it can make mighty the small and small the mighty — and just as Democrats and progressives began working online in earnest after they lost Congress and the White House, Republicans will naturally use new media to create channels for organizing and message-distribution now that they’ve been pushed out of institutional authority.

And we won’t just find Republican leaders and the party apparatus online: individual conservative activists can learn from Obama’s online organizing as fast as their liberal counterparts (Ron Paul’s supporters certainly did their part to lead the way). Something from this piece a year or two old still holds true:

At the moment, liberals and Democrats are ahead online by most measures — they far outpace conservatives and Republicans in blog activity, political donations and social networking participation, for example. But down the road, the web is going to be intertwined into just about all forms of information exchange, and it’s only a matter of time before the Republican electorate is as wired as their Democratic rivals…. The next online revolt might just come from the Right.

You have been warned!

– cpd