Perlmutter Watch 9-17-09: Recent Tweets

I wanted a record of his second tweet below.

RepPerlmutter

Watch my speeches from the House floor on health care reform:… http://bit.ly/XdTkZ – about 21 hours ago from Facebook

The time for health care reform is now: http://bit.ly/37IYI – 1:15 PM Sep 10th from web

Colorado Congressional Delegation on Twitter

At least five members of Colorado’s Congressional delegation are on Twitter:

• Jared Polis (2nd Congressional District)
• Mike Coffman (6th Congressional District)
• Ed Perlmutter (7th Congressional District)
• Mark Udall (Senate)
• Michael Bennet (Senate)

Let them know that you want them to vote against HR 3200.

Republican Study Committee of Colorado

According to their website, the “Republican Study Committee of Colorado (RSCC) is a voluntary association of elected Colorado legislators that formulates, supports, and communicates legislative actions and positions consistent with its vision and Declaration of Principles. Modeled after the Republican Study Committee of the U.S. Congress, the RSCC provides long range planning and continuity between legislative sessions, helps identify and prioritize content on issues supported by the RSCC, fosters better coordination with groups that support Republican core issues, and increases the potential for national and state-to-state sharing and coordination of legislative information.”

The following video provides information about the RSCC:

In the second paragraph of their “Declaration of Principles,” “Members of the Republican Study Committee of Colorado [state that they] agree with the national Republican Study Committee in [their] dedication to a limited and Constitutional role for civil government, a strong national defense, the protection of individual and property rights, and the preservation of traditional family values.”

The RSCC is on Twitter at RSCColorado, and I was pleased to learn through an update today that “RSCC members are joining the Patrick Henry Caucus this week” [link added].

Maybe there’s hope for the Republican Party in Colorado after all.

Protesting Is Not Enough

I recently ran across a quote attributed to Leonardo da Vinci: “I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.” I’ve had a couple of exchanges on Twitter along these lines, and I’d like to paraphrase the Renaissance genius for contemporary conservatives:

Listening to talk shows is not enough; we must study.

You can learn a lot from listening to, watching, and reading Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham, and other talk show hosts about current events and issues; I have. However, if you want to really understand issues and be able to support your views, you need to study history, philosophy, economics, and specific issues in depth. That probably means reading. (Horrors!)

Obviously, you should start with the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Federalist Papers.

After that, you can find books (and websites) on various issues on the Information on Issues for Conservatives wiki, and I plan to add to this wiki in the future. I would also recommend Penn Pfiffner’s Freedom Reading List on the Free People Free Markets Ning site. Glenn Beck has some history books listed on the 912 Project website, and last week he spoke to the authors of the following books on an episode of his show titled “Destined To Repeat(?)”:

• Robert Gellately, Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe
• Ronald. J. Pestritto, Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism
• Amity Shlaes, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression
• Johan Goldberg, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change

Complaining is not enough; we must teach.

Start with your family, especially children and college/university students, and friends.  Join the online conversation with a Twitter account or a blog.  (If you need help, I’m working on a series of lessons on Social Media for Conservatives.)  Explain to them what you’ve learned in your studies.  Discuss the issues in a reasoned and polite manner.

Protesting is not enough; we must lead.

Contact your elected representatives and let them know what you think about the issues they’re considering.  Volunteer for a conservative official or candidate.  Serve in your community on a city or county board or commission or with a non-profit organization.  Run for office.

Whatever you do, stick to your conservative principles.

Republican Colorado on Twitter

Congress:

• Representative Mike Coffman

General:

• Republican Study Committee of Colorado

State Senate:

• Colorado Senate GOP
• Senator Greg Brophy
• Senator Ted Harvey
• Senator Mike Kopp
• Senator Kevin Lundberg
• Senator Shawn Mitchell
• Senator Josh Penry
• Senator Scott Renfroe
• Senator Mark Scheffel
• Senator Dave Schultheis

State House:

• Representative Cory Gardner
• Representative Kent Lambert
• Representative Frank McNulty
• Representative B. J. Nikkel
• Representative Jerry Sonnenberg
• Representative Amy Stephens

Other State Elected Officials:

• Attorney General John Suthers

Candidates:

• Ryan Frazier for U.S. Senate
• Brian T. Campbell for Seventh Congressional District
• Tom Lucero for Fourth Congressional District
• Walker Stapleton for State Treasurer

State and County Republicans:

• Dick Wadhams, Colorado State Chairman
• Broomfield GOP
• DougCO GOP

Former Elected Officials:

• Bob Beauprez
• Mark Hillman
• Bob Schaffer

Missing Tweets

I’m posting these tweets here because they have disappeared from my updates page along with others posted during the same time.  The ones before and since are still there.

I want Obama to fail.

I want his policies to fail.

I want the Democrats in Congress to fail.

I want liberals and liberalism to fail.

I want socialists and socialism to fail.

I want universal health care to fail.

I want cap and trade to fail.

I want Democrats’ efforts to raise taxes and increase the size and power of government to fail.

I want Obama’s efforts to ruin the U.S. economy to fail.

I want Obama’s and other Democrats’ efforts to destroy capitalism to fail.

I want Obama’s efforts to undermine the Constitution to fail.

However, I want America and Americans individually to succeed.

More Questions for #RNCChair Candidates

I have some more questions for the RNC Chair candidates:

• Do you play any MMORPGs?  Do you have a Second Life avatar?  How much experience do you have with online multi-player role-playing games and/or virtual worlds?
• How can Second Life and other virtual worlds be used to advance our candidates and causes?
• If you have been a state party chairman, what was the percentage of elected offices in your state held by Republicans when you started and when you finished?  How will your experience in that office influence your decisions and actions as RNC Chair?
• If you have run for office or managed a campaign, what is your win-loss record?  How will your campaign experience influence your decisions and actions as RNC Chair?
• How long have you been using “social media” like Twitter and Facebook?
• Have you ever had a blog?  When did you start it?  How often do/did you post in it?

Obama’s Campaign and Social Media

Barack Obama has 165,414 followers in Twitter, 19,837 friends on MySpace, 3,697,613 supporters on Facebook, 500+ connections on LinkedIn, and about 2,000 members in groups supporting him in Second Life.  He was elected president.

Was Obama elected president because he acquired so much support on social media sites?  Or was he elected president and acquired so much support on social media sites because people wanted to feel good about electing a black man and because the Republican candidate was Democrat light?

Just because there is a correlation between two pieces of information does not mean that one is the cause of the other.  They could both be effects of the same cause.

Before conservatives and Republicans in general spend too much more time and effort on developing networks on social media services, we need to decide what we are trying to accomplish there.  Are we building morale, networking, communicating, organizing, training, educating, converting independents and Democrats? 

Also, how exactly did Obama’s campaign use social media, and what were the results?  Would similar tactics and tools work with the Republican Party’s current and potential audience?

Once we’ve decided what our purpose and audience are, then we can determine which tools will help us meet our goals.

My Take on Twitter after a Month

I joined Twitter on December 1.  As I wrote the next day, I was aware of a number of my professional colleagues (in higher education) who were using Twitter.  I didn’t see the point, but I decided to give it a try.

Right now I’m following 36 people/groups, I have 59 followers, and I’ve posted 132 updates.

Some people I follow are on the Top Conservatives on Twitter list.  People on the list are ranked by the number of followers they have.  The first-ranked person on the list currently has 7,355 followers and is following 6,510, and none of the tweets on his page right this minute have anything to do with conservative politics.

The stated purpose of the TCOT list is “to build the conservative community on Twitter.”

Why?

What will this “community” do?  How can more than 7000 individuals and organizations be a community anyway?  How can the top-ranked conservative possibly read updates by 6510 people?  (I can’t keep up with all the updates of the 36 that I’m following.)  How will increasing the number of followers of conservatives on Twitter aid the conservative movement?

Barack Obama has 156,095 followers on Twitter, but what did that accomplish?  Did his presence on Twitter actually convince anyone to vote for him, or was it just a morale builder for liberals?

There may be a point to following conservative candidates and leaders (like Michelle Malkin) on Twitter to demonstrate our support for them and find out what they are doing and thinking.  However, that doesn’t explain why I should “follow” anyone else who calls him- or herself a conservative–especially if he or she is posting about other uninteresting (i.e., personal) topics.

To be honest, I still don’t see the point of Twitter, or other microblogging services, and I think their potential in education and political activism is limited.  There are other tools that will probably work better–once we decide what exactly we are trying to accomplish in the conservative movement with web 2.0 (including “social media”) applications and other technology like virtual worlds.

I suspect, though I have no proof, that this emphasis on social media by a segment of the conservative movement is being lead by marketing types.  If conservatives want to learn how to use technology effectively to advance our candidates and causes, we should look to people in instructional technology and technical communication–not in marketing and advertising.

We need to focus on teaching Americans about the Constitution, the history of the country, capitalism, conservatism, etc., rather than trying to be the most popular conservative on Twitter or Facebook.

Yes, I will continue to update my Twitter account, and I hope my followers will find my posts informative and/or thought provoking.

Who Is Saul Anuzis? #RNCChair @SAnuzis

A number of people whose blogs and tweets I read regularly have been promoting Saul Anuzis for the new RNC Chair.  I ran across his name last month in a list of candidates for the position, which I wrote about here.  I didn’t know anything about him, so I did a little research.

He is currently the Chairman of the Michigan Republican Party.  According to his website,

Saul Anuzis is not your typical Republican State Chairman. He is an unabashed Reagan-conservative with strong opinions about the role of government. He is also one of the most tech savvy chairmen in the country. The phrases often used to describe him include “constantly inmotion”, “whirlwind”, “true believer” and “man with a plan”. He joined the Teamsters union and rides a Harley Road King. But he leaves the Harley home when he’s campaigning so he can Twitter, blog and blackberry on the road. He is also a Boy Scoutmaster and a hockey dad. And, he is as committed to the Republican Party’s conservative roots as he once was to the liberation of Lithuania, the country his parents fled before seeking the American dream in Detroit, Michigan.

Saul is a believer in the core principles of Republicanism. They are the reason he became a Republican. He certainly wasn’t born into it. Saul grew up in a working class neighborhood in Detroit. He played in the streets with the kids of other autoworkers. He saw Ronald Reagan speak to those workers with a message that spoke to him as well. And he knows that, until we reach those voters again, Republicans will not win.

 The theme of his campaign is “The comeback starts now.”

In his “Blueprint for a GOP Comeback,” he outlines his plan for that comeback

• one idea at a time
• one neighborhood at a time
• one email at a time
• one dollar at a time

I’d recommend reading his plan.  I intend to look at it more closely.

His interest in and use of web 2.0 applications is a plus.  On the home page of his site are links to his online presence in Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google Video, YouTube, blip.tv, and Flickr.  The obvious omission from the list is Second Life.  (A search for Anuzis using the in-world search engine yielded non results.)  That omission does cause me to question how serious/deep his interest in and knowledge of web-based tools are.

More important than his use of technology is his commitment to conservative principles, which is at least displayed on his website and in his plan, but I don’t know enough about his history to know how committed a conservative he is.

I also have to ask why he is going to all this trouble campaigning for the position of RNC Chair when, as I wrote a week ago, the Chair is selected by the members of the RNC–not the members of the party at large.  (I don’t know if the other announced candidates are doing the same.)