DCRepublican.com

For more what Chuck Grassley is trying to do, click here to read more.

Sadly, its one of our own that has come up with one of the most ludicrous amendments to what is already seen by many as one horrible package of legislation.

It’s none other than Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa that has developed the language that would essentially open the door to online merchants like Ebay, Amazon, Google Checkout, etc. reporting all of their transaction activity to the government.

First of all, it’s important to note that this provision was packaged in the Housing Bill, which has absolutely nothing to do with online merchants. The provision was buried amongst 600+ pages of legislation, making it more likely to be overlooked by tired Hill staffers. For those who haven’t read the language, here it is (source):

Payment Card and Third Party Network Information Reporting. The proposal requires information reporting on payment card and third party network transactions. Payment settlement entities, including merchant acquiring banks and third party settlement organizations, or third party payment facilitators acting on their behalf, will be required to report the annual gross amount of reportable transactions to the IRS and to the participating payee. Reportable transactions include any payment card transaction and any third party network transaction. Participating payees include persons who accept a payment card as payment and third party networks who accept payment from a third party settlement organization in settlement of transactions. A payment card means any card issued pursuant to an agreement or arrangement which provides for standards and mechanisms for settling the transactions. Use of an account number or other indicia associated with a payment card will be treated in the same manner as a payment card. A de minimis exception for transactions of $10,000 or less and 200 transactions or less applies to payments by third party settlement organizations. The proposal applies to returns for calendar years beginning after December 31, 2010. Back-up withholding provisions apply to amounts paid after December 31, 2011. This proposal is estimated to raise $9.802 billion over ten years.

It’s quite clear to see the many problems that could be created if this piece of legislation was enacted.

Of course, after this was exposed, Kate Szostak, a staffer on the Banking Committee quickly tried to kill any doubts and/or concerns people had with the legislation:

“This is not a controversial provision or a new one. Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee have supported it for months, and it has been included in the Administration’s budget proposal for years. This provision simply requires banks–not small businesses–to report sales transactions to the IRS each year and to merchants at the end of each day. It makes the tax system fair for everyone, without burdening small businesses and without putting consumers’ privacy rights at risk.”

With all due respect to Kate, this is indeed a very controversial provision that could greatly effect how business is done online.

For example, let’s say I sell 500 widgets on Ebay every month and at the end of each month, $20,000 or so is transferred into my bank account. Stop. That is basically what is going to be reported to the IRS and filed away under your EIN or SSN and it should be no surprise that they are going to be there at the end of the year waiting for you to pay taxes on it.

However, if you’re a business owner, there is much more to this equation than the IRS would be seeing. Nowhere in this reporting would Ebay or the IRS have any idea how much each of these widgets cost you. Sure, you might have had $20,000 transferred to your account, but what if you had to spend $19,500 on acquisition and shipping of the widgets?

This number has to first be deducted from the $20,000 before any accurate representation of income can be generated. When you tack on other things like operating costs, it’s even easier to see how the IRS is going to have skewed numbers.

I’m sure many of you are now asking, so what, you’ll report all of this on your tax forms and pay taxes based on that.

The reality is that even if this is the case, with the IRS having all of this data, they are going to be looking harder than ever for anyone that is cheating the system. Any discrepancy on either end could potentially throw up a red flag and lead to an audit. No matter what criteria they create, there is always going to be a discrepancy in numbers, simply because each small business operates in a different way, having different pricing structures, sales models, operating costs, exposure, etc.

With this legislation, I don’t see how the IRS would be able to operate without a major expansion, and that’s just to cover the oversight of this data. There are many other arguments that people have brought up over this legislation, including privacy concerns and other important logistics, but for some reason, some of our elected officials don’t want to bring this up for more debate and are hoping to end discussion of this in the next 48 hours.

So, that’s where we come in and help disseminate information exposing America’s #1 R.I.N.O., Senator Chuck Grassley.

Here are some other bloggers that are also covering this topic, and have made excellent posts.

http://techliberation.com/2008/06/23/senate-housing-bill-to-require-collecting-of-online-payment-information/

http://blogs.courant.com/on_background/2008/06/credit-card-tracking-slipped-i.html

http://www.infowars.com/?p=2785

http://papundits.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/housing-bailout-bill-new-provision-report

http://osispeaks.com/

http://fetchingjen.blogspot.com/

http://www.oregonconservative.com

http://www.conservativerecord.com

I’m not sure if the only one who found this interesting, but check out the email below that the McCain campaign sent out to their supporters today:

We recently launched a brand-new JohnMcCain.com and want to invite you to visit our new website today. But first, we want to take a minute to say thank you for being a part of our online community. You are the engine that drives our online efforts, which have so far raised millions of dollars online, organized thousands of volunteers and spread John McCain’s message to your friends and family.

There is more work to be done and we’re excited to unveil a new website that will be the cornerstone of our online efforts. More importantly, we want to hear from you. After you’ve visited the new JohnMcCain.com please take a minute to complete a brief online survey to tell us what you think.

Working together, we’re confident the web will be an important tool to involve you in this campaign, to communicate our message, organize supporters and win in November. But we need your help - please visit the new JohnMcCain.com today, surf around and give us your feedback. Tell us what you like, what you don’t like and send us your ideas. More importantly, take a moment to forward this email to your friends and family with a personal invitation to visit our new website.

Thank you, as always, for your strong support for John McCain online. We look forward to hearing from you!

Sincerely,
The McCain 2008

Did anyone notice that nowhere in the email, or on the survey did they ask you for money? I can honestly say that of the hundreds of emails that I have received from various campaigns, this is one of the few that doesn’t have a fundraising ask in it.

Normally I would analyze this is being a wasted opportunity to raise some much needed money. However, this email does something that the McCain campaign hasn’t really been doing before, inviting people to be engaged with the campaigns website.

Now instead of asking for a cover charge to become involved with the campaign, all they are asking now is that you simply “join the conversation,” as David All would say.

I can honestly say that in terms of using email to engage supporters, this is probably the ‘best of McCain’ thus far.

If people open the email and take the survey, I’m certain that a vast majority of them will reach a new height in terms of their dedication to getting John McCain elected.

Furthermore, if this successful, this could be a good starting point for the McCain campaign to build an online model similar to Barack Obama, where you don’t ask for their money right away, but instead simply ask that they get involved. Once they’re in, asking them to invest $10, $20 or even $50 at a time becomes much easier, simply because they have already put so much time into the campaign.

Once again, another treat from BarelyPolitical.com:

Despite the fact that the 2008 presidential primaries have been anything but uneventful, in terms of other campaigns across the country, it seems as if everyone else is off to an incredibly slow start.

Even though it’s already May, there are still many hot-races that haven’t even come close to moving into full swing.

While I find this extremely troubling for both parties, I find it to be most problematic for Republicans, simply because they are already heading into this election as the underdogs.

Awhile back, Time Magazine published what they thought were the top 10 Senate races in the 2008 election: Virginia, Colorado and New Hampshire. I completely agree with this assessment and if the GOP wants to at least have some voting muscle in the Senate, they need to win these races.

This isn’t new information, but for some reason it seems that these top three campaigns haven’t even moved into full gear yet, even though there is only a little more than 6 months until the November election.

To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, here is just a glimpse into some of the things (primarily problems) I’ve noticed amongst the ‘top 3’ campaigns, focusing primarily on the Republican side.

Virginia – Jim Gilmore:

Problem: It wasn’t until about two weeks ago that I actually started receiving frequent updates from the campaign letting me know what was happening. However, even though I signed up to be a volunteer on multiple occasions, I have yet to receive any communications from the campaign providing me with opportunities to get involved.

Bigger Problem: Someone from Mark Warner’s campaign got back to me quite quickly with a variety of things that I can do to get involved with the campaign.

Side note: this is almost the exact same problem I’ve had with the McCain campaign; however the McCain campaign at least sends updates for volunteer opportunities.

This was a race that was once considered ‘too close to call,’ however many are now saying it’s leaning favorably towards a Democratic win. I think this can be changed, but not at the pace they’re currently moving.

Colorado – Bob Schaffer

Problem: Despite the fact of knowing that this is going to be an extremely tough race for a Republican to win, it appears that this campaign has done very little (almost nothing) in terms of marketing themselves on the internet.

Even though their race will be expensive, they don’t seem to understand that one of the first places people go to get information on their candidate is the candidate’s website.

This is usually a good thing, unless you’re Bob Schaffer.

Please click here to see Bob Schaffer’s website.

Now, click here to see his opponent, Mark Udall’s website.

To Bob Schaffer, or anyone else on his campaign: set up a meeting with David All, Joe Mansour and Patrick Ruffini… fast. Marketing and web-overhaul, priority #1.

Just to give you an idea of how the two candidate’s sites perform against each other, check out this chart.

Side note, here is a great blog in Colorado evaluating many of the details of this race. 

New Hampshire: John Sununu

Problem: Exactly the same problem that Bob Schaffer is having. Even though his site isn’t as bad, in comparison to his opponents, it’s lagging severely.

Please click here to view John Sununu’s site.

Now, click here to view his opponent, Jeanne Shaheen’s site.

If you looked at both of those sites, I’m sure that this graph doesn’t really surprise you.

While this is obviously pessimistic, I think that if they made some simple adjustments and paid attention to what was working for the left (particularly Barack Obama) and implemented that into their strategy, both the candidates and the party as a whole would be in a much better position heading into November.

Of all of the new online social networking technologies that have been developed in the last three years, the one that I have been the most apprehensive towards trying is Twitter.

For those who aren’t familiar with Twitter, or its concept, it’s basically a short-form blog that allows you to keep your friends, network, etc updated with what you’re doing with a just few words; the updates are comparable to the size of a text message.

Twitter is popular amongst bloggers because it allows them to share short messages with their friends and readers from their cell phones, giving them the ability to sometimes break a story as its happening.

However, it hasn’t been something that has really had all that much appeal to me. But, as I saw on CNN today, it might just be the tool to help you out of a tight spot, assuming you have the right network:

James Karl Buck helped free himself from an Egyptian jail with a one-word blog post from his cell phone.

Buck, a graduate student from the University of California-Berkeley, was in Mahalla, Egypt, covering an anti-government protest when he and his translator Mohammed Maree were arrested April 10.On his way to the police station, Buck took out his cell phone and sent a message to his friends and contacts using the micro-blogging site Twitter.
The message only had one word. “Arrested.

Within seconds, colleagues in the United States and his blogger-friends in Egypt — the same ones who had taught him the tool only a week earlier — were alerted he was being held.

While it’s kind of a cool story, I don’t think that anyone should expect to be able to do that when in custody of policy in the United States.

Twitting in cuffs… maybe it’ll be a new trend.

I know that in a previous post I said that Republicans need to start coming up with more humorous approaches for online videos, however this isn’t exactly what I had in mind.

In one respect, I think its great that people of all shapes, sizes and talent levels (emphasis on talent levels) are trying to help boost John McCain’s campaign, however could we hold off on that until we have a little more variety?

This sounds horrible, but if we have videos like this being the answer to things like Obama Girl, etc, we’ll only serve as a laughingstock for many online. Unfortunately, I could totally see this video landing on the John Stewart Show.

Without further ado (h/t to David All):

I’m not sure how many of you have seen this video yet from the people at Comedy Central, but I think this is extremely hilarious. Even though its more satirical than the Obama-girl video, I think that Republicans should start thinking along the lines of using a little humor to push certain messages.

While there is plenty of mud to sling, sometimes a little “sugar coating” can make things much sweeter in the end (hopefully “the end” meaning victory for us).

Maybe I’ll try my hand at some videos before November, but we’ll see.

For those of you who are curious, the Lil’ Bush girl is Amy Ryerson and of course, the Obama Girl is the infamous Amber Lee Ettinger.

While I’ve never been a fan of the well-marketed term “web 2.0,” the concepts and applications that are defining this “second generation” of the internet have completely reshaped the face and perspective of American politics, particularly on the grassroots level.

Understanding the great reach that social networks, wikis, blogs, etc. can have in terms of targeting an audience of potential activists, there have been some politicians who have greatly embraced these technologies and integrated them into their campaigns. Even though I think that the majority of those running for office don’t realize, or simply ignore the importance of utilizing the internet well as a means to reach a larger audience, there are a few politicians, who without a doubt understand the stakes and opportunities a well-run online campaign can create.

Of all of the sites that I have looked at and have been researching for the updated version of a paper I originally wrote in 2007 (research conducted throughout 2006), “The New Political Stump: Campaign Web-Style in Senate Elections - Campaign ‘06” (which I’ll probably post soon), there is one incumbent Senator that stands out more than any of the incumbents that I have researched, Senator Jim DeMint from South Carolina.

In 2006, I focused primarily on three areas of the campaign website: website style, components and personalization, then compared their online methodology/approach to the “on the ground” interaction discussed in Home Style: House Members in Their Districts by Richard Fenno . For the updated 2008 paper (which I hope to have completed shortly after the election), the analysis of website style, component usage, personalization and comparison to Homestyle will still remain, however I have also added a new category to track: update frequency.

While campaign season is far from over, in looking at the incumbent website from both sides of the aisle, it appears the Jim DeMint will probably be the leader of the pack.

The DeMint online approach, while being extremely clean and simple, has a variety of components that I think could and should be analyzed in detail, and hopefully other Republican incumbents will try and implement some of the same strategies and techniques into their websites.

Instead of writing a 10,000 word+ post on my thoughts of the DeMint online strategy I’ve decided to break it into sections, and am hopeful that people will share their ideas, strategies and/or feedback.

Part 1: The Landing Page

On Senator DeMint’s main campaign site, http://www.jimdemint.com, the first thing you’ll see each time you come to the page is an opportunity to sign-up. However, instead of just saying “join our email list” like some sites have done, the DeMint campaign has used a pledge to take the place of a traditional landing page sign-up. This approach is one that I have seen grow slowly as campaign websites evolve, and I’m confident that with this evolution will be an increase in the number of email addresses they acquire.

The appeal of a landing page is something that will make or break a particular online outreach campaign (of course, design sometimes plays a factor too). It’s common in politics for politicians to make sure that their messages touch on at least one of Aristotle’s means of persuasion. While establishing ethos (credibility), pathos (emotional) and logos (logic) appeals on a singular level might work for some things, if you don’t have all three of those on your landing page, delivered in a small package (in terms of words count), people are going to be suspicious, or not be captivated by your site and simply leave.

DeMint has two landing pages in particular that I think are extremely effective: one at http://www.jimdemint.com/ and one that was just released at http://www.completethefencenow.com/. Of the two, http://www.jimdemint.com/ , while not being perfect, is a great example of implementing all three of Aristotle’s means of persuasion in campaign websites.

Taking Aristotle’s means of persuasion into consideration, here is my take on how these landing pages establish them:

• Ethos - Using this appeal is one advantage that any incumbent will have over their opponent, simply because the title “Senator,” “Congressman,” etc. will usually grant instant credibility on the message you are trying to push (despite continually low approval ratings). DeMint’s main landing page does this well, with the words “Senator Jim DeMint” being prominent in the pledge. However, Senator DeMint’s newest landing page doesn’t have the word “Senator” displayed in any prominent location, which could have some impact on the response. Though I will argue that it’s always beneficial to have different landing pages running in tandem so you have something to compare data against to better establish what works best.
• Pathos - Money and border security, I don’t know what other issues could have more emotional appeal.
• Logos - Instead of using text to explain why the visitor should take immediate action on this issue, Senator DeMint does something that I wish more incumbents would do: get on YouTube. In doing so, the page viewer actually sees and hears him delivering his message. One could argue that the videos alone touches on all three of the means of persuasion, but it definitely plays a huge role in establishing the rationale for why people should take immediate action on this issue.

Take note of the emphasis on immediate action. You’ll notice that there aren’t any links that would take the visitor off of the campaign site. Like most Americans, I suffer from web-based ADD and that is something that should be taken into consideration when candidates design their landing pages and websites. For example, a candidate’s website probably shouldn’t link to sites other than their campaign site, simply because one new link or idea can completely destroy a thought process and kill the chance of a conversion.

Along those same lines, when there are links on a candidates page, I think that they should open in a new tab, especially if there is any deviation in subject matter and/or design. This way, if people get bored with the new window, when they close that tab, they will still have the initial page that they clicked on still in their browser. The one caveat to this would be the link following the “submit” button, where in that instance I don’t see any reason why they would need the next page to open in a new tab.

While I think both of DeMint’s landing pages are far more creative than many that I have seen amongst incumbent campaigns, the one major change that I would suggest is changing the pledge on http://www.jimdemint.com/. While the message is good, I don’t think its the best idea to have such important text displayed as an image.

Aside from it not getting cached by search engines, it also increases the page load time (that image alone is 100k). Beyond that, I think that every Republican should make sure their sites are as inline with the standards of Section 508 as possible, simply because I haven’t seen many campaign websites (incumbent or challenger) that have followed this protocol.

I look forward to the day when a Republican Senator is attacked by a Democrat, saying that Senator XYZ doesn’t care about making government accessible to everyone, then having Senator XYZ come back saying that not only does he think government should be accessible, but he also believes that campaigns should be accessible, then outline how he went the extra mile to ensure Section 508 compliance, while his opponent made no apparent effort to even come close to increasing their accessibility. Let’s be honest, simple things like alternative text (alt) descriptions aren’t that difficult. My inner-geek anxiously awaits the day I hear a candidate use the “alt-descriptions” and “clean code” in a response.

One example of how Republicans could have fun with this would be with Senator Chris Dodd (CT), who somehow won a Golden Mouse Award and been a self-proclaimed leader in the Senate for those with disabilities. However, if you visit his Golden Website, you’ll notice that it’s nowhere near section 508 compliance. What’s even more amusing is when visit the page “Dodd Introduces Disabilities Savings Act of 2008” not one of the images has alternative text, so even if a person with disabilities wanted to be more interactive with the site of the Senator who is a “leader” for those with disabilities, and maybe get a description of the pictures so they could visualize what is happening, not even his site offers those capabilities. Of the Section 508 requirements, the alt-descriptions are probably the easiest things any site can fix.

I’m not trying to attack Senator Dodd, in fact, he is one of the few Democrats in the Senate who I can actually tolerate. However, I’m just using him as an example to show some of the opportunities that could be made if incumbents and candidates got ahead of the curve and made the Dem’s follow.

It should be noted that on Senator DeMint’s office page, his images do provide alternative text. Why didn’t he get a Golden Mouse?

Yes, I’m a deep thinker. Though I will concede that I haven’t really gone out of my way to achieve section 508 compliance on any of my websites, though CMS’s like Joomla 1.5 and its tableless designs have made significant strides towards making compliance easy to implement (I’m sure Drupal is similar in that sense).

In the next few days I’ll write Part 2: Website Style

Note: I do not consider myself an expert on any of this. Instead, I base my judgments on the research and implementations I’ve been conducting and analyzing since 2005. If you disagree, or would like to elaborate on any points or observations that I’ve made, please leave comments. Also, this post contains no direct text from either version of my papers. With that being said, each of the thoughts mentioned are my own, thus have no need for attribution. If you’re doing research on a similar topic and need help finding established text to cite, I’d be happy to provide you with some good starting points.

Other good bloggers to check out for similar subject matter (style, marketing, etc):

• David All (TechRepublican.com)
• Joe Mansour (TechRepublican.com)
• Patrick Ruffini (PatrickRuffini.com)
• Then everyone else at TechPresident.com

If you know of any others, please let me know and I’ll add them to the list.

Well, it looks like facebook has decided to make another move to increase the addictiveness of their social networking platform:

(HT to Mark Johnson @ TechRepublican)

From CO-ED Magazine:

Facebook is set to launch a highly anticipated chat feature in the next 2 weeks to allow for real time communication within the popular social network.

While I can see this being just as annoying as the “poke” feature, I also see great value in something like this for issue and political advocacy campaigns, especially if there are features like group chat available.

One of the most difficult things for political campaigns who reach out to young people is actually getting them to show up to events. Sure, a campaign will see that 200 students signed up for a campaign event near campus, but the reality is that if 50% of those people show up, you can consider that a phenomenal turnout.

I think part of the reason for this is because its so easy to click “accept” or “confirm” when you receive something in your inbox without thinking about the timing and/or purpose. However, when you add another level and point of communication to your outreach efforts (in this case the chat feature), I think it becomes much more likely that your conversion rate from online to in person activities will significantly increase, simply because people will have to think about what you are proposing before they enter their reply in the chat box.

I’m sure it seems foolish, but I’m sure everyone can think of event invitations that they have received on Facebook and only clicked “attending” because you supported the person hosting the event.

Furthermore, if there is a group chat feature in this implementation, just imagine how easy it would be for organizations, campaigns, etc to collaborate in real time on a site young people frequent more than most others.

Another good example of how something like this could really have a place in politics/nonprofits is by having exclusive chat sessions with elected officials, organization presidents, etc for those members that have gone above and beyond the call of duty.

Whether that be a reward for someone who has helped grow the organization by recruiting members using the “causes” application, or simply by suggesting new contacts for the fan page, this additional point of contact could have a variety of implementations in the political and nonprofit worlds.

However, if this new feature cannot handle group chat, I think that it could be seen as a lacking product that can be more annoying than anything.

Either way, Facebook is doing an excellent job of keeping people hooked while still raking in millions of dollars in advertising revenue.

2009 Facebook IPO? Anyone? Anyone?