John McCain hopes to reshape the Republican party — and reignite his supporter base — using the same social media tools that betrayed their obsolescence.
But Country First, launched with help from the same web consultants that helped him lose his campaign for POTUS, is no contest to Change.gov, the Obama administration’s way of keeping people involved with government at a granular level. It currently does little more than solicit donations with cheap euphemisms (“Become a charter member!”) while pushing a smarmy, superficial “McCain loves America!” video — which can neither be embedded nor shared.
To be fair, the site’s just a placeholder to precede more bells and whistles, but that hasn’t stopped Team McCain from making it an excuse to email-blast every supporter who surrendered his contact data prior to November 4.
Tech-savvy Conservatives won’t bite the bait. At least one right-leaning web strategist said the Country First email promo felt like “they were just trying to raise money,” writing the effort off as “McCain realizing that he has a monster e-mail list.”
Instead of dumping clickers at a donation page, McCain’s email should drive people to the Country First video and collected supporter email addys, he added. “Instead, they’re going with the highest barrier of entry they could think of.”
