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The Mitt Romney campaign has the message "Believe in America" beneath the Romney logo ( my opinion on the 2012 Romney logo ) but just beneath that, it has a Donate button. In doing so the message becomes:  Romney - Believe in America - Donate So, Romney believes in America, you should too.. oh, and donate to the campaign..  I know that that this might be considered a detail, however, when you look at it, it looks like the message is with the word " donate ".  Anyway, I just wanted to bring this to your attention in order to point out that: The way you create an email newsletter can be proven to be crucial in changing or shaping your message.

It's good to see that the GOP is engaging with the Obama twitter townhall #AskObama . Something that they didn't do during the Obama facebook townhall. In my post " President's facebook townhall & creative online campaign tactics " I wrote: I expect to see more smart and creative online campaign tactics; hopefully the 2012 campaigns will use more creative thinking in the coming months. Reince Priebus send out a tweet , the GOP ReTweeted and posted an update to the GOP facebook page . One short comment: it doesn't matter if it's facebook, twitter or any other Social Network. Internet communications technologies are used by people at the same time. So, why not let facebook people take part in a twitter townhall? The Obama facebook page does not ask supporters for twitter questions; the GOP asked facebook a twitter question!

Sarah Palin concludes her latest facebook note with "November 2012 can’t come soon enough." , while Obama promotes a Strategy update video on: "What We're Building This Summer" . When you compare these two facebook messages one can understand that Obama is building on an ongoing campaign with volunteering initiatives and grassroots organizing; while Palin is asking: "Should we be borrowing money from China to turn around and give it to the Muslim Brotherhood?". This is the time to start organizing to campaign for 2012; not the time to engage in creative political rhetoric or 2012 debate talking points.  Here you can watch battleground States Director Mitch Stewart reporting on the nuts and bolts of what volunteers are building, for Barack Obama 2012.

According to Bill Maher the logo of the Mitt Romney campaign for 2012 looks like a toothpaste ad; and yes funny enough it does. My assessment on the logo is different. When you look at it, it clearly represents the number 2. Most noticeably the middle white number 2, but also the left red and the right blue. Isn't it obvious? Any respectable logo designer or copywriter will tell you so! Now, you don't put the number 2 on the logo of someone aiming for the office of the President of the United States.  Is it just a bad logo design? Here you can watch the Mitt Romney "Believe in America" Video:

Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, came out with a video on April 15th in asking people to send YouTube videos and tell the GOP why they "Can't Afford 4 More Years". The winning submission will receive a $100 gift certificate to the GOPStore.com and could be showcased in the GOP.com website. My first comment is that this contest seems outdated. Yet another example of a safe political communications strategy in trying to copy-paste tried ideas. This has already been done before, it's not innovative or cool anymore, and by the looks of it, with 3,355 views of the Reince Priebus video in 6 days, the Video contest is not going to be a success. It all seems really amateur in setting up a YouTube contest. But worry not, I am sure the GOP online communications team is only just beginning, that's right, Reince Priebus also opened a facebook page ; I bet this comes really handy in getting the video contest " viral ". I don...

So, Tim Pawlenty tweeted before the President's facebook townhall: Have a tough question for @BarackObama 's Facebook townhall today, submit questions that are unlikely to be answered here When I saw this I thought that it would link to the facebook live page so that people would actually ask the President all the " questions that are unlikely to be answered " but no... it linked to a page at the T-Paw website with a condescending photo of Obama asking people to: "Use the form below to let us know what questions need to be addressed but won't be asked at tomorrow's campaign event." This is so wrong in terms of new media communications in Politics! If T-Paw actually directed people to the facebook live page it could have been a really great tactical move to actually get his followers to ask the questions that " need to be addressed " at the actual event that they could have been addressed! It could have been a really smart move by T-P...

I thought I received an email from the GOP; but no, it was from Melody Barnes and the White House. Melody Barnes is the Director of the Domestic Policy Council, she works as an advisor in Washington DC. In the email she states: The state of the American education system today is unacceptable. (...) For the sake of the next generation, and America's economic future, this has to change. It is unbelievable that a senior White House advisor is using a 2008 talking point. This is what Obama was talking about in the race for the Presidency. It was all about "Change we can believe in", "Vote for Change" and more... How is it that change rhetorics are still in use by the White House, is it a sign that change will be the main theme in 2012? After two years in the White House, the Obama administration states that "Something Must Change". So, what happened during the past years? nothing changed? I think that the 2012 Obama campaign needs to change the creat...

The upcoming election campaigns in the States, are probably going into full mode next week, and the Republicans have launched their new campaign bus along with http://www.firenancypelosi.com/ A cool move by the GOP in energizing grassroots campaigners in every bus stop. So where is the bus now? well have a look: Also watch RNC Chairman, Michael Steele talking about the bus tour... you know it's ON! What are the democrats up to? well, they have launched a new http://www.democrats.org  website and re-branded with the new "D" logo. I find the new website much more clean than the old one, but maybe thats because they kept a lot of white space. Anyhow, you can learn more about the new democratic branding changes reading "Democrats, the Brand" Let me also comment on the vast number of email coming from " Organizing for America ", I definetly receive around one per day, maybe more. In the latest one today, the Obama campaign is offering "canvas...

The above photo is one from a series of photos posted recently by the official White House twitter account on Twitpic . As you can see, it is a shaky picture, with the finger of the White House new media staffer showing on the left part of the photo.  There are some really interesting comments below the photos: is this the best picture our tax money can buy? The staff of the most powerful man in the world should really get a decent camera. its awesome some1s doin this who cares if its from a cell phone? keep doin what ur doin we love the pics!! I cant believe it! The @whithouse is tweeting photos! Great! Greetings from Germany Kidding aside, I do believe that whoever is responsible for the whitehouse twitter account needs to be more careful in uploading proper quality photos, and photos that do not show the fingers of the person taking them. Really amateur multimedia uploads from the White House media team; something that can be excused in a low budget election campaign, but not...

Sarah Palin has come a long way in U.S. politics, from being mayor of a small city in Alaska to becoming Governor and then VP candidate for the Republicans in the 2008 election. Since resigning her post as Governor, Sarah Palin published her book " Going Rogue: An American Life " and has been very active in her media exposure. She is now part of the Fox News channel as a contributor . As is another former Republican Presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee . It seems that Fox News is gathering the Republicans on TV, have a look at the ongoing twitter debate . Having searched a bit more on her Internet presence; it is really unique,  she uses her facebook page as the primary information outlet, along with her twitter account . The SarahPAC website is a very simple donate site, without any news or any other links to... nothing really. Sarah Palin is utilising her facebook supporters, having raised a huge fan base during the 2008 campaign. When she writes a commentary note on h...

I am going to come back again and write about the outrageous emails send by the DNC . The latest one is signed by VP Joe Biden and informs people that this is a crucial week for Sonia Sotomayor and asks to support Sotomayor and take action ; Oh! and Please donate! It is incredible that " Organizing for America " asks US citizens to give money to support a Judge campaign for the US Supreme Court . Why would any candidate for Supreme Court need money for their campaign? and how come the DNC is fundraising through the Internet on behalf of Sotomayor? In these times of economic hardship, and with the financial crisis still in the forefront of political discussion, the DNC is asking people for private donations to support a judicial campaign. I also came across the following video "Nothing" by the GOP that explains how The Obama administration is devoting $18 million dollars to create a government website to show Americans just where their hard-earned tax dollars are ...

So, I came across these 2 videos from the YouTube channel of the GOP . First, Michael Steel, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, congratulates another YouTube user for his innovative video approach to spending cuts under the Obama administration, and invites him to come to Washington DC and "sell" the use of simple and straightforward messages. You see the important thing about this is that it links to people, it shows that the GOP is monitoring YouTube and that experts do crunch the numbers. It is so far from reiterating talking points and empty words; and I must say that Pres Obama has started to talk in Management speech, sticking to the talking points and playing it really safe. I also saw the new RNC ad "How are Democrats and President Obama going to pay for Government Run Health Care?" But wait! I just remembered how! Yesterday I received an email from The Obama Campaign or should I say the " Organizing for America " project of the ...

T he GOP is trying to rebuilt, so the RNC has launched Rebuilt The Party , Republican For A Reason , there is a RNC facebook group , with a Twitter account , and many more spin offs from the official GOP.com But, why are there two websites with the same content but different names? www.RNC.org and www.GOP.com? Why the party needs spin-off websites to rebuilt? Can't it do that from the official GOP.com? Do people need a different website to become republicans for a reason? Why doesn't the GOP promote the facebook page that it has, but created a new group named Republican National Committee - Official Group? Is this Grass-root online development, or just sporadic moves that hope for the best? The republican party's online presence says one thing right now: ME TOO! The GOP is copy-pasting stuff from BarackObama.com and Change.gov; It needs to do more, it needs to have a Republican online presence, with tools and technology that reiterate GOP values.