RightOnline 2011 Recap

Finally! My RightOnline 2011 post. As I said a while back, I had the opportunity to attend this year's RightOnline conference in Minneapolis, back in mind-June. I'll attempt to give a brief recap of this fantastic event.

For starters, the RightOnline staff has posted videos of each of the conference speakers, which you can view here. They have also linked to articles by bloggers and other news sites here.

The conference had the largest turnout they've ever had - over 1,500 conservative activists attended. The interesting thing about RightOnline is that every year, it is done in the same city and at the same time as NetRoots Nation, the Left's online activist conference. Throughout the weekend, people from both conferences would drop in the opposing event to chat or just look around (sometimes they'd be well received, sometimes they wouldn't). Generally, both sides were very cordial to each other.

The agenda included six breakout session tracks focused on a variety of issues (from Online Activism 101 to Public Policy Issues), split by several general sessions with featured speakers like Andrew Breitbart, Erick Erickson, Ed Morrissey, Michelle Malkin, Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, Congressman Thaddeus McCotter, Congresswoman and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, presidential candidate and former Governor Tim Pawlenty, and presidential candidate Herman Cain.

I sat in on some informative breakouts discussing Freedom of Information, citizen journalism and state/local blogging, a very interesting talk by James O'Keefe (the man behind the ACORN and Planned Parenthood sting videos). In addition, RightOnline attendees had the opportunity to screen the new (and well done) Sarah Palin documentary The Undefeated (Jim Geraghty has a good review here).

I was impressed with all three of the presidential candidates who spoke at the conference. Tim Pawlenty carries with him a reputation of being a dull and boring speaker, but he did much to avoid that at RightOnline (such as somewhat more casual dress, the use of a wireless microphone which enabled him to roam the stage, rather than standing stationary behind the podium).

Michele Bachmann blew the roof off the building with her speech. She showed her solid grasp of a wide variety of issues, from health care to fiscal policy and jobs. At several points in her speech, she received sustained standing ovations. Bachmann really connected with the attendees, and set a very high bar for the remaining speakers.

As enthusiastically as Bachmann was received, I think Herman Cain got even higher ratings from the convention attendees. As with Bachmann, Cain has been criticized by the media and Republican establishment as being a lightweight with a poor grasp of the issues, but again, he showed a good handle on the policy side of things.

Bachmann and Cain are candidates that should not be underestimated. They may not be establishment picks, they may not have the background of a more "traditional" GOP nominees, and they may not as well thought of in the Beltway, but these are the candidates that will energize the conservative Republican base and the Tea Party. They are both forces to be reckoned with.

Outside of the politicians and candidates, the speakers who got the highest marks were probably Ann McElhinney (an Irish transplant who railed against "CINOs" - Conservatives In Name Only) and the ever-witty Andrew Breitbart, who rambled on for about thirty minutes in a very entertaining manner (and could have gone twice as long without any complaints from any attendees).

In short, I had a great time at the conference, as did the rest of the Oklahoma "gang" who attended. If you get the chance, you'll definitely want to try to make RightOnline 2012. Ironically, the NetRoots folks apparently have gotten tired of RightOnline following them around, so it seems they are trying to book up Providence, RI, with non-compete clauses for 2012, to prevent RightOnline from being able to hold their conference in that city!

Again, if you wish to watch videos from the conference, they have been posted on the RightOnline website. Other blog posts and news articles are here.

Against the odds, right leads online

Against the odds, right leads online

by Erik Telford

Arianna Huffington’s recent mega-payday from AOL was powerful evidence of the tight connection between the hard-left netroots and the online establishment. And AOL isn’t the only web giant to provide apparently favorable treatment to the left. Google has been accused of blocking certain right-wing websites or lowering their standing in search results, and its YouTube subsidiary seems to remove files uploaded by conservatives far more often than offensive content posted by liberals.

The love affair between the tech giants and the big-government left can be traced not only to Silicon Valley’s geographical proximity to San Francisco but also to the two groups’ shared agenda. President Obama’s stated goal of having the FCC regulate the Internet will ensure that bandwidth-heavy websites will not have to pay for the billions of dollars in investments that private broadband companies made. Of course, money from the technology industry flows freely into Democratic coffers.

Yet somehow the right is more than holding its own in the online activism arena.

Tea Party groups are using technology created largely by left-wingers at Harvard and Stanford to denounce — and often defeat — the very shibboleths of establishment liberalism that these institutions stand for. Republican members of Congress are better than their Democratic counterparts at using Facebook and Twitter to inform and motivate their constituents. Ironically, the most adept new media maven among congressional Democrats, Anthony Weiner, was more interested in using these tools for, shall we say, personal gratification than to advance his political ideas. His career is now effectively over — thanks to conservative online activists who would not let the Weinergate story die.

Conservative and libertarian activists have raised millions of dollars for their candidates, recruited tens of thousands of supporters to attend rallies and protests, and influenced legislation at the local and federal level with a click of the mouse. The Tea Parties themselves are partially a Twitter phenomenon, where the influential #tcot hashtag was an early organizing force. The predecessor to the Tea Parties was the remarkable “drill here, drill now” movement in the summer of 2008, which is again picking up steam as gas prices return to economically painful levels.

It is no accident that activists fluent in ideas of fiscal responsibility, limited government, and economic freedom are also well versed in new media and social networking. These tools appeal to their sense of individualism, bypassing the old bureaucracies of big media organizations to give anyone with ideas a platform to share them. It’s a perfect fit for those who believe in a free-market philosophy.

Moreover, our institutional efforts to facilitate sharing of best practices and training in online strategy and techniques have, I hope, played an important role. The RightOnline conference I founded — sponsored by Americans for Prosperity Foundation — is in its fourth year of bringing together political activists and technology gurus. The conference helps to train local leaders, bloggers, and students on the best practices in online communications, and has created a wave of content and excitement that the left cannot match. This year’s event (June 17-18 in Minneapolis) will feature new media luminaries like Andrew Breitbart mixing with political leaders like Michele Bachmann.

It is because the grassroots, bottom-up nature of new media fits so well with the right’s sense of individual liberty and hard work that the Internet battles are more often than not won by conservatives.

While AOL is willing to spend $315 million to purchase the Huffington Post and make rich liberals richer, conservatives remain focused on educating voters and winning key public policy victories. I encourage everyone who believes in the free market to head to the keyboard and join the fight.

Erik Telford is Executive Director of RightOnline (www.RightOnline.com) and Director of Online Strategy for Americans for Prosperity.


[Bloggers note: I will be attending the RightOnline conference this weekend with a large group of Oklahomans, including fellow blogger Michael Bates of BatesLine.com.]