Chuck DeVore's position on the issues: Those you can get from his news-sites, YouTubes and the exploding media coverage of his "common-sense conservatism."
What grabbed me by the throat tonight during the one-hour exclusive interview with him was that he is the GOP pioneer in social media. For me, that's the story.
The last time we bumped up against this kind of saga? Those were the deconstructions of Barack Obama's win via digital tools. The April edition of FAST COMPANY, for example, profiled Chris Hughes, FACEBOOK co-founder. It was Hughes who created the social media campaign which gave The People the down-loadable tools to organize others, conduct special events [which only the wealthy could once do], and even fund-raise. In Chapter 9 of his book "Grown Up Digital," Don Tapscott, who also wrote "Wikinomics," did just about the same thing.
With egg on its face for its lack of digital know-how and breatkthrough insights, some GOPers have tried to redeem themselves. Here in Connecticut, that blew into a 1000 pieces as GOP got nailed for setting up 33 Twitter accounts impersonating Democrats.
That's exactly why DeVore, a Republican who hopes to win Barbara Boxer's U.S. Senate seat, triggers a lot of neck-snapping among most of his watchers. And daily the number of Watch DeVore surges. Yeah, they smell the conservative analogue of JFK.
DeVore's approach to communications has long been to engage through social media. In his current position as a third-term Assemblyman [R-Irvine] he always blogged. And he did it himself, everything from posting the content to responding to comments. He constantly updated his website, when most considered that medium static.
Today in his Boxer Rebellion that has simply been a must. "I'm not a celebrity and am not wealthy," DeVore told me tonight. "I can't afford those political consultants even if wanted them. I have no choice but to reach out through social networking."
His version of Chris Hughes is volunteer Joshua S. Trevino [add a tilda over the "n."] of Trevino Strategies and Media. And DeVore's digital metabolism is the speeded-up kind of Politico.com and HuffingtonPost.com as well as DrudgeReport.com, with its blue-light breaking news. But there is none of the seeming lack of judgment and destructive hypomania of U.S. Representative Alan Grayson.
After Carly Fiorina, who could oppose him in the primary, voiced her anti-First Amendment stance about the Internet, DeVore's team sprung into video action. Within eight hours it was a wrap on a YouTube piece rebutting Fiorina's thinking.
This campaign will be post-Obama. Leveraging digital tools this time around might come to be called DeVore 3.0. That's my interest. In fact the pull force was so strong that I volunteered my old-print-girl self to put together the opinion-editorials he will publish in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE NEW YORK TIMES, and THE WASHINGTON POST.
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