Wednesday, March 18th, 2009

That is the day that Ellen Tauscher announced that she would be accepting the job as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. For all intents & purposes, that is also the day the campaign for California’s 10th district got under way.

First there was Adriel Hampton, and then Mark DeSaulnier, soon after Joan Buchanan jumped into the fray, and then Anthony Woods, and most recently, after abandoning his flailing gubernatorial campaign, John Garmendi decided he would run in the 10th as well.

So how are their respective campaigns going so far?

Adriel Hampton has been out on nights and weekends shaking hands with the locals in Walnut Creek, Livermore & elsewhere. I’ve run into him at both the Netroots Nation New Media summit and the CDP State Convention, handing out pens & literature. He’s got up a few websites to spread his message, and has his facebook site, as well as a weekly radio show on blogtalk radio. When it comes to Twitter, Adriel is the reigning king, often posting dozens of messages in a day.

When it comes to campaign websites, Anthony Woods’ team clearly understands the importance of an online presence. Woods has one of the slickest sites I’ve seen for any campaign, let alone amongst those in the 10th CD. While he has set up his Twitter account and sent out a few tweets, the clear focus has been on Facebook & ActBlue. In less than a week’s time, Anthony has been able to accumulate over 1500 supporters and has already collected $15,000 dollars. He’s also been spreading his message through my.barackobama. Pretty impressive, especially when you consider the fact that he spent the last week on the road, driving cross-country from the East Coast.

I’m not sure where he stands in the money game as he transitions from his gubernatorial run, but even John Garamendi really seems to be getting it when it comes to online operations. While his current campaign website may still be a bit disjointed between his current position as Lt Gov, a run for Governor, and his campaign for Congress, he is clearly filling in the gaps elsewhere. Garamendi makes a habit of posting a couple tweets through the day and has taken to personally thanking individuals that join his facebook group or add him as a friend. It’s a classy touch. Garamendi has also been posting diaries on various issues at Calitics & DailyKos and has taken to posting his campaign videos to YouTube. He also just released a poll which has gotten some play, showing that his name recognition & favorability ratings make him a clear frontrunner.

Joan Buchanan was the first to put out polling that showed her with a marginal lead over DeSaulnier in the district. She hasn’t really taken the jump into the online game yet, although she has set up a place holder website for her congressional run, and started a facebook group. Her ActBlue page is nicely integrated into her website and she’s already managed to collect over $5000 dollars. I get the impression that her campaign is doing a lot of preparatory work behind the scenes before she makes her big push.

That leaves us with Mark DeSaulnier…

I’m not exactly sure what the hell these folks are up too. Before Garamendi entered the race, DeSaulnier had locked up the endorsements of the democratic establishment as well as grabbing the endorsements of local labor, making him the early favorite. That was weeks ago and since then they seem content to rest on those laurels. Endorsements are nice and all, but they don’t really mean squat if the candidate isn’t getting his message out, and as of yet, the DeSaulnier camp is clearly not getting it. They have a Twitter account, but the problem is that they aren’t using it, and they wouldn’t even be that far along had Adriel Hampton not taken it upon himself to register the thing. They may want to think about reclaiming their name and getting to it. There is a Facebook group, but there isn’t really a whole lot going on there, and whoever is in charge of setting up the Facebook events has the problem of setting up meetings that look like they’re ongoing through the month, rather than taking place on a specific evening, which has led to some confusion. The DeSaulnier camp does have a basic website, but once again, the focus seems to be on endorsements, less on outreach. Even the ActBlue page isn’t very well integrated, and has only managed to bring in about $1000 dollars. Why they didn’t just make some simple edits to DeSaulniers regular website, until they could roll out something better rounded is beyond me. Last week the DeSaulnier campaign held three major kick-off events, but you wouldn’t know it, unless you happened to be there. Nevermind the traditional media, there is absolutely no presence in the blogs. Like a tree falling in the woods, there hasn’t been a peep about them. After renting space & equipment and having food catered in, I’m guessing that was one expensive tree, which did nothing but to offer some warm fuzzies to folks who were already planning on supporting Mark in the first place. Between the three events, I understand they managed to come up with maybe a dozen people to do phonebanking, so they weren’t a total loss I guess. Certainly didn’t offer the splash they could have though. It’s been a month and a half since this campaign started and from my eyes they are no further along than the day they locked up their endorsements. DeSaulnier does realize he’s running for Congress here right? It’s kind of a big deal. Get it together man.

While I feel that all of the candidates could be using online social media tools more effectively, its nice to see that the majority of the candidates running in California’s 10th seem to get the importance of an online dialogue with their constituents. It’s disappointing that the two candidates that don’t seem to be getting it happen to be my local legislators. I’m especially frustrated to see Mark DeSaulnier, who is considered by many to be the local favorite, making no attempts at getting further involved with the online progressive community.

X-Posted @ BearFlagBlue