Katie Harbath and David Abel Automated Voice: Recording has started. David Abel: Well, hello and welcome to the politics online expert interview. I'm David Abel, and today's guests are Katie Harbath and Michael Turk from the Republican National Committee. Michael is probably gonna be calling in a little bit later. But right now, we have Katie on the line. And, Katie, I want to say thank you for joining us. Katie Harbath: No problem. Thanks for having me. David Abel: Well, we're excited to speak with you, and we know you have a lot of exciting things going on up there. We'd like to start out by, I guess a little while ago I got an email, and it has the most catchiest title called "Blog Food." And I've received them for quite a while now and really enjoyed them. And if you would, would you tell me a little bit about the blog mail or the Blog Food emails and what that's all about? Katie Harbath: Sure. We, and many people know the 2004 election was the first one in which bloggers really played a role in getting messages out to people across the country, specifically with the CBS memos. And that phenomenon was not lost upon the campaign or the Republican National Committee. And when Chairman Ken Mehlman came over to the RNC to become chairman, he is a big proponent of blogs and bloggers. And I was given the task of kind of being the communications person to outreach to bloggers, get them information, let them know what's happening in our world, give them a heads up on various stories, and things of that nature. And so in an effort not to spam people constantly with a lot of different emails with an article in every email, we came up with Blog Food, which is basically just in the morning five or six bullets of what's been happening in the, interesting stories, information we have coming out of our research department, interesting quotes, anything that we think that the bloggers might be interested in. And then we send that out to folks. We try to do that in the morning. David Abel: So Blog Food is particularly targeted to bloggers, people who are already I guess in the blogisphere who are, who have their own blogs? Katie Harbath: Uh-huh. David Abel: It's not necessarily geared towards just Republican supporters? Katie Harbath: No, but once we start our - we're in the process of revamping our website. And we're gonna be having a blog up there. And once we get that up, the blog up there, I'm hoping to put a lot of things that I put in Blog Food up there for people who might not have a blog to also see, as well. David Abel: Okay. Well, you did mention earlier that you're revamping a lot of your website. But I noticed one of the new features is also "Off the Record" that you're involved in. And I thought that was a great, interesting new feature that, and would you just tell us a little bit about "Off the Record" and - Katie Harbath: Sure. Well, "Off the Record" was, it's just a feature that we started to talk to prominent Republican leaders that, about what they're doing on the Hill or back in their states. We've done some governors and just having some other information about them that you normally wouldn't find. So what books they like to read, what music they like to listen to, find out some interesting tidbits like that. And our, it's part of our overall goal to use web videos and things like podcasting and different electronic means to get information to folks out in the states. So they have a choice on our website where to get that and get it in an interesting manner. So "Off the Record" was one way of doing it just in interviewing various Republican leaders. Podcasting or bookcast is another one that we do where we talk to conservative authors. We've done Senator Zell Miller, Senator Bob Dole, Brian Anderson with South Park Conservatives, talking to them to get what they're writing about, what they're thinking, and then just putting it up there for people to be able to see. And we also do web videos. We had a Democrat NO web video that we've put up there that will take a humorous take on things that are going on in Washington that we like to do. And so that's just kind of the theory, that's kind of what was behind all of that. David Abel: Okay. Well, you mentioned podcast a few times. And it seems like that's the latest buzzwords, and everybody wants to have a podcast or do one or take part in one of some type. How does the RNC feel about podcasting? Is it something that you want to do more of, or do you think it's just a fad, or what's your thoughts on it? Katie Harbath: We absolutely want to do more with it. We are, like I said, we have the bookcast that we put out right away. We're working on possibly developing a couple other podcasting shows that isn't exactly just with authors once we launch our new site. We think it's great to be able any way that we can find ways to get around your normal media filter that you have, your network news shows, your main newspaper, everything like that and just give people a way to get the message straight from the horse's mouth and not have to have that filter. Blogging does that. We feel podcasting is another way. It's also a great way to try to hook in younger voters who are into, much more into all the new technological advances than your older voters might be. David Abel: Have you been able to track your audience and actually figure out the ages or maybe just who - Katie Harbath: Not ages. We don't have, it's still hard to necessarily track how many people are subscribing to your RSS feed and things of that nature. But we've had very good feedback, and we have, you know, a good chunk of folks who are, we can tell that are downloading our files and listening to them every time that we put them up on the site. So we're pretty pleased with it, and we're just gonna keep trying to find ways and guests and formats that seem to hook people, seem to, that people seem to like the most so that we can continually keep on improving it for people who are coming to GOP.com. David Abel: I'm just, I just want to go back to a little bit about what you do. Katie Harbath: Uh-huh. David Abel: I think that four years ago if you were to have online communications director, people would ask, "What exactly is that?" And now it's the, I mean, almost any campaign larger than, a statewide campaign or larger has online communications director. And definitely faction committees and parties are taking those people on, as well. But I'm not sure if that's your exact title. But what's an actually day like for you? How do you interact with the rest of the RNC? And just tell us a little bit about - Katie Harbath: Sure. David Abel: A little bit about what you do. Katie Harbath: I usually try to, I get in pretty early in the mornings so that I try to read all of the news clips for the day and what all the bloggers have been, were writing about late last night and early this morning. So I spend about an hour or two doing that every morning. And then I, the way our e-campaign is structured up, our department, we have a liaison, we have a director and a deputy director. And then we have a liaison who, I'm the liaison to the communications department. We have someone who is for the political department and somebody for our finance department. And so I go to, we have a communications meeting every morning that I go to. And, you know, we just kind of see what's going on that day and what news everybody thinks that is interesting and things of that nature. And then I usually see, I try to figure out if there's enough good stuff ___ maybe sometimes the bloggers are not. And then the rest of the day is, right now, it's a lot of working on our new website content, just getting things ready for that as well as just monitoring what's happening in the blogosphere. And if there's anything interesting or something that pertains to us, that I think our comps guy should know about, I'll shoot it over to them. If there's news that happens during the day, I might, that I think the bloggers should have a heads up on, or I can, you know, we send out a statement or anything like that, I'll shoot that out during the day. And it's just kind of a Hodge podge. We do a lot, all of our national emails, you know, we have to write those, code those up, things of that nature. So it's just kind of helping, my job is mainly just helping communications, whatever they're doing, whatever message we're pushing that day to help them get it out in an online format in the best way possible. David Abel: Wow, that just, I'll go out and work in the field everyday, I just think that's so amazing how far politics has come with the use of new technology in such a short amount of time. I want to move on to some issues that Michael might best answer just, I think he was around with the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign. I'm not sure if you were or not. Katie Harbath: I was here at the RNC during the campaign. I did the GOP.com - David Abel: Okay. Katie Harbath: During 2004. And then we also had some of the specialty sites. I don't know if you saw like Flippercam? David Abel: Oh, yes I did. That was hilarious. Katie Harbath: So I coded, like I did Flippercam and Kerry in Iraq and all those various different sites. David Abel: Well, great. Well, I'm just gonna throw some questions out then and just see what your response would be. The first is about a recent article in MediaPost that quoted Michael Cornfield as saying, Michael Cornfield from the Pew, that Bush won the 2004 Election because of the internet. Katie Harbath: Uh-huh. David Abel: And he goes on to say that the Bush campaign married software to Tupperware. And I think he was meaning to imply that the internet was used to find volunteers, and it gave them a way to spread information. Katie Harbath: Uh-huh. David Abel: I know he's obviously praising you guys for what the RNC and also the campaign did, but how do you feel like about that? Is that an accurate description to compare you to something like Amway or Tupperware, or are you trying to do something different? Katie Harbath: No, I think, I mean, our goal, their goal was and the strategy was we wanted to give people tools via the web that they could actually go out there in their communities and be talking to people, word of mouth, just getting out there and face-to-face talking to their neighbors about the issues that were in the campaign. So we would give, they would give people walk maps that they could go walk their neighborhood and talk to people who might still be undecided. They created the, you know, Parties for the President so that they could have people to their home, and they could discuss what was happening on the campaign and do it that way. And so it was a lot of the mobilization of voters through the internet. And the internet was just the tool, another tool to help make it easy for people to get out there and be spreading the message in their own communities. David Abel: Well, then let me ask you another question. Katie Harbath: Okay. David Abel: And this comes from the folks over at RedState.org. And a fellow by the name of Matt Lewis, he wrote in one of his diaries that democrats view technology as a game. They like to put a lot of effort into blogging and hope to be able to "create an internet community. Republicans who by nature are outcome-based and serious tend to use technology like micro targeting to identify and persuade and turn out voters on Election Day." And then he goes on to say, "Democrats get a lot of press for the use of technology, but Republicans use technology to win elections." So I think we know clearly who, on whose side Matt is on. But would you comment on what do you think? Do Democrats get more press typically than Republicans in terms of use of technology in politics? And do you think it really matters in the end when Republicans keep on winning elections? Katie Harbath: I think you do see Democrats just get more attention just because Dean was tagged as the internet candidate back in the beginning of, you know, around 2003, the beginning of 2004. And so people kind of have this mindset that Democrats are supposed to be the leaders of technology and politics. I don't think that's true. I think we're doing a lot of great things. But our goal is to use these tools the best way possible for us to reach voters, to get voters to the polls, to get our message out there. Would it be nice if we got a little bit more recognition? You know, that in the end does not matter. What matters is are we getting our message out there, and are we getting it to voters who are then gonna go vote for us on Election Day? And I think, and, you know, whomever that was from RedState said that's where we were successful. And so we're just gonna keep building upon that. We're gonna keep building upon our successes. You know, we're gonna watch what the Democrats are doing definitely and see if they're having successes and where we need to improve to make sure we always stay ahead of the game with them. But in the end, it doesn't matter how much media you're getting about what you're doing. It's is what you're doing effective to win elections. David Abel: Well, Katie, this has been great. I really appreciate the time you spent with us. And we wish our, we wish the best to Michael Turk. Katie Harbath: Sure and if you guys want to, I don't know when you want to put this out, but I can try to see if we can get Michael on the phone with you in a little, a little later once he gets his little guy settled down. David Abel: Right yeah. For those of you who don't know, he has a two-week-old who he's taking care of right now which prevented him from being on the call. But you guys are obviously doing a wonderful job up there, and the fact that Bush is in office again I guess proves it. And we just thank you so much, and we hope that we can do this again. And let's do get in touch about how we can get Michael on the line and maybe do another call with him sometime soon. Katie Harbath: Sounds good. [End of Audio]