Predictably, CNN, like most of our liberally-biased “mainstream” media, largely ignored the groundswell of Tea Party protests that took place on tax day April 15th.

In the past, silence has been one of liberal elites’ most powerful weapons against average Americans’ distaste for their policies. For decades, their strategy has been a simple yet very effective one: give little or no media space to grassroots conservative activism, and occasionally feature some outlandish ultra-right-wing kookery. To the uncritical eye, this portrayal makes conservatism appear as nothing more than a fringe phenomenon in American society.

The advance of the Internet, however, is slowly eroding the power of this strategy. Recent events surrounding the Tea Party protests are a case in point. As techrepublican.com reports, thousands of grassroots activists are using Twitter to publicize the real story surrounding CNN’s biased coverage (and the Obama administration’s use of Homeland Security reports as a platform to demonize conservatives).

Thanks to the combination of conservatism plus technology, the days of the liberal “gatekeeper” of public opinion, it would appear, are finally drawing to a long-overdue close.

Only rarely does one find the Republican Party and the ACLU on the same side of an issue. Even rarer is an issue that can cause the two organizations to work together. But it has happened in Missouri. The issue: use of homeland security data to target and demonize conservatives.

As the Belleville News-Democrat reports, a government agency with the vaguely Orwellian-sounding name of “Missouri Information Analysis Center” has used the formidable homeland security data at its disposal to compile a report detailing the characteristics of potential militia members. It appears that the report is intended for law enforcement personnel as a way of knowing who to keep an eye on. The News-Democrat describes the report as follows:

Among other things, the report claims militia members usually are supporters of third-party political groups and “often subscribe to the ideology of other right-wing extremist movements.”

It highlights specific ideologies: Christian Identity groups, white nationalists, militant anti-abortionists, tax resisters, illegal immigration opponents.

It also identifies specific 2008 presidential candidates that militia members likely would support - Republican U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin and Bob Barr, a former Republican congressman who ran for president as a Libertarian.

Republicans have decried the report as “an attack on conservative ideologies and the politicians who espouse them.”

Speaking for the ACLU, policy counselor Michael German called the report “part of a national trend … [of] turning attention away from people who are actually doing bad things to people who are thinking thoughts that the government, for whatever reason, doesn’t like.” German added that “intelligence fusion centers,” which have been springing up all over the country in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks are “‘an equal opportunity infringer’ on civil rights, in some cases targeting the political right, in other cases the political left.”

Among strategic questions asked are:

• Why did Republicans lose the White House and Congressional seats in the 2008 elections?
• What are the key strengths and beliefs of the Republican Party that we can build on?
• What technology would you like to see the RNC make better use of to grow our Party?

The survey also solicits participants’ views on such issues as “more socialism” vs. free markets, President Obama’s “bailouts,” illegal immigration, and the so-called “fairness doctrine.”

Now, he’s taken the next logical step. Obama has allowed the use of his “Organizing for America” (OFA) database to help Scott Murphy, the Democratic candidate in a hotly contested special congressional race in New York’s 20th district. Around 60,000 e-mails were sent out on Wednesday urging Obama’s supporters to also support Murphy.

As the Washington Times further reports,

Mr. Obama’s use of his OFA database, which includes more than 13 million names, along with e-mail addresses and phone numbers, is the second time in the last week he has, as president, leveraged the work of his campaign’s unprecedented organization.

Last weekend, Mr. Obama taped a video message calling on OFA supporters to go out into their neighborhoods and ask their neighbors and friends to sign a pledge supporting his $3.6 trillion budget and give their personal information to OFA volunteers, to be added to their already enormous database.

All we can say is: Wake up, Republicans! Obama’s database is getting bigger and more powerful every day. If the GOP doesn’t start playing “catch up” very soon, it’s going to be in for a big, unpleasant surprise in the 2010 mid-term elections.

After being trounced month after month by Democrats (especially through better use of the Internet), the GOP has finally won a round in the fundraising contest.

According to a report from Fox News, Republicans beat Democrats handily in fundraising statistics for February. In that month, the RNC pulled in $5.1 million, while the DNC raised only $3.26 million. By contrast, two years ago (while still under the chairmanship of Howard Dean), the DNC raised $5.5 million in February of 2007.

The RNC is also in much better financial shape overall. Most recently, the DNC reported $8.6 million on hand and $7 million in debt. The RNC, by contrast, has $24 million in ready cash and no debt.

According to a “Democratic operative with knowledge of the party’s fundraising capabilities,” the numbers have little significance. The operative stated that “the party simply hasn’t tapped into its full fundraising list yet, nor has it taken advantage of President Obama’s massive e-mail list,” and intends to mount new major fundraising efforts later this month.

Is the Democrats’ showing a mere fluke? Or is the tide already turning against Obama & Co.? Stay tuned…

At a news conference in Portland, Oregon, RNC chairman Michael Steele made some encouraging comments.

First, rather than sidestepping the issue, he frankly admitted that “[the Democrats'] team has a better game plan. Their team has a better set of players. Their team has the winning way.”

Then, according to the Portland Observer, Steele also acknowledged the need to “deliver a different message, one exalted in the boilerplate Republican principles of rugged individualism and trimming government,” and stressed that “we are a conservative party.”

Beyond this, he “noted that the Republican Party also needs to better implement technology and ‘all of that fun stuff.’”

We couldn’t agree more strongly. Once again: true conservatism + technology = victory!

During his campaign, President Barack Obama amassed over 13 million e-mail addresses of supporters. The campaign is over, but the power of Obama’s database is still very much with us. And Obama plans to use that power to mount a massive grassroots campaign to rally support for his political agenda.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Obama intends to ask his 13 million e-enthusiasts to go door-to-door to solicit pledges of support. Those recruited will, in turn, themselves be entered into the database.

The Pledge Project Canvass is an unprecedented effort by a president to reach beyond Congress and tap grassroots supporters for help. Volunteers recruited online by Obama’s Organizing for America, a post-election group, will ask citizens to sign a pledge in support of the president’s policies on energy, health care and education.

Those who pledge will be asked for their e-mail addresses so the Obama-ites can keep in touch.

As the Chronicle further notes, direct appeals from a president to the citizenry asking them to pressure congress and other politicians for support are relatively unusual, but by no means unprecedented. Franklin D. Roosevelt used radio addresses (which he called “fireside chats”) to rally support for the New Deal. Ronald Reagan used television addresses to urge voters to press for lower taxes. Bill and Hillary Clinton traveled across the U.S. asking voters to support their health care agenda. And once in office, George W. Bush campaigned for Social Security reform.

Obama, however, is the first president to use his campaign database to continue to keep in touch with his constituents, and to use them as a power base from which he can exert pressure on Congress to fall in line with his agenda.

We’re drawing two conclusions from this new development:

1. A new era of “permanent campaigning” has begun. It is hard to imagine that future presidents, once elected, will go back to the mode of mothballing their supporter lists for four years.
2. Those who ignore point (1) do so at their peril. While Republicans no longer have the “bully pulpit” of the presidency from which to preach, they had better use their own formidable databases to rally opposition to Obama’s fiscal and other excesses; otherwise, they’re going to lose the e-battle by default.

In an editorial published in the Washington Times, former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has called upon conservatives to cease their “hand wringing” and their “night sweats about the demise of the conservative movement.”

As the former Arkansas governor sees it, the recent Republican debacle isn’t the result of a failure of conservative principles, but rather of a failure to genuinely abide by them.

“Conservatives aren’t challenged because of the basic principles that define us,” Huckabee writes, “but by the failure of the principles being translated into policy and practice.”

Both during last years campaign, and now, with Democrats controlling both the White House and the Congress, all too many Republicans have abandoned traditional conservative principles of limited government and individual responsibility. Rather than providing an alternative to Democratic policies, they’re simply falling in line behind liberals in espousing big-government solutions to all our nation’s problems.

But the me-too strategy has been a failure, as the results of the November 2008 elections make clear.

“We don’t need so much to redefine conservatism,” Huckabee concludes. “Just practice the real thing.”

We at ConservaTechnology can only say “Amen!” to Rev. Huckabee’s observations. We’re committed to conservative principles, and believe that advancing them through cutting-edge technology is the most effective way to overcome the big-government, borrow-and-spend mentality that got our country into this mess in the first place.

In a move that will doubtlessly be perceived as a serious setback in the GOP’s quest to retake the technological lead, eCampaign-Director Cyrus Krohn has tendered his resignation.

Krohn’s legacy is formidable. Among other achievements, he is credited with building the RNC’s Facebook group to the point where it had about 7,000 more members than its Democratic counterpart, and with growing the RNC’s e-mail list from 1.8 million to over 12 million.

True to form, Krohn used a blog post on the e-Voter Institute’s Web site to make his public announcement. Though he has chosen to leave his post at the RNC and to move to Seattle, Washington, Krohn is confident that the GOP will experience a technological renaissance. He intends to help whichever candidate is “best positioned to win [the presidency for the GOP] in 2012.”

“Change comes quickly online and the tide will turn again in favor of the GOP, once we hone our message and harness emerging technologies,” Krohn wrote. “To do that, we must match Democrats, programmer-for-programmer.”

Our comment: We at ConservaTechnology intend to help the Republican Party to do just that!

Here’s a UTube video of Gingrich’s remarks.