In 2008 “A record-breaking 46% of Americans have used the internet, email or cell phone text messaging to get news about the campaign,” this according to Pew Research study. With so many Citizens using the internet to talk to each other and get news, shouldn’t our elected officials be communicating with us using email?

I made the rounds of my elected official’s websites to see how well they were communicating with “we the people”

Federal

President George Bush (R)
Pros: Confirmation page and confirmation email. (only site to have double opt in).
Cons: No front page opt in so hard to find out where to subscribe, double opt in message flagged as spam.

President-elect Barack Obama (D)
Pros: Opt in box on the front page, only requires my email and zip code, confirmation page (with ability to invite friends) and confirmation email.
Cons: None

Senator Arlen Specter (R)
Pros: The opt in box is on the front page and he has a list of past newsletters.
Cons: Requires both first and last name, no confirmation email

Senator Bob Casey (D)
Pros: Opt in box on front page, also has an action center with a petition where you can submit your email address.
Cons: Unfortunately the system was down and I got an error when I hit submit (otherwise he would have ranked on top of the list. Requires first and last names.

Congressman Joe Pitts (R) 16th district
Pros: Opt in box on home page
Cons: Triple opt in, once you hit submit an email is generated which you have to reply to with a command, after following the instructions I got a reply email saying my command wasn’t valid. Generated emails do not say who they are from.

State

Governor Ed Rendell (D)
Pros: Has opt in box on home page, only requires an email address.
Cons: No confirmation page or email confirmation that your submission has been processed. i.e. I don’t know if I’m signed up yet.

Senator Mike Brubaker (R) 36th district
Pros: Link from home page and sends a confirmation email.
Cons: No opt in on the front page, only a link. Requires first and last names, confirmation email flagged as spam by google mail.

Rep Scott Boyd (R) 43rd district
Pros: Link from home page (quick to respond to suggestion of having a monthly newsletter)
Cons: No opt in box on the front page. Required fields are: First name, last name, address, home phone, work phone, email, zip code, county, government priorities.

Visit your elected officials and see how good a job they do communicating wit you. Post results in the comments.

cross posted at TechRepublican.com

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My name is Bill Collier and while I generally focus on national issues and building social media networks around the nation, I will be putting specific focus on my own community, county, and state, mostly through Keystone Conservative, the PREMIER gathering place for conservatives in Pennsylvania.

Here are a few updates:

I will be launching a local newspaper for Marysville Pa using our NING site as a starting point, http://freedomist.org but eventually it will have its own group and site.

This had been planned for the future, but local developments have caused me to push this forward. A new development and local controversies, with a lot of disinformation and what appears to be the involvement of outside eco-liberal groups was enough for me to decide that NOW is go time.

I will begin posting information about the area being covered and tomorrow or sooner I will meet with local officials and start a two way dialogue with local people.

I suggest we form a Keystone Conservative Twitter account so that we can all follow this account and use our own hashtag for Pa conservative issue.

Additionally, we are in the process of working out details to set up a local conservative blog with Red County, details are forthcoming.

The number of Pennsylvanian cosnervatives online is not necessarily “growing” but our connection with one another is increasing, expecially thanks to Keystone Consertvative and Twitter. We need to plan a tweetup soon, I think.

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PAWatercooler has the whole interview which you should go read.

FF: Were there any bright spots for the Republicans?

BC: Certainly in the statewide election, Attorney General Tom Corbett’s convincing re-election against a good opponent - in the face of the Obama landslide - has to rank as our “brightest spot.” Tom’s showing convinced a lot of people that not only does the public perceive him to be doing an excellent job as attorney general, but that he has a political operation second to none in the Republican Party. Very impressive. Locally, Jim Gerlach won again by his widest margin ever.

Despite Obama’s victory, the state senate Republicans actually gained a seat. Republicans in Montgomery County hold the same number of state House seats as Democrats, and all of our Republican members won by convincing margins while the Democrats had one candidate win by 800 votes and another win by just 400.

This is a two-party county. Voters will differentiate between which candidates they like and believe in, not what party they belong to. And that is a trend throughout southeast Pennsylvania. The voters here vote for the person, not the party. In consequence, the Republicans must put up candidates that people want to vote for. When we do that, as in the example of Tom Corbett, we win.

Go read the full interview.

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Rep Pitt’s talks about Mumbai and the new visitors center in Washington DC.

Props to Rep Pitts for a having a great website and for keeping his constituents up to date with an email newsletter, audio and video.

A few free tips:

• Embed you audio (see below)
• Embed your video (via blip.tv or YouTube) and let us share it with our friends.
• Have a blog that aggregates all your latest news, audio, video, press releases, and your latest op-eds
• Use your facebok page to talk with us
• and if you want bonus points jump on twitter

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