Lousy Republican Web Campaigns, Finally Statistics To Back It Up

Patrick Ruffini for techPresident wrote a killer article reinforcing our previous and obvious statements that the Republicans just can't keep up with net campaigning. You can see our take on QubeTV and John McCain. According to Patrick's article, Republicans invest just as much in the web as Democrats, but not nearly as much in their web staffs. Web staffs of course being young savvy folk that create effective content. Rather, most of their money goes to technical outsourcing instead of internal staffers. He backs this up with a very interesting spreadsheet. Here are some highlights:

While Republicans and Democrats are spending almost equally on their Web efforts, Democrats are spending dramatically more on in-house staff. Approximately 36% of the Democrats' Web budgets are dedicated to staff, while less than 8% of the Republican budgets are. Overall, the Democratic candidates have 39 people working in the Web departments while Republicans have 18, spread over 9 active candidates. That works out to an average of 5.6 staffers per candidate on the Democrat side, and just 2 on the Republican side, encompassing both frontrunners and also-rans. Obama alone has 10 people on his Web staff... and it shows.

And:

Why is this important? Because it shows Republicans are largely outsourcing their Web operations to highly capable technical firms but don't have the boots on the ground to drive content, marketing ideas, and ensure that the effort stays relentlessly in synch with the campaign's message. It ensures that Republican innovation on the Web will continue to be more about applications rather than brilliant new ideas that get press, driving traffic and the self-reinforcing perception that a candidate has the momentum online.

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