There will be gnashing of teeth among Conservatives, over President Bush coming in 3 days before the primary, to deliver his ringing endorsement of Senator Specter that delivered the win (take a view at "Three for PA" and tell me that's not worthy of 15,000 votes).  But Conservatives shouldn't blame Bush for Specter's winning, a campaign should expect it's opponent to use every piece of its arsenal.  No, the reason why Toomey lost is that his own campaign blew it--they didn't use their entire available arsenal. Toomey's campaign didn't use the netroots that had coalesced surrounding his campaign. The decision-makers in the official campaign of Toomey profoundly under-utilized the internet, both in terms of in-state organizing, communication with supporters, and national fundraising. Toomey lost, and he could have won. They had the opportunity sitting here, and his campaign directors failed him by not grasping it.

I was traveling in Pennsylvania circles during last summer.  We were consulting for Charlie Crystle, who was ramping up his own Senate campaign for the Democratic nomination, but ultimately decided against running, so I was paying pretty keen attention to the GOP primary as well.  Folks on the ground there didn't have any idea that Toomey was going to be a strong contender, but on the net, the strength of Toomey was already self-evident in its potential. As one of the original strategists working with Trippi and the Dean campaigns use of the internet, I can smell what's working on the net a gig away, and there was action happening for Toomey. His meetup numbers, like Howard Dean's in the beginning of 2003, took off on their own initiative; Toomey volunteer websites and blogs sprang up by the end of 2003, it was happening. But unlike the Dean campaign, Toomey's campaign didn't embrace the internet.

When the netroots started gelling on MyDD, DailyKos, DU, and Dean Nation in 2002 for Howard Dean, it was Joe Trippi, who ultimately became Dean's campaign manager, that saw it happening; we started talking, figuring out how blogging and the netroots could work with the campaign, and then Meetup came our way, Matt Gross moved over from MyDD to start Blog For America, and then bamn, it happened, and rest is history. Howard Dean wasn't the only candidate that had things happening on the internet, but his was the only campaign that reached out and took what was happening out here, and utilized it within the campaign. Nobody with Toomey's team moved into the space they had awaiting them, here's a few reasons why he lost by not engaging a modern internet campaign.

First, I mentioned meetup. Pat Toomey's website doesn't even have a Meetup icon on the site. There are at least 15 different meetup locations in Pennsylvania, and that's not counting the rhizomes that could have happened in the Philly and Pittsburgh areas.  Yet, despite Toomey attending a meetup in December, the campaign didn't embrace it.  As a result, the Meetup numbers for Toomey actually faltered over the last couple of months.  15K votes made the difference in the final tally. My best guess is that had Toomey's decision makers in the campaign utilized and promoted the meetups, they would have had 5-times the 950 signups they wound up with, and that each one of those would have been worth at least 1 additional vote, but I don't think it's a stretch to believe that had the internet been used as a field tool by the campaign, this alone would have made the difference for Toomey, but there's more.

Second, visit the Toomey website.  Is there any reason at all for you to come back again?  Want to read the lastest PR? Right... where's the video following the candidate, where's the blogging?  There's been a tendency to think that Republicans are too centralized to embrace the netroots, but maybe it's that they are too decentralized, too disorganized, too detached to understand how the netroots can drive a campaign. I know there are Republicans who get what blogs are.  The ToomeyBlog.com is exhibit A. Yet, the official Toomey campaign itself has nothing on its website that parlays anything authentic and interactive.  Why, a blog would lead to repeat visitors, not only in Pennsylvania, but also, nationally; as it was self-evident even to thickies that Toomey's campaign was an event just waiting to happen on the web for Conservatives to congregate around from all parts of the nation. And what would that lead to?

Third, Fundraising. Is there a valid reason why Toomey didn't use blogads?  Is there a valid reason why Toomey never once held a fundraiser using his website to track the progress?  Does he have any friggen clue as to how many millions his campaign left on the table?  I know Toomey was outspent by an ungodly sum, like $4 million or more.  Think an extra million might have gotten him an additional 15,000 votes?  What Conservative magazine/website wasn't backing Toomey?  They all were; there was talk about Toomey all over the conservative blogs.  Yet, the campaign had no clue as to using this vehicle to slim the financial gap they suffered against Specter.  

No, no, nope.  

You know, if the Dean campaign hadn't had someone like Trippi (who is one of the few key decisionmakers in any of the 2004 campaigns that have really had potential on the net that grasped the event waiting to happen for their candidate), we wouldn't be able to tell Toomey's decisionmakers in his campaign that they dropped the ball.  But Dean happened, and it makes no difference that he lost. The netroots delivered more financial and membership resources to Dean than any other primary campaign in the Democratic primary history.  Dean himself dropped that golden ball that was handed to him. As for Toomey, he never had the chance to drop it, because his campaign never picked it up.

I thought Toomey would win all along, up until about a week ago, and then realized that Specter would whistle by the graveyard. Because in the end, Specter used the establishment, Bush and the extra money, that he's a part of to squeeze out a few extra votes where it mattered.  Toomey was not part of the establishment, and needed to reach into his strength that Specter couldn't match.  Club for Growth brought him a long ways. But there were probably tens of thousands of Conservatives on the web that his campaign could have embraced, but didn't. Toomey didn't hire campaign directors that could imagine this thing was what would make their own difference, Toomey didn't get that extra few thousand of decentralized volunteers inside Pennsylvania, Toomey didn't get that extra 1-2 million dollars from national fundraising over the net that would have tripped the light fantastic. Nope, didn't happen.  Instead, Toomey got to mope inside a hotel room on election night with his loser campaign managers about how Bush came in and made Specter's difference happen.