New Republican Party 2.0 website unveiled
The Republican Party launched a redesigned website Tuesday with a heavy emphasis on the social media tools that Democrat Barack Obama used so effectively to win the last presidential election.
Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele said GOP.com, which stands for "Grand Old Party," the party's nickname, will "help Republicans compete in any race, in any state, at any time."
Obama relied heavily on the Internet during his presidential campaign for organizing, fundraising and communicating and has created MySpace, Facebook and Flickr pages and a Twitter feed since entering the White House.
The revamped GOP.com prominently features links on its home page to the Republican National Committee page on Facebook, its Twitter feed, its YouTube channel and its Flickr photo-sharing site.
"It takes advantage of various online tools to connect Republicans and concerned Americans across the country to each other and party leaders, creating a larger, more informed, more organized, and more energized Republican community," Steele said.
GOP.com also features a number of blogs including a main blog titled "Sound Reasoning."
A section on "Republican Heroes" provides brief biographies of Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play Major League baseball, former presidents Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower and Abraham Lincoln and others.
The Democratic National Committee was quick to pounce on the new site noting that the "Accomplishments" page on GOP.com does not list any accomplishments since 2004 and that a "Future Leaders" page is blank.
The "Future Leaders" page actually calls for users of the website to submit nominations by email.
The Republican National Committee, in a statement, said the website will serve as a tool to mobilize grassroots supporters.
"It will enable our supporters to communicate with each other and organize events both through GOP.com and various social media applications such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace," it said.
Having lost the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives, the Republican Party is gearing up for the 2010 mid-term elections.
(c) 2009 AFP
