Technology determines winners. This is one of the fundamental lessons I learned from my years studying Economic History. Whether we’re talking about war, business, or politics, the results tend to be the same:  whichever side in a conflict has the broadest access to the most advanced technology tends to dominate the opposing group.

We are currently experiencing a rapid evolution in communications technology. The ways people communicate with one another and share ideas is changing dramatically. The revolution is here. It is happening right now as I write this and mostly likely continuing while you read this.

The rapidly evolving landscape of communications technology creates the possibility for distortions in the democratic process. If one political party in a two party political system had technological superiority over their competition, they would be able to dominate the political environment.  

The bad news is that currently, the Democrats have technological superiority over us. As long as they do, they will have a tremendous advantage over Republicans in the political arena.   Democrat candidates and ideas will have the upper hand in competitive races-even if their candidates are less qualified and their ideas are weaker than the competing ideas of Republicans. Why? Because with greater access to communications technology, Democrats will be able to out maneuver, out politick, out organize, and out-convince Republicans every step of the way.     

In 2008, Barack Obama gathered together over 5 million supporters on his Facebook page. In comparison, John McCain’s Facebook page had barely half a million. More importantly than this numerical difference, Obama’s team utilized the power of facebook and other social media to a much greater extent than McCain’s camp. The most fundamental difference was that Obama campaigned through social media and used it as a means to convince people to support him, whereas McCain and virtually all other campaigns have a tendency to treat social media as a means of gathering followers and then funneling them into offline campaign activities.   

The Republican Party, its elected officials and its grass roots leaders need to play catch up. This is going to require a dramatic change in how we communicate with one another by utilizing the Social Web.

Two things need to happen. First, our party leadership needs to make an effort to keep up to date with the latest advancements in communications technology. Second, Republican voters and grassroots activists need to get in the habit of using the Social Web. These tools will only help the Republican Party, if voters and activists get online en mass. The eStampede Project is dedicated to bringing Republicans online and getting them connected.  More to follow….