After getting their asses handed to them on Nov. 4, the Republicans have done a little soul-searching and they’ve realized that if they ever want to win a national election again, they’re going to have to figure out this thing we call the Internets.

WaPo reporter Jose Antonio Vargas writes about the fledgling movement in “Republicans seek to fix short-sightedness.” Meet the Republican answer to the overwhelmingly progressive blogosphere: RebuildtheParty.com.

One of the founders of this so-called “rightsroots” told Vargas: “The Republican Party cannot reboot if it’s viewed only as a party of old, crusty white guys.” As if a marketing makeover will change the fact that the Republican Party is run by a bunch of old, crusty white guys.

But let’s give these rightrooters a chance. I’m a big believer in a two or three (four, five, six, etc.) party system and would love to see some rational, intelligent conservatives and moderates wrest control of the GOP from the neocons and rabid religious zealots.

RebuildtheParty’s 10-point plan is actually thoughtful, introspective and mostly on-target, if not a replication of the successful Internet machine that powered Barack Obama to victory. Imitation, they say, is the sincerest form of flattery.

The problem with all this, of course, is the plan can go nowhere if the GOP can’t decide what it wants to be. Will they make themselves into the party of Bobby Jindal or the party of Sarah Palin? Will they be swayed by the reasoned eloquence of George Will or whipped into a hateful frenzy by Rush Limbaugh? Will a vocal minority of right-to-lifers continue to set the party’s agenda?

Another problem is that the Internet culture that the rightrooters are hoping to embrace and make sweet passionate love to is inherently tilted towards us progressives. The very definition of a conservative – “disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change” – implies that the rightrooters have quite a battle ahead of them.

There’s a reason that many — not all — of your techie entrepreneurs back progressive causes. There’s a reason the majority of Hollywood’s star power lined up behind Obama. Open-mindedness, a willingness to accept change, rebellion against rigid structure, a hunger for new ideas, an acceptance of diversity – these are the traits that bind progressive politics and the creative forces behind the Internet revolution.

These are also the traits that are in short supply among the neocons and demagogues whom the more moderate Republicans and fiscal conservatives must rally if they want to reproduce Obama’s Web uprising. Will it happen? Eventually, as the Internet and today’s social media networking becomes the norm for the majority of Americans.

Will it happen in four years? I don’t think so.

In the end, I think the ideological battle for the soul of the Republican party is a much bigger hurdle than the the technological one.

The opportunity for us all to express an opinion is wonderful. Having to read all those opinions isn’t. In 2004 there were probably still more people reading blogs than writing them. Not so now, or so it seems.

I came across Kinsley’s piece after seeing a mention on Mashable about a new service for the would-be blogger who wants a blog but doesn’t actually want to, you know, do any writing.

Meet WordPressDirect, a blog-in-a-can service that will have your blog up and running in no time and all you have to do is enter some key words to describe what you’d like your blog to be about. WordPressDirect then scrapes different user-generated content sites, such as YouTube and Yahoo Answers, looking for content that matches your key words.

This is not the future of blogging but more what sploggers have already been doing for a few years — steal other people’s content, post it as their own and then pull in traffic from search engines and pingbacks. The Blog Herald offers a detailed explanation in its post, “WordPressDirect: Blogging tool or spam engine.”

The reaction in the Mashable comments ranged mostly from outrage to disgust. One commenter called the makers of WPD, “pond scum,” while another called the idea “the most retarded thing ever. please fail.”

To be fair, if I owned a widget business but didn’t have the inclination, ability or time to blog about widgets, WordPressDirect might be exactly what I needed to create a presence on the Internets.

It would be far cheaper than paying for “conversational marketing,” which is where companies pay bloggers lots of money to create product-driven blogs, though Valleywag reports that conversational marketing might not be all that it’s cracked up to be.

As someone who spends far too much of his free time blogging, I can understand the outrage towards a service such as WPD, which seems to legitimize the splog.

However, as an analyzer of social media, I can also see that it’s not the WPD technology that’s bad, it’s how people decide to use it. There’s always going to be some pondscum who will try to game the SEO system and create dozens or hundreds of splogs that link back to each other. WPD seems like it will make it that much easier for sploggers to fool Google’s spiders.

Is WPD much different from a blog that aggregates content? If done properly, will we even know the difference from a WPD blog and one that a “real” blogger puts his blood, sweat and tears into creating? I’m thinking, we won’t.

Can you imagine your horror when you find out that the blog you’ve bookmarked and been following is actually a WPD splog? Shudder at the thought.

Cross-posted from 800poundGuerilla.com

Well, I’ve decided there must be a reason I can’t bring myself to blog. I figure I’m either one of those Obamazombies in that hilarious Onion video or it’s because I’m still trying to get through this fascinating and very long series in Newsweek that takes us behind-the-scenes of the Obama and McCain campaigns (though, I probably should just wait for the movie).

Regardless, I’m sure I’ll snap out of it soon. I’m feeling too good about where this country is headed. Sometimes I have to pinch myself when I read things like how Obama is going to move quickly to reverse the Bush administration’s policies on stem cell research and offshore drilling. Am I dreaming?

Anyways, as Will.i.am says, “It’s a new day.”

Ed, who I’m guessing was in his 70s at the time, had a problem. The city was going to tear down his house. More of a shack, really. It was what they called a nuisance property. No electricity. Garbage strewn about the yard; broken windows, busted boards, peeling paint. It didn’t smell too good, either.

But it kept the rain off his head and it kept him off the street. It was home, and Ed wasn’t sure what he was going to do if the city tore it down. Ed was alone. No family. No friends. No place to go after his house was gone.

Could I help him?

A photographer and I hung out with Ed, talked to him about his predicament and took pictures. I remember the pictures very well: Powerful black and white images of Ed sitting in a chair on his porch surrounded by junk. The story that I wrote, not so much.

Back then, I thought journalism could save the world. Write stories, print them in the newspaper and the power of the words and images could move mountains or, at least, call some attention to someone like Ed’s plight. I don’t remember what happened to Ed. My guess is the city tore his shack down and Ed ended up on the street. Maybe a social worker gave him directions to a shelter and the soup kitchen.

I was young and self-absorbed and didn’t really think of the other things I could have done to help Ed. I couldn’t see beyond the front page. I won’t say I’ve lived with regret because I haven’t thought of Ed too much over the years. But thinking back today, I wish I had done more.

That’s the difference between my life now and the one I led as a journalist. As a reporter, you use your mantle of “objectivity” and role of “impartial” observer as an excuse not to get personally involved; not to pick a side.

I still believe in the power of words and images but when it comes down to it, the question is always, what are we going to do about it? Will writing a check to a nonprofit help? Yes. Will donating old clothes or canned goods to charity help? Yes. Will buying a homeless person a sandwich help? Yes.

You don’t have to make a grand gesture or give more than you can afford. Some simple actions can make a difference, if not in the long run, at least for the moment.

I’m willing to bet that anything you do to move the conversation in your country, in your city, in your neighborhood, on your block toward addressing poverty will help. Today, thousands of bloggers around the world are writing about poverty.

Liberals, conservatives, moderates, parents, college students, retirees — the whole melting pot of the blogosphere is coming together for Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty.

It’s only words and pictures but the conversation has to begin somewhere. Spend some time reading what people have to say about poverty today and then ask yourself, “What am I going to do about it?”

Change.org launched its redesigned Web site this week. I never spent too much time on their old site, so I can’t really compare the before and after. However, what I’ve seen of the after is pretty encouraging.

I’m not quite sure how many more social networks I can maintain without suffering serious overload but I’m going to give this one a tryout period.

Again, I can’t really remember what the old site was like because I had only logged onto it a couple times but I don’t recall it being content driven. That has changed with the redesign, which revolves around several staff blogs, each focused on a pressing social (progressive) issue, such as human rights, fair trade and stopping global warming, among others.

Will becoming a content provider, while providing a social network for progressive activists and a fundraising tool for nonprofits be a successful mix? It’s not a new concept but I think the difference here may be in the execution.

Compare the new Change.org format to Care2 or Idealist. Not exactly an apples to apples comparison but I think in this case, the folks at Change were quicker to realize the power in more tightly integrating all three concepts of content, social network and nonprofit tool.

Is there room for all three of these sites to prosper, since they are competing for basically the same audience? And while we’re at it, we should throw Facebook’s Causes application in the mix.

Of the four, Change and Care2 seem to be in more direct competition. Both now provide content, though in different manners. Change produces more original content, while Care2 is an aggregator, like Digg.

And while Care2 has an active social network and drives a lot of visitors looking for content, they’re also apparently making some changes in response, perhaps, to Change and Facebook’s Causes. If you visit Care2, you’ll notice that they are preparing to launch a “causes we care about” feature.

The measures of success for sites like Change and Care2 will be how much traffic they can generate, how successful they are as fundraising and call-to-action tools for nonprofits and their ability to build a membership base that is willing to maintain their social profiles at least once a week.

From my perspective as Joe citizen, I will probably not maintain an active profile on more than one of these sites, since my time is already spread pretty thin. From my perspective as a non-profit media strategist, my organization probably needs to be involved with all the sites until we can determine which one(s) gives us the most bang for our buck.

It’s one thing for someone to “join” a cause or nonprofit through one of these social networks and it’s an entirely different thing to cultivate an active and engaged member.

Venture Beat posts about the change at Change.org

[Update: Literally seconds afer I made this post, I saw Max Gladwell's tweet about the same subject. Check out his excellent post on the subject.]

My friend and I have a standing zombie plan, which includes a predetermined rendezvous point at the end of the Metro system’s red line. That’s where, according to our plan, we’ll recover our cache of weapons, food and other survival supplies. We drew up an “end of the world” zombie plan over beers and herbal refreshments but never got into the fine details because the discussion broke down into an argument over whether we would be better off heading into the mountains or out to sea.

So I called him the other day and asked if the plan was still on in the event of a financial apocalypse. “Hells bells,” he said. “I’m off to the store to get some guns and canned goods right now.” He was joking. I think.

Is it the end of the world? Or does it just feel like it?

It certainly seems that way on the blogosphere.

A Google blog search turned up nearly 8,000 entries with the phrase “end of the world” in the last week. I think at least half of them quoted the R.E.M lyrics of the song with the same name. Of course, a lot of the posts had nothing to do with the national and global events of this past week, but many of them did.

Some bloggers, like Jeff B at JB on the Rocks, were looking for signs of the apocalypse:

So I’m thinking:

Wall Street is in shambles.

The US economy is in trouble.

The Cubs AND the White Sox are both in post-season play, while the Yankees are not.

I suppose it could be the end of the world as we know it.

Some of the writers, like this guy on PoliticalForum.com, had a serious case of the blues:

I think I’m just crazy but I’ve had this feeling of despair over the last week. I feel like it’s all coming to an end. This next presidency no matter who wins, Mccain or Obama, is going to bring about the end of the world. It’s not just me predicting it either. The Incan’s said it 4,000 years ago. The world ends at the end of the next presidency. But this is all besides the point that i set out to make in this post.

Los Angelista countered with a heavy dose of pragmatism, wondering if some of his friends had gone off the deep end:

A few folks I know are seriously freaking out.

They’re sending me messages, emails, or are posting on their Facebook statuses that they think it’s the end of the world. As in we’re about to experience Armageddon. And if that’s not enough, there are a few “Obama’s the antichrist” emails circulating these days as well. Gosh, not only is Obama black but he’s gotta be the Antichrist too! Dang, can a brother catch a break?

Dark Defender at The Cockpit had a similar take, though his came from the other side of the political spectrum:

The point is life goes on, this is not the end of the world. Take a deep breath and get some perspective America. We The People are right here and our elites are wrong and failing us. We are in a real and true crisis created by our elites, and things are going to be ugly. There just isn’t any getting around that. But we need to hang tough and reject panicky injections of socialism, in the long run sticking to our free market principles which have built America is the best medicine. It wont be easy, its going to hurt, its going to be hard, but we need to keep America, America.

Me? I’m with Brad at Sadly, No! who gives us a choice of post-apocalyptic video clips to choose from (via Big Action):

Seriously. At this point, you might as well just let the economy collapse so we can start hoarding all our worldly possessions in tiny shacks while using large quantities of firearms to protect them from roving bandits. To do anything else would only be delaying the inevitable, since President Sarah Palin will surely finish us off if Bush doesn’t get around to it.

flickr photo / Felix42 contra la censura’s photostream