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After what many people would probably agree could be called The Dark Years, the Democratic Party of Georgia elected a new Chair and recently appointed a well-received new Executive Director, Matt Weyandt. A familiar name to those of use who were big fans of the Jim Martin campaign, Matt brings a wide range of campaign, volunteer, and finance experience to the table, and he’s jumping right into the pool of communication that previously only got the occasional chlorine tablet from party leadership.

“I’m ready to get to work on revitalizing this great party, starting with the grassroots.”

And start with the grassroots he did, sitting down for a beverage with a handful of local internet rabble-rousers to discuss his background and his vision for the future. (Me, I’m not yet one of those rabble-rousers; apparently, while doing fairly well on the national circuit, I have yet to shag the right local person to get the same heads-ups as a libertarian, an independent, and a complete neophyte. If it weren’t for their Twitterrhea I probably would’ve been given the same short shrift as what the Creative Loafing gave to send so many panties into spontaneous combustion.)

Matt seems to have a lot of optimism about the potential of social networking and new media tools, which is understandable given his spritely age of 28 years. Discussion of the social networking tools got tied into the topic of an all-district strategy for DPG — that is, going after every House, Senate, and Congressional district in Georgia regardless of feasibility so as not to write off the rural red regions. DPG might not have the money to throw at lost causes, but volunteers don’t cost much, and we could take better steps to identify, communicate with, and motivate those people on the interwebs, if we were smart with the data. A phrase here and there began to emerge about developing completely new software to do this, but I tried to plead for going with some available, pre-packaged solution. One problem with innovation these days is that new platforms keep being launched that offer some minor evolutionary step forward without being revolutionary enough to triumph as a clear winner, which is why within a dozen years of “generation gap” we have people my age who got on Friendster and didn’t want to follow the younger’uns onto MySpace who didn’t want to follow the even-younger’uns onto FaceBook, and similarly one person at the table tonight talked about the utility of the DNC’s PartyBuilder networking site while another said that’s what opportunities we have through locally-developed, niche marketed and still rather beta Donkey & an Elephant.

I’m all for new tools and such, but when each political clique develops its own tools and networks to serve a purpose that is, by and large, already being addressed, it leads to the same kind of fragmentation and ineffectiveness that our various make-or-break issues groups generate within the big tent that is our party. It’s bad enough that we have a hard time coordinating between the state and local party, Young Democrats, Red Clay Democrats, Democrats Work, ACORN, MoveOn, and God knows how many particular focus groups like Sierra Club, ACLU and the like; then I have to go and check Yet Another Social Profile to find out what the hell’s going on in town because friends of mine who were already on MySpace or FaceBook have decided to favor brand new D&E and have moved their message before their audience has caught up. Punishing the people you’re trying to reach for not being as hip and trendy as you are seems counterproductive to marketing, so let’s not go adding to the ranks of PartyBuilder, One Corps, My.BarackObama.com, and so many others just because it’s hip to have your own social network. If we could all find a way to make the DNC site work for us (it’s got plenty of group, geographical, and networking functionality to handle our needs), I think we’d save a lot of effort in trimming needless overlap.

Matt also seemed enthused about the utility of new media for grassroots engagement. Somewhere in an exchange between Rusty and Jenna of Red Clay Dems, the notion of podcasts for party training came up. I threw the video work I did for YDAtl into the mix and started thinking — perhaps colored by the way our stunning defeat in District 48 has given me a masochistic taste for fighting losing battles — that there’s a whole new uncharted realm for web-based video training in DPG. Not everyone had heard of the Obama campaign’s canvass training video, but it’s well worth a look as a benchmark. If we are indeed going to try for an all-district strategy, we’re going to need some inspiration videos targeted specifically at the losing battles. The stuff I made for YDAtl was for a rather willing audience, and one that still had hope of victory. The more obviously doomed causes in redder parts of the state will require a different breed of volunteer, but I also think there’s a particular kind of marketing that will work very successfully in motivating that kind of quixotic Democrat.

Rabble-rousers, you might call them.

There was plenty more political advice passed around this evening, but I just wanted to cover the geekier bits. Matt promised more conversations like this in the future, and I don’t see any reason to doubt his word. It was a good night for the DPG, and I don’t even think the dude has officially started his job just yet.

UPDATE: Catherine, Rusty and Grift report.