In December 2006/January 2007, with the stinging defeats of 2006 still painful, most notably the 83 vote squeaker in Connecticut’s 2nd District that sent Joe Courtney to Congress instead of Rob Simmons, Chris Healy and I spent a considerable amount of time assessing the damage and planning the reconstruction of the Connecticut Republican Party as a statewide political organization.  We then collaborated on a document that would eventually become our strategic plan when Healy became Chairman.  “Fight or Die!”was warmly received by those who reviewed it - indeed, much of the discussion about Healy becoming Chairman was ignited by its circulation.  I returned to Connecticut after five weeks of European backpacking to find that Healy had been elected State Party Chairman and I was hired to help him implement our vision.

Perhaps the keynote section of “Fight or Die!”were the pages that Healy had cleverly dubbed ‘The Electronic Tusk’.  It called for wholesale change in CTGOP’s online footprint - with a robust effort made to push information to Republican Town Committees and similiar organizations via the CTGOP website, a blog, and various other tools.  With more content than ever before at www.ctgop.org, The Everyday Republican having recently celebrated its first birthday (May 4), and numerous other tools coming online, ‘The Electronic Tusk’ has been one of the success stories of Healy’s tenure as State Party Chairman. 

We now use the Internet aggressively to distribute information and advocate for Republican candidates throughout Connecticut, with applications such as:

GOP CONNECT - A recent addition to the CTGOP sphere, GOP CONNECT is our interactive reference map with the contact information for every Republican Town Committee Chairman in the State.  In the near future, each Town’s McCain for President Coordinator will also be listed so that people interested in getting involved with Sen. McCain’s campaign can do so.

Photo Gallery by Flickr - Another new feature, we now post photos from our events and activities on our CTGOP Flickr website.  Already, we’ve posted 249 pictures from an array of events - President George W. Bush’s visit to Connecticut, Senate candidate David Blackwell’s announcement of candidacy, and the First Congressional District Convention.

POTUS 2008 Election Tracker - We added a nationwide, interactive map to track the February 5th, 2008, primary results.  Once the Democrats have settled their own nominating contest, we’ll track state-by-state election polling and electoral vote counts with the map.

CTGOP News Channel - Our YouTube Channel, CTGOP News Channel will be undergoing a refresh in coming days so that we can add new content and expand readership.

Online Petitions - We now use our online petitions application to generate support for CTGOP positions and issue advocacy efforts.  A recent petition on In-State Tuition for Illegal Immigration was signed by more than 1300 people in just three weeks.  We currently are using the petition to collect requests for McCain for President bumper stickers.

Drop.Io- A few of our recent posts have featured mp3 podcasts from Chairman Healy.  Drop.Io allows the Chairman to record these podcasts over a cell phone from virtually anywhere and then post the recording in an easy-to-use format in a matter of seconds.  As the campaign season ramps up, we’ll be using this more aggressively for a number of different activities.

After only one year, and so many exciting events to come (Bush Dinner 2008, Presidential campaign, Congressional and State elections), the online future for CTGOP is bright.  One development at the national level we’ll be following is the new initiative by Soren Dayton, Jon Henke, and Patrick Ruffini - The Next Right.  Bringing innovation and fresh perspective to the Republican Party will be the means via which we make the Party vibrant again, in Connecticut and in the nation.  As we wrote so many months ago now, Connecticut Republicans have a choice: to fight now or perish as a political party. 

We are in the fight now.