Virginia House Democrats plan to expand their online presence through blogging, podcasts and streaming news conferences.
The caucus announced the plan just days after a national election in which Democrats employed technology on an unprecedented level to reach voters.
The project’s centerpiece is a new Web site — vahousedems.com — that will offer a new hub for the minority House Democrats to promote and explain legislation. The Democrats also will work more closely with Virginia’s blogosphere, said Del. Bob Brink, D-Arlington, who maintains the blog 7 West with another Northern Virginia legislator. He said the purpose of the expansion is to enhance legislative understanding in Richmond.
“I think that both [parties] are trying to play catch-up with technology, but what it comes down to is a difference in philosophy that’s motivating what we’re trying to do,” Brink said.
The move comes a year before a House of Delegates election in which Democrats will seek to attain a majority — or at least come closer to one — from the battered Virginia Republican Party, which lost its hold on the Senate in last year’s elections.
The Republican Party of Virginia just rolled out a revamped Web site and will be adding additional features in the coming weeks, said spokesman Gerry Scimeca.
“In the end, I think it comes down to the issues and some of the more traditional ways of communicating with voters,” he said. “The new media is going to be critical, but in the end, it’s always going to be substance over style.”
The use of technology — from blogs to Facebook to Twitter — was critical in the presidential campaign, particularly Democrat Barack Obama’s. He used his Web site and text messaging extensively for fundraising, and created a separate site to knock down rumors about him. He even announced his vice presidential pick of Joe Biden with a text message, although word leaked out ahead of time.
