There's an excellent profile piece on RNC eCampaign Director Cyrus Krohn written by Jose Antonio Vargas. I've been watching for this piece to surface for quite a while -- ever since I introduced the two in a coffee shop off Capitol Hill last year.

The most interesting nugget in the story is the battle Cyrus appears to be fighting internally at the RNC to convince higher-ups to pull dollars away from the folks who like to run 30-second ads to go toward an effective online strategy. No doubt a difficult fight that is just getting started.

However, Cyrus uses the most effective argument to yield undeniable credibility to his argument -- data and results.

Krohn bristles at the criticism of McCain's eCampaign team. For instance, he says, "both parties are still too TV-obsessed."

"The use of TV in campaigns is kind of like our dependency on foreign oil. We know we have to get off it. We know we need to find alternative energy sources. But we keep on going back to the pump," Krohn continues. "Fact is, we need to develop a higher degree of comfort with allocating media dollars to the Web."

Last summer, he got the chance to test the effectiveness of the Internet as a stand-alone campaign tool. With the permission of the RNC's senior staff, Krohn zeroed in on the Louisiana gubernatorial race. Then-Rep. Bobby Jindal was an attractive candidate, Krohn says, and it was projected to be a tight race. For 3 1/2 months, using online micro-targeting and data-matching, he identified a set of voters and turned them out to the polls.

Statewide turnout for the Louisiana race was 46 percent. Of those voters who interacted with Krohn's online targeting -- he won't say how much of the total vote -- 76 percent voted, he claims. Krohn says he's not suggesting that the RNC is responsible for Jindal's win. What it does suggest, however, is that the model could have significant impact on voter turnout, he adds.

"Everyone is talking about Obama and his success with the youth vote. Well, there's a significant older demographic on the Web, and what I was able to do in Louisiana is identify and interact with an older voting bloc," Krohn says.

Results are the reason why the web is the killer medium for politics.

No doubt you can reach a load of voters at the end of the campaign with TV ads -- and that still needs to happen -- but perhaps you run a few less spots in order to have an effective online strategy. I don't think we'll see much of a shift in resources this cycle.

I hosted a panel discussion yesterday at the Leadership Institute on "Why the Internet Matters" for a group of young conservatives. Robert Bluey (Heritage Foundation), Cyrus Krohn (RNC) and Matt Lira (John McCain 2008) offered insight into how the Internet is shaping conservative politics in 2008 and beyond.

The general consensus? The Internet is empowering real people to get involved in the electoral process at a level never before witnessed in American politics. Soon, the Internet will dominate political elections as more and more voters prefer to communicate with their peers online.

I think the right is beginning to recognize that political trend, which is why a select group of conservatives are pushing organizations, candidates and elected officials to be more effective online. This is why Robert Bluey began holding weekly Conservative Blogger Briefings to facillitate conversations between major figures and prominent bloggers at the Heritage Foundation.  And I think the conservative movement is making progress in our effort to surpass the left on the Internet.

I asked Robert Bluey to talk about how the Conservative Movement is using the Internet to affect policy change. He cited Heritage's involvement in the immigration debate in 2007 as a key example of how two-way online communication enhanced the conservative agenda.In 2007, Bluey believes he created a model that the movement is re-creating. This was a moment in which a conservative organization promoted social networks & used YouTube to simplify complex messages.

By encouraging grassroots supporters to join the discussion and add content, organizations did away with the tried and true Top Down way of communication and began to focus on Bottom-Up involvement.

Now for the first time, countless organizations are using new media tools to empower supporters to be effective at the local level and in turn, we are affecting policy change even if our progress is recorded in micromovements.

To Cyrus Krohn, baby steps for the movement now lead to major strides down the road.

Cyrus Krohn mentioned that he realized the non-partisan value of the medium to the electoral process in the mid-1990’s. It was a realization that in the 1990’s and perhaps even today, many political parties did not want to hear.Flash forward to 2008, and the RNC’s phone is ringing off the hook. More and more campaigns are wondering how they can use the Internet to win elections. So, conservatives see the need, but Cyrus notes a generational gap.

Many conservative generations understand the importance of new media skills, but still don’t know how to use them.

This is why the Leadership Institute is expanding its Internet training programs and expanding its reach across the country. To be successful, I think all organizations need to work together. Each organization serves a role in the movement and a better stream of communication between each party is only going to help hone our efforts.

Matt Lira took our discussion a step further to state that 2008 is the most important year for the Internet.And 2009 will be the most important year for the Internet. And 2010. And so on.The goal is to constantly re-evaluate where we stand online as the communication dynamic changes.

I enjoyed Matt’s discussion of his time with Eric Cantor and now at John McCain. He talked about how he went from a high resource environment at the RNC to a lower resource environment on the Hill.

I had to sharpen my blade and learn to be more efficient with the resources available. When every penny counts, you strive to be more effective in everything that you do.

To Matt, Web 2.0 reenables Americans to be involved in the decision making process.

So what’s next?

Cyrus foresees the movement from Horizontal Social Networks, like Facebook, to Vertical Networks in which voters can connect with other people and rally around niche interests. This is only going to make our job more difficult as we become less able to penetrate those silos of networks.

Thoughts?

I’m interested to know how you think the conservative movement can work together to address these issues to be more effective online.

Last night, while you and I were sleeping, the Republican National Committee re-launched its website -- www.GOP.com. The mastermind behind the re-launch is RNC eGuru, Cyrus Krohn, a heavy-weight in many tech circles.

RNC Chairman Mike Duncan has a video message up on the homepage of the site welcoming visitors to the "new" site (it is not a YouTube embed), and RNC eStaffer James Richardson had this interesting nugget in his blog post explaining the re-launch and noting some of the features:

The Republican National Committee is committed to maintaining and gaining a technological advantage on the web and this is clearly a step in that direction.

Interesting nugget because I think this website is indicative of a "change" in thinking at the RNC. Less "control" + more community = relevance.

Of note, it appears that the RNC has dusted off their myGOP social networking site to include some new features. I asked Cyrus for some more information about it and sent along the following in an email:

The new gop.com was designed based on statistics from historical data on user interaction. We're providing our core audience access to information they are seeking and the tools to consume that content however they wish.

For first-time visitors, we offer an interface that is easily navigable, with immediate access to the news, information tools, and services to make their experience positive and informative.

Through the use of RSS feeds, email sign-up, mobile alerts, social networking and bookmarking, we're providing our audience with the opportunity to consume gop.com content at any time, from any place, and on any device.

And Cyrus adds, perhaps with a wink, that there's more to come:

MyGOP is our in-house social network and we look forward to the participation of Republicans from across the country, and world along with to the thousands who already interact with each other there. You can create your own campaign goals, recruit others, share photos and videos and blog on your personal page on gop.com

We just released the new gop.com and are already working on new functionality to further improve on our efforts. This version of the site is only the first of several upgrades as we march towards victory in 2008 and beyond, reaching voters of all ages and backgrounds online.

The site also tries to push you away (and back in to your social media hubs) as quickly as possible where they have established their presence in places like Facebook, YouTube, Myspace, etc. -- a testament to how far the RNC has come with its embrace of Web 2.0.

Porridge to Cyrus et al. for the successful re-launch. It's good to see resources being spent wisely and I look forward to watching this blossom in to a helpful resource for the Republican Party (Finally?).

I'm sorry to have missed this event:

The RNC’s Director of eCampaign, Cyrus Krohn, is on a panel with Joe Trippi today at “The New New Internet Web 2.0 for Business & Government conference.” As you’ll recall, Trippi ran Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign and used the Internet effectively to generate online support and contributions. He is now a senior advisor to the John Edwards for President campaign and remains a vocal proponent of democratizing Democracy through the Internet. We have to wonder if he is responsible for this effort to remove unfavorable content about his candidate from YouTube contradicting his principles of the Internet.

In Trippi’s book, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything, he says on page 102 he thinks the “Democratic Party [has] a leg up on the Internet”. Krohn will refute this point during his panel discussion later today. For those of you unable to attend with such late notice, Krohn will be twittering occasionally from the event between 1:15-2:05 p.m. ET. You can view his Twitter posts here or on Krohn’s Facebook page where he has a Twitter feed enabled.

Fortunately I'm now following @cyrusk. Are you?