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Jack Kingston: Online Politician of the Year

Posted by David on March 16th, 2007

We did it!

Last night at the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet’s awards ceremony, Republican Congressman Jack Kingston won the “People’s Choice Award for Online Politician of the Year.” Thank you for voting!

Yes, you read that correctly. Congressman Kingston is a Republican.

I accepted the award on the Congressman’s behalf and I’ll be giving it to him next week (watch/subscribe to his YouTube channel for his acceptance speech.) I expect that he’ll put it next to his Pollie Award which we won last year.

Upon naming Kingston the winner, the emcee said, “It wasn’t even close.” In other words, because of you us, Kingston was the runaway winner and blew the competition away.

What’s the significance? What does this mean for the Revolution?

Good questions.

The significance of a Republican being named the Online Politician of the Year is monumental in the tech + politics world. It means that despite expectations that liberals are “ahead online,” it’s actually the Republicans who are using technology more effectively.

In fact, you should have seen the looks on the faces of the predominately liberal group when Kingston beat out liberal online favorites Ned Lamont and Mark Warner. (No one expected Republican Dick DeVos to win.)

The bottom line is that Congressman Kingston has always been leading the tech + politics front.

In fact, our Constituent MailTube idea was groundbreaking and is now being used similarly in places like the UK by conservative David Cameron.

We asked our constituents to send in questions via YouTube, and Congressman Kingston would respond via YouTube.

Jason Pye answered the call:

And here’s Kingston’s unedited and very authentic response:

We also created an intern-produced YouTube series called, Journeys with Jack, which was produced and edited by our team of summer interns:

We created about 5-6 videos which helped show the Congressman’s constituents how he interacts with constituents and other Members of Congress (and even celebrities like Stephen Colbert and Ben Stein).

And of course, we weren’t just the first to use YouTube to connect with his constituents. We had a very real blog which we used to communicate the message of House Republicans to the conservative (and sometimes liberal) blogosphere when no one else was doing so.

Jack Kingston was the 2006 Online Politician of the Year and I have a feeling he’ll also be the 2007 Online Politician of the Year. But, I don’t want to jinx it.

Revolution!

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