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RNC Surrogate Training Program Say It Loud Comes to Denver

by Live Free | 4:26 pm, November 22, 2009 | 1 Comment

I received an invitation and attended the new Republican National Committee (RNC) outreach program Say It Loud in Denver this past Friday, the 4th time it’s been presented to the general public around the country.

The new GOP surrogate training program is organized into roughly three components: New Media Surrogate, Traditional Media Surrogate, and Panelist and Speaker.  The agenda sounded pretty worthwhile and it’s good to see the GOP reaching out to develop and promote activism in the conservative realm.  According to RNC Coalitions Director Angela Sailor, they brought their A-team of presenters, consisting of Lenny McAllister, Randa Hudome, and Kathleen Leos.

New Media Surrogate

Lenny McAllister, a political commentator who frequents Fox and from Charlotte, NC, gave a lively overview on “new media” to include social media.  While calling it “new media” demonstrates a constrained outlook on using technology and the Internet, his approach to strategies was really good.  There were a few people in the room that asked the questions “what is Twitter?” and “how do I use Facebook?,” which there wasn’t time to cover and beyond the scope of his presentation.  Note, if this is you, make plans to attend the Peoples’ Press Collective Re|Education Camp on December 5 to get the nuts and bolts of various social media platforms and network with other folks in Colorado using these tools.

Traditional Media Surrogate

Randa Hudome presented the Traditional Media piece of the Say it Loud program.  As an accomplished commentator herself, she gave excellent tips and insights on how to prepare a media resume to get on TV or radio, how to remain focused and on point, dealing with the opposition, and pointers on looking good for the cameras.  This was a valuable session for activists looking to present their positions on tv and radio.

Panelist and Speakers

This session by Kathleen Leos, was pretty unfocused and I wasn’t able to track her presentation topic to the conversation.  She began talking about the five pillars of the GOP making her way through small government and low taxes before falling off message and including education.  While education is important and most conservatives are staunch believers in education, many of us don’t subscribe to this being a key function of the federal government.   We seemed to have received a 45 minute pep-talk about the Republican Party and never touched on what could have been a great session on how to be an effective speaker or panelist to promote the conservative message.

The New GOP Say It Loud Portal

The RNC is rolling out a new forum as part of its made-over www.GOP.com to connect activists and Say It Loud graduates with the GOP HQ and research staff.  While many of the features seem like something that could be handled off a well-run Facebook Group (let’s face it, most of us are already spending time there and it would be easy to access), a neat benefit is being able to request specific statistics and information that Angela Sailor said the RNC research staff would respond to.

Rather than getting information and facts back in talking point format, there were a few of us bloggers in the room that asked them to include links to their source information which is seemed to take a few minutes to understand why we’d want that hyperlinked from the information they’re spoon-feeding.

Don’t get me wrong, this a great idea and I’m personally looking forward to having access to people that can turn around requests for information, but there is a degree of mistrust of the large political party apparatus and we want sourcing on information we’re putting out there to the public.

While we have yet to receive access to the Say It Loud portal for Colorado and don’t know what we’ll find there, the handouts from the session didn’t include the presentation slides nor a Slideshare link (how’s that for new media usage?), which we hope is rectified for future groups.

The Republican National Hispanic Assembly of Colorado (RNHACO) did a great job organizing this event and I’d like to thank them for all their hard work putting this session together along with thanks for all speakers and RNC organizers of this event.

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Comments

  1.   kathleen leos
      November 29th, 2009 @ 10:32 pm

    I agree with the opinion of the author and have changed the session form and format to focus it on specific Action Steps and what to do and how to be an effective speaker and panelist in your community. Thank you for your insigts, I concur-Stay tuned! Kathleen Leos

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