Ground Game

There was an interesting debate and bit of news over on the Republican Party Tech Working Group listserv yesterday.

It seems a number of participants, including a who’s-who of DC conservative bloggers, didn’t realize membership was open to anyone who felt like making the single-click sign-up, including liberal bloggers, or members of the press like me.

The members discuss inside baseball strategy and other tech/political subjects. It’s an interesting read at times, although several members are quite upset that bloggers like Nirmal Mankani of Capital Viewpoint/ Michigan Liberal , Nico Pitney of the Huffington Post and Matt Stoller of Open Left were occasionally listening in.

Lance Dutson first brought the situation to light:

Not sure if everyone is aware of this, but this discussion group is being sent to a number of Dem operatives.

Matt Stoller of OpenLeft, MyDD, etc, is on the list, along with Nico Pitney of the Center for American Progress, and Lane Hudson, best known for exposing Mark Foley's situation, FEC complaints against Fred Thompson, writing for Huffington Post,etc.

A quick view through the members list shows this stuff, but I get the idea many folks aren't aware that this is an open group.

I for one am extremely annoyed that these discussions could have showed up on the pages of the Leftosphere, and I think whoever is responsible for this needs to explain his/her rationale to those of us who considered this a relatively 'safe' environment for discussing strategy.

Forum creator David All briefly defended the open membership, but has since recanted:

Several folks have urged me to close the open GOP Working Group group based on recent revelations about Dems on the list.

As has been noted by many, this list should be a safe area to discuss GOP tech strategy without fear of comments showing up in the media or elsewhere. It currently, is not.

And it is unfortunate that we can't ensure the sanctuary without implementing a few internal security measures but that's the simple fact of the matter.

My plan, which I will implement tomorrow if you collectively agree (traveling all day for meetings with no Internets) will be to scrub the list of known operatives. If there are emails I don't recognize and they have never contributed - they wll be removed from the list and asked to re-apply for membership. EM and Adrienne have agreed to help with this process from now on.

Undoubtedly, some good GOP voices will be removed from the list in this process. Please accept our early apologies and re-apply.

The list will move to restricted membership.

Please consider this an open-thread to discuss this new policy.

Some have mentioned moving the list off Google's platform completely. I'm not wedded to any platform so I am open to suggestions as long as the platform retains similar attributes.

David All Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

There’s no reason this group of Republican bloggers can’t have a private mailing list, sort of like the Townhouse Group, a similar discussion tool employed by liberal bloggers. But in fairness, none of the progressives hanging out in the forum were hiding their identities. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have found their contact information so easily, as Dutson pointed out.

As a journalist/blogger, I certainly admire David All’s preference for, and comfort with, transparency. But it’s hard to refute the complaints of his forum colleagues who are feeling a little embarrassed and angry today.

UPDATE: Wow. Was there any attribution in that post I didn't mess up? The dangers of blogging after a brief vacation. Anyway, hopefully all the proper affiliations have been corrected and updated above.