GOP Making Significant Advances on the Web

In his Mass winners and losers column today, Washington Post writer Chris Cillizza lists this "winner:"

Republican Netroots: If one of the stories of the last decade in politics was the rise of the liberal online community, the Brown election suggests that the story of this decade -- or at least the first years of it -- may be how Republicans found their mojo online. Not only did Brown use the web to fuel his massive fundraising in the final weeks of the campaign but in every measure of the social networking world he far outdistanced Coakley -- nine times as many views of his You Tube videos, five times as many Facebook friend and three times as many followers on Twitter. Did his dominance in this arena win Brown the election? No. But, it gave his supporters productive vehicles in which to channel their energy and enthusiasm for the candidate. For Democrats who pooh-pooh Republicans' efforts online, the Massachusetts race should serve as a major wake-up call.

And it raises obvious questions about how, one year after the inspirational bottom-up Obama victory, it is possible for a Democrat to get beat on-line anywhere.