Monday Buzz: Twittering Twits, Canoli Calamity, More

It was another great week for NDN in the media. First off, our tech event last Tuesday, "New Tools for a New Era," was picked up by Jose Antonio Vargas in the Washington Post in a story about the GOP's effort to catch up technologically. From the Post piece:

And the GOP will be rebuilding itself at a time when the Democratic Party continues to make inroads in using technology to reach a diverse set of constituents with their message. Today, the New Politics Institute, an arm of the liberal think-tank New Democrat Network, will hold one of its many lunches for Democratic Hill staffers and advocacy folks. The title of the event: "New Tools for a New Era." Simon Rosenberg, founder of NDN, said the lunch is a part of his group's ongoing New Tools series, which tout the use of cell phones, social networks and micro-targeting, among others, in campaigning. NPI was created in 2005.

"Look, the Republican Party is at least two presidential cycles behind. They didn't get what Howard Dean was doing. They dismissed what Barack Obama was doing," Rosenberg said. "But one of the things they have going for them is, they can learn from years of trial and error and investment by us Democrats. Eventually, they're going to catch up. But they can't just combine new tools with old politics."

Simon's tech analysis was also featured in a big AFP story about the State Department's embrace of new tools. From the story:

Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, a progressive think-tank based in Washington, said Clinton's embrace of the Internet is going to be imitated by others in the Obama administration.

"It's going to be all the cabinet officials, all the major agencies and departments," Rosenberg told AFP. "They're going to be under pressure to use these tools to bring themselves closer to the American people and the people of the world.

"It's going to become imbued throughout the entire government," he said. "If you want to give a shiny apple to your boss and your boss is Barack Obama one of the shiny apples you can give him is a great YouTube video that reaches millions of people about a subject that he cares about."

On a different note, Simon was featured in a great story by Ron Brownstein and David Wasserman in the National Journal about Democrats' huge gains in the nation's better-educated counties:

Republican leaders have strained their relations with voters across the Diploma Belt by appearing at times to allow their religious views to trump science (on issues such as embryonic-stem-cell research) and to prefer small-town perspectives to cosmopolitan views. "These are [voters] who use the Internet and modern telecommunications," says Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, a Democratic group that studies electoral trends. "And Obama felt like he was living in the same world as they are. And the Republicans had drifted from them and been deeply disappointing in their actual governance."

Our immigration event last Thursday, "Making the Case for Passing Immigration Reform This Year," was picked up in several Spanish-language papers, including El Sendero de Peje and El Financiero.

NDN Fellows Morley Winograd and Mike Hais had their essay, "New Attitudes for a New Era," featured on the Huffington Post politics page.

Lastly, Simon made an appearance on Fox News this week to (allegedly) discuss the stimulus. Check it out below: