Coleman: Cultivate "Grass E-Roots" To Win Youth Vote (VIDEO)

"Ethernet" expert and former Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman has some advice for the Republican party: Cultivate grass e-roots.

Coleman was in St. Louis last week for the Conservative Heartland Leadership Conference. In a speech to the audience of traditional-values voters, Coleman shared his hi-tech strategy for saving the GOP.

We need to cultivate our grass e-roots. Grass e-roots. I heard a little bit about that discussed this morning. That's spelled Grass-space-e-hyphen-roots. We have a new [unintelligible] in American politics called grass e-roots. In this new world, the one with the most cell phone numbers, e-mail addresses and YouTube hits wins. Despite the fact that we had superior tickets and issues in November, we never caught up on the Democrats on the ability to raise funds fast and cheap, and communicate with millions of people in milliseconds.

Door-knocking and direct mailing still have a role but e-politics is the name of the game and we have to learn it. Facebook, Twitter, blogs, online social targeting. Conservatives need to manage the communication tools of the 21st century. ...

Coleman was in Minnesota Supreme Court earlier in the week, but he did not let the gloomy predictions for his case stop him from pitching his "e-politics" strategy.

A videographer taped the event:

WATCH:

After the speech, Coleman was seen telling a supporter that the key to Republican success lies in the "ethernet."

Get HuffPost Politics On Facebook and Twitter!

Comments

[Zen0469]

Norm Coleman shining his medieval flashlight to illuminate the leading edge technology brigade and jive talking about the latest in e-roots developments. Speaking of the bland leading the bland ........... The very thought of Coleman explaining this innovative GOP thrust is a genuinely humorous concept.

Under Norm's personal Grass e-roots lies a vacuous mind that in many respects resembles the vast steppes of Central Asia - not a thing on the horizon for thousands of miles.

Good luck with the e-roots, Norm. Oh, by the way, seat Sen. Al Franken will you?

[Travis bdboy]

Is that like the enthernet?

[beckpod1]

They'll have to learn to tell the truth first......Young americans are savy and will find the lies on line!
That's what they just don't get...their thinking is....we need to censor YouTube!

[WilliamProc]

With Coleman, the foot never loses its flavor.

[Antifascist-08]

Uh, Norm.......

[BeasleysMom]

I think Coleman is what is meant by the term "Long in the tooth."

[TOOO]

By the time the GOP catches up to the current technology, the rest of the world will have invented something new. Sort of like when Apple finally started using Intel chips, when everyone else went AMD. (And yes, I still love my Mac.)

[ronspri]

tooo, you are correct. Even if the right as in party is up to speed, a large number of its adherants arent. This is not the answer for them. The answer is to quit saying you had superior tickets and issues and really get them. Quit being the "A " team for the wealthy and corporatists. Stop trying to turn our country in to a theocracy. ...There, I've given you a start. Like any of it will get done. I think they would rather lose elections than go forward, so lose elections it will be.

[Marq Hwang]

It's a good point, except your analogy's flawed. AMD still hasn't even cracked a quarter of the market.

[GLT21]

As the saying goes: " you can't teach an old dog new tricks."

and the R party is OLD. Remember the tubes.

[BeasleysMom]

These old men all talking about using the internet are quite funny. Kinda cute actually. All they know is that Obama's people "used the internet" to fundraise and win the election, but they don't really understand any of it. They don't understand HOW to effectively construct a campaign and raise money. The don't understand the strategy, timing or effective use of the written language. All they can do is talk about it.

Anybody who thinks that the McCain tweets actually come from McCain is just plain silly.

[Squeglen]

Will someone please explain to him the difference between the Internet and Ethernet. How pathetic.

[Gidster]

It IS too late after the election to campaign isn't it?
He LOST the election right?

[grf67]

Morons - with limbaugh, cheney, hannity and coulter, the GOP has no chance of getting the youth vote. They are about to reap what they have sowed - a very poor 2010 election.

[chitown8]

He really has huge teeth. Norm the "Beaver" Coleman.

[cloudynites]

Now, chi, I think you're being a little hard on the beaver.

[Leota2]

LMAO!

[VivaZapata]

typically, the republican mentality refuses to accept that the populace is getting hip to their tricks. they always see the multitude as pliable with bs words. if that fails booze and jesus. if that fails, more subtle propaganda (this grass e-roots junk) should be applied. they don't realize that the people are beyond all of that and have long passed them by. Bye, bye.

[liarsclub75]

"Cultivate grass" is rich coming from old chomper himself. He looks like he is seeking the horse vote.