The Social Media Club of Austin will meet on April 19, 2007, from 6 pm to around 8:30 pm, in the Texas Capitol building. [Update: Meeting will start at 6:30.] This event will focus on politics and public policy and how social media is drastically changing both. If you’re reading this, you’re invited.

Recently, the political world was buzzing over a YouTube commercial attacking Hillary Clinton, the presumed frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for President, on behalf of Barack Obama. Some experts are comparing the ad to the famous Daisy commercial, from the 1964 Lyndon Johnson campaign, for its impact. The Johnson ad, which only aired once, effectively labeled Barry Goldwater as dangerous and reckless - not to be trusted with the nuclear football during the height of the Cold War. The anonymous Obama ad, produced by a political pro in D.C. without the consent of the Obama campaign, is a take off of the Apple ad, 1984.

On the Republican side in the Presidential race, Fred Thompson, a former U.S. Senator now better known as the district attorney of Manhattan on TV’s popular Law and Order, is the object of a fierce online recruiting effort to get him to step into the Presidential race. He’s paying attention, apparently, and was recently spotted in D.C. having lunch with the campaign manager for the Bush-Cheney Reelection Campaign and other key players in the Republican Party. During a recent and intense period of speculation, fueled largely on line, front runner Rudy Giuliani has seen his poll numbers dip by almost the same percentage points that Thompson’s have risen. We don’t know for certain what impact social media is having on these developments, but we can safely say it is playing a major role.

It seems that every major candidate is factoring in social media in their campaigns. John Edwards twitters. Hillary Clinton chats. Most of them have MySpace pages and flirt with the blogosphere. Four years ago, it seemed revolutionary that Presidential candidate Howard Dean was blogging, and raising significant amounts of money online. Today no serious effort is without them.

2008 will be the year that everyone at the top of the political food chain, and many more candidates in lower profile races, will attempt to use social media to gain advantage in the areas of fundraising, negative attack ads, campaign event organizing, and Get Out The Vote (GOTV) campaigns.

Check back with us for more details on the upcoming meeting. We’ll know the specific room very soon. We’ll start with a panel discussion and then probably break into smaller groups. Our last meeting, held at the Zachary Scott Theatre Center, drew over 50 participants, and we expect this one to be larger.