The party has struggled with its digital strategy in recent years. | REUTERS RNC aide: Tech criticism hurts us

A top GOP official on Thursday urged a hastily organized gathering of about three dozen conservative digital experts to stop causing negative publicity about the party’s technology problems because it could hurt fundraising, two people present told POLITICO.

Mike Shields, hired about two weeks ago as chief of staff for the Republican National Committee, held forth in the Reagan conference room at party headquarters with several major figures present, including current digital director Tyler Brown and Zac Moffatt, digital chief of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.


Sources described the meeting as “tense” and aimed at “pre-damage control.” It opened with Shields giving out his email address and cell phone number and exhorting his audience to come to him — not journalists — with issues.

“He definitely said something along the lines of, ‘We can’t afford to have people going out and generating negative publicity and hurting our fundraising,’ ” one attendee said. “He said to stop telling people who really don’t understand what’s going on and telling people who don’t understand digital technology. The whole event seemed pressured to quell discussions with the media in general.”

RNC spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski confirmed the meeting took place and that media leaks were addressed but took issue with other characterizations of the event.

“Our number one priority is building a new digital infrastructure. Mike wants everyone’s input – positive or negative,” she said in an emailed statement. “However, going through the press to give this input is counterproductive and he said as much during the meeting. Ironically the overwhelming response we received from participants was they were happy someone finally called out those who clearly don’t want to help the team.”

The 10 a.m. gathering came two days after POLITICO reported on RNC Chairman Reince Priebus’ challenges settling on a strategy for overhauling the technology the party uses to run campaigns and track voters.

Priebus is set in a Monday appearance at the National Press Club to unveil a long-awaited blueprint for reforms he believes will make GOP candidates more competitive. Among the deficiencies the party openly acknowledges is an inferior digital backbone, which is among several reasons given for the GOP’s losses in the 2012 election.

Attendees at Thursday’s meeting, which lasted about 40 minutes, received a preview of the tech component of that plan that was very similar to that which the party released to the media on Tuesday. The party, they were told, would be making digital operations a focal point of the committee’s work, assuming a priority at least on par with campaign finance and political outreach.

But whereas the preview clearly indicated that the party would hire a “chief technology officer” by May 1, attendees said they were told that may not be the actual job title. Given that the party has had a number of people in similar roles — from “digital director” to “eCampaign director” — it remains unclear how this job will differ from predecessors.

The sources said Thursday’s meeting stood in sharp contrast to one in December that was planned farther in advance and provided an open forum for campaign technology consultants and others to vent about what went wrong during the cycle. This time, there were very few questions — one was asked via teleconference by former RNC online director Cyrus Krohn and another from a representative of the voter data vendor Aristotle.

“I didn’t think it was meant to be something where they were looking for a lot of input,” an attendee said. “I’m not sure people were comfortable asking questions.”

It was unclear how notice of the meeting spread, although its scheduling did come in for some mockery on Twitter.

“It’s not wise for the RNC to schedule a tech discussion while CPAC is going on,” wrote Sean Hackbarth, a blogger for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, early Wednesday. Then he added this hashtag: “#DefinitelyNotGoing”