Tired of being seen as the other political party when it comes to making effective use of online tools, the GOP is redoubling its efforts to push its congressional membership to use Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms:

Constituents “want to be kept up to date from us right now,” [Ohio Representative Bob] Latta said, “They don’t want to have to wait half a day, or a day, or two days later to actually get the communication,” from a congressional office. So, the group is trying to identify “best practices” on social media services like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Qik, and UStream.

The effort is being waged from the new House Republican New Media Caucus (@GOPNMC on Twitter), and 60 House Republicans have already joined. Representatives from Facebook, Apple, UStream, Google, and Yahoo have met with the Caucus to discuss new ways for the GOP to get its message in front of constituents online.

Whether the move will work to shore-up voters who are leaving the party in droves remains to be seen. For a party once guided by Reagan Deputy Chief of Staff Michael Deaver’s dictum: “the visual over the verbal“, it will need to figure out what to do when the message is the message.

via CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive – Republican on new media: You can teach an old dog new tricks « – Blogs from CNN.com.