You can wall out what you don't like but you also can't see what's happening on the other side.

Wesley Donehue, the tech evangelist of the SC Republican brand, has a really interesting video clip of Kevin Hall, one of the candidates for party chair. Hall's talking technology and the need to put it to use in organizing the state party and reaching out to younger voters. He seems to have a good idea of where the deficits are in current operations, and offers up his campaign website as an example of how things can be done better.

You can't read too much into a two and a half minute clip but Hall's better argument is using technology to unite the party and the local and county level by encouraging lateral as well as vertical, communication. The party seems a remarkably fractious bunch of local fiefdoms that have been coasting on big, to-be-taken-for-granted-voter advantages for years and calling it smart party management.

So ginning up the base in better and more cost-effective ways is a good idea if it brings greater unity, cooperation and cohesion.

But.

There's nothing to suggest the South Carolina party's base is any different from the party base nationally- aging white guys not noted to being tech enthusiasts. Nor is there anything wrong in trying to reach younger voters the party needs to stay in business. But this isn't a Marshall McLuhan-style, "the medium is the message" problem (though, admittedly, there's younger voters who regard the GOP as tragically unhip for not being able to use, say, a Blackberry; most of them probably regard the GOP as tragically unhip because they are old). The problem Hall doesn't address is that the party he wants to lead has a message younger voters- and significant other voting blocs-don't like. It's hard to tell a person he or she is wrong on almost every issue in the public square, and then wonder why they didn't vote your way.

It's not apparent how technology can fix that problem.