As I sat on a panel at the Personal Democracy Forum 2008 with fellow online strategy directors for five of the 2008 presidential campaigns, Republicans and Democrats, I was struck by something.

There was once a time when…conservative blogs made it into the nightly news and impacted discussions in the halls of Congress, and liberal blogs did not.

Republican campaigns blew Democratic campaigns out of the water, partially because their message was more compelling, but undeniably because they knew how to inspire peer-to-peer grassroots infrastructure and activity. Democratic campaigns couldn’t organize to save their lives — and it often ended their political lives.

During that same time, Republican presidential candidates announced their candidacy online and leveraged supporters’ enthusiasm by soliciting and accepting contributions online. Democrats watched in awe.

It’s no coincidence that Republicans were innovative, and Republicans were winning.

When was this glorious time – oh, just a few short years ago, in our fine 21st Century: the 2004 election cycle (based on innovations from the 2000 and 2002 cycles).

You might argue that the Internet-driven Dean campaign arrived in 2003. Yet, Dean lost the primary, and it was the Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign that led in online innovation compared to the slow-to-adapt Kerry-Edwards ’04 team. (Just ask the KE’04 campaign’s own eCampaign staff).

BC ’04 built a list of over 7 million supporters, to which it rolled out the tools for those supporters to outreach to their friends, impact the media narrative, walk their neighborhoods, organize parties, distribute materials, and, in the last 72 hours of the campaign, make phone calls from home through an online interface.

Aren’t these the same tactics the Barack Obama campaign is getting so much credit for in the 2008 presidential election cycle? Yes, and that’s the point.

I don’t begrudge the absence of credit to the Right by the media. The media’s attention span is as short as any other media obsessed American.

What I do begrudge is that our party has allowed the Left to dominate online media and innovation, and there’s little excuse for this. The Internet allows for anyone, with relatively little money, to engage, by launching a website, writing a blog, creating a video, running a Facebook group, etc.

True that the primary reason for the narrative that “the Right is behind online” is not really an online problem. It’s a leadership problem. Republican activists are not inspired or moved to action by most of today’s leading Republicans. They are nearly as tired of the current administration as Democrats. They are also tired of seeing Republicans splashed across newspapers, TV screens, and yes, the Web, because of severe ethical lapses.

The Internet alone can’t save the Republican Party, a Party that we know can do much better, and whose supporters deserve much better.

However, it can save Republicans who have the basics down – honest, courageous leadership, solutions to today’s problems, and the energy to win support for their causes and actually fight for them in office.

At Engage, we look forward to working with Republicans and movements who offer that formula, that foundation. They provide the concrete slab, and we help them build the house. The house will boast a strong infrastructure and be filled with happy supporters, voters and donors. The house, symbolizes the movement, which will not only elect candidates, but it will help enact their agenda once elected.

And before you know it, the Right will be on the right track again.