The Overthrow of Everything

I'm currently engrossed in a book written by Howard Dean's 2004 campaign manager, Joe Trippi. I remembered Dean as being the first candidate for any office that I was really excited about, and it's one of the things that led me to follow politics as closely as I used to follow insignificant shit like the NFL off-season. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything is a chronicle of Trippi's career, technology in politics, and everything that went right and wrong on the failed Dean for America campaign. Someone recommended this book to me in a message board thread for Barack Obama volunteers, and the words they used to do that keep echoing in my head as I work through it each day on the train: Howard Dean's campaign pioneered the use of the internet to organize and fundraise for a presidential campaign, but we are witnessing the perfection of those methods in Obama's run.

Indeed, the parallels between the campaigns are incredible. I feel like I'm experiencing a second edition of Trippi's book being written in realtime by Senator Obama. In the book, for example, Trippi discusses the use of the website Meetup.com that allowed supporters of Governor Dean to organize rallies for the candidate by themselves, and how those in attendance at those rallies grew exponentially throughout spring and summer 2003. As I'm reading this, I keep refreshing the Facebook event I launched to notify WCU students about the episode of MSNBC's Hardball being aired live here with Senator Obama next week - and that number is growing just as quickly in front of my own eyes now. Although it's not a truly supporter-organized event open to the public, 500 people had jumped on this shit in the first 24 hours after it was posted. People continue to subscribe for updates even though it's open to current WCU students only.

It's long been my firm belief that the Internet will change the way our democracy works, but witnessing little stuff like this firsthand makes Joe Trippi some kind of Internet prophet to me. His articulation of these ideas are now four years old and are just starting to manifest themselves in the public sphere. The same concepts that propelled Dean to front-runner status in 2004 now allow me to help recruit hundreds of new volunteers and raise thousands of dollars for my candidate in 2008 as effortlessly as if I were just updating my list of favorite music on Facebook.

My recommendation: read Trippi's book, and set your TiVo to record Hardball live at West Chester University on Wednesday, April 2nd to see just one of the tangible results of his Open-Source Politics concept that will change the way government works for us.

"One signature away"

It is amazing how some people can take something that is widely viewed as a negative, spin it around, and have it come back out sounding like the best thing in the world:

“We are one signature away from ending the Iraq War. President Bush must listen to the will of the American people and sign this bill so that our troops can come home.”...
“All of us have been touched by the heroic sacrifices troops have made in service to our country. With the stroke of a pen, President Bush can bring them home to the families who love them and to a country ready to give honor them for their service.” -- Barack Obama

If that doesn't take your breath away, I don't know what will. Thinking back on four long years of this war and what it's done to not just this country but the whole world, thinking about how much longer it has the potential to drag on and on, and then stopping to consider that, yes, one little scribble of ink now has the power to bring it to a close -- that is some perspective for you right there.

Unfortunately, we'll all come crashing back to reality when this ends up getting vetoed anyway. It was nice to get just a taste of this in the meantime, however. And we will be coming back for seconds.

Link via [TPM Cafe]

Smearing the Senator from Illinois

Media Matters has a pretty complete and comprehensive list of smears against Barack Obama, originating with, and repeated by members of the press.

This really goes beyond digging up dirt on the guy so they can have something negative to broadcast. He just entered the race two weeks ago and they haven't even let him trip up on his own -- no, they're doing everything they can to nip this campaign in the bud, and it's not working.

link via [Media Matters ]

On the topic of Electability

The primaries are still over a year away, and every day we're hearing about new exploratory committees to determine someone's chances of being elected to the highest office in the land. To some, this is the beginning of a too-long election process that will dominate headlines and conversations. To me, it's an encouraging sign that folks still care enough about democratic politics to have dozens of hopefuls revving their engines at the starting line here in January 2007.

Right now, though, it's a bit discouraging to tune in on cable TV or talk radio when they're talking non-stop about the elect-ability of a person; especially when they're discussing things like gender, race, religion, marital status, and other things that should have no bearing on a campaign two years ahead of Election Day (or at all, in most cases). Save that shit for the primaries, when strategy actually will count for something. Now is the time for original ideas, policy discussions, and public service track records.

Instead, we're already descending into the petty and the mundane. Everyone's asking one another the same silly questions with the same incredulous, wide-eyed faces as though they were the first people to think:

"Will Americans vote for a woman?"
"Will Americans vote for a black guy?"
"Will Americans vote for a guy who's been married three times?"
"Will Americans vote for a guy who's smoked pot?"
"Will Americans vote for a guy whose name doesn't sound of Anglo-Saxon origin?"
"Will Americans vote for a guy who did coke?"

The answer to most of the above WOULD be yes, but unfortunately the questions get asked so much that folks get spooked and tend to shy away from these candidates, gravitating toward more "safe" choices -- candidates that are, as the term goes, more "electable". We sacrifice the chance to have the best public policy and to have the best possible leaders in office because we're all scrambling to put our money down on the one who we think has the best chance to win.

Because of this phenomenon, genuinely interesting candidates like Barack Obama, Rudy Giuliani, Hilary Clinton, and John McCain are already being thrown under the bus by a mass media that has nothing better to talk about at this point in the campaign than how black, divorced, female, or old they are. It's as though if they're being punished for coming to the party early; and yet, anyone who dares to make a late entrance will be dismissed as being a long-shot. What's left are the in-betweeners, the play-it-safers, the favorites in Vegas -- the leaders Americans choose not because they want the best government, but because they want to Win At All Costs.

Obama != Osama: The Running Count

A running count of how many times the media has "accidentally" mixed up these guys:



1. CNN: "Where's Obama?" - Jan. 1
2. Yahoo! News: Top Stories Photos: Osama Bin Laden & al Qaida - Jan. 3

It's going to be hard to believe after we count 30 more of these that the news outlets are doing this by accident. The more they make out of the "How will his name hurt his election chances" topic, the more it actually will, um, hurt his election chances. They're creating news about this guy when there is none to be reported, and it's irresponsible.

links from [Salon] and [TPMCafe]