techPresident - What is Obama's Movement? - Comments

MyBO from back in the day

Jack Mitchell — Fri, 09 May 2008 20:49:23 -0400

A few quick pointers:
-MyBO was critical in organizing New England activists to get to NH all through 2007 and up to the primary.
-The MyBO Blog allows newbies to find their "blogging legs", then they can move on to the greater blogscape.
-The MyBO group listserves get the word out.
-The Admins don't "airbrush" the content in the blog comment, except when coments are waay over the line. Criticism and dissent is allowed.

I used MyBO continually from 3/07 to 1/08 for organizational purposes and information. Since the NH primary, I hardly use it, but anticipate that it will come back into play as November approaches.

Followers vs. participants

cfinnie — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:12:08 -0400

At my local DFA meeting last night, we had quite a talk about how to keep a movement like this going without a leader. Without a charismatic candidate to rally behind. Was there a candidate we could get behind? I know some groups that have done that--mostly moving to local or regional candidates. Was there an issue we could support? Some DFA groups I know of have done that. But finding a purpose for a bunch of people who came together around a single candidate is not as easy as you might think.

As one woman observed, people want to be lead. Following is what we know how to do. Being self-directed politically is still new to most of us. Top-down campaigns have been the rule since the rise of political machines and particularly since the dominance of mass media in campaigns. In the Dean campaign, they honestly didn't have the resources to manage us much. Joe Trippi has admitted that more than a few times. We did a lot ourselves because we had to. So, when a local Obama supporter recently complained about how much material they had to produce themselves, I had to laugh. I told her about making flyers from the Dean website in 2004. And told her she was lucky not to have some overpaid political consultant telling her what she could and couldn't do.

Still, many of us who got active in that campaign and others, have remained active. We have moved on to other groups, other issues, other candidates. If that happens again--and I believe the way the Obama campaign is structured will encourage that--we will see another surge in civic participation. The first was a game changer. The second will solidify the gains. And I predict we will see a transformation in civic life.

What is Obama's Movement?

Micah L. Sifry — Thu, 08 May 2008 10:29:26 -0400

As the dust settles on the Democratic primary fight, I think more people are going to be turning their attention to understanding the significance of the new kind of political machine the Obama campaign has been building. Matt Stoller, one of my favorite netroots writers, has a great stab in this direction over on OpenLeft with a post he titled "Obama's Consolidation of the Party." I'm not sure I agree with all of his conclusions about Obama's dominating and remaking the Democratic Party, but there's surely huge potential in their blending of top-down message discipline, net-centric outreach, Alinsky-UFW-Ganz-inspired field work, Camp Obama trainings, Obama Organizing Fellows, and a new 50-state voter registration effort.

Whether Obama wins or loses in the fall, this network is going to be a game-changer. So I'm planning to spend more time digging in and writing about its internal dynamics, culture and leaders.