techPresident - John Kerry - Comments

MyBO Always Organized From the Bottom Up: Healthy Grassroots!!

Paul Currier — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 02:40:05 -0500

Marshall Gantz has some good comments. Many more good comments can be found on www.Change.org where the Cross Group MyBO membership is hard at work - individually and collectively. In fact the interest in the grassroots is keen on the work now in seed stage, at the www.OpenHouseProject.org and www.OpenSenateProject.org. During the Campaign Phase, the illusion was that Chicago drove the Bus. Not so. Leadership requires a parade. Yet as the Obama HQ ran a tight ship, many times over, the grassroots were out in front. I participated with the www.ObamaBrigade.com in organizing the first movers in many many States where the Campaign did not show up until the General. We have been positive and remain so. We were, and are the hope we waited too long for. The movement is already self organizing, and again we are ahead of Chicago. Many Camp Obama Graduates are hard at work linking a new phase. We are way past the Campaign Phase and we are organizing around the Governing Phase - where we will impliment the Blueprint for America in the Federal Government, as well as in all our 50 State Governments, and all the Local Governments of Americas 3,260 (I am not sure on the exact number) County Levels. We are linking up as the Community Action Network or CAN, and we are the "CAN" in Yes We CAN!

I posted my calls to action on my personal community blog on MyBO:
http://My.BarackObama.com/page/community/blog/PaulCurrier

The National USA.CAN Group on MyBO will golive by 12/12/2008

The State California.CAN Group on MyBO will also golive on 12/12/2008

The County Group SanFrancisco.California.CAN will track the National and California State efforts. We expect that all 58 Counties in California will be live by the end of December. We work fast. Efforts are stirring in Texas, New York, and other States already. All are welcome!

We should be hosting CAN Community Organizer Training Camps - like Camp Obama - in all 50 States - twice a year. Everywhere We Go... The People Want to know... Who We Are?.. So we tell them... We Are The Network! The Mighty Mighty Network! The Community Action Network! Yes we can! Yes we can!

Individually & Collectivley: We can't Change if we stay the same. Join us!

Paul Currier
Internet Community Organizer: CAN (Community Action Network)
San Francisco, California

http://My.BarackObama.com/page/community/blog/PaulCurrier

Re: Very Encouraging Report from Chicago

wadehudson — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 01:57:15 -0500

After posting that comment, I engaged in another related exchange, which follows:

Wade,

I would be cautious about spreading this widely. I have no idea with what authority if any Marcia speaks with but I was one of those who was invited to either travel to Chicago or participate via a Webinar online. Those of us who participated via the Webinar were cautioned in the email we received with our login info for the webinar at the beginning of the webinar each day and at the conclusion of the webinar each day that anything and everything discussed was to remain confidential but that there would be an announcement coming from the campaign in early January.

Certainly it is possible that following the webinar that people in Chicago were in fact authorized to communicate some of the content of the conference. My only real concern is that since there are so many things currently under consideration within the campaign that any unauthorized or unofficial information that comes out at this point, though the intention may be pure, that information could undergo significant transformations and evolution by the time final decisions are made.

Consider that if in fact there was information that was ready for general consumption that information likely would have been posted on www.Barackobama.com , www.Change.gov , sent to the broader community via an email from HQ or the information would have bee disseminated via a formal press release.

Best regards,
Ron Booth
Adams County, CO

I replied, "Thanks for the heads up. Can I forward your email to Marla Turner and to Marcia, and ask Marcia to comment.
Please let me know if and when you want me to share your email with those to whom I sent Marcia's email." And Ron replied:

I'm fine with it being shared and like I say, it's entirely possible that after the conclusion of the webinar it's entirely possible that the powers that be changed their position on keeping things quiet until afar key decisions were made. Then again as I mentioned previously, it would seem that if that were the case the campaign would have made some sort of announcement through one of their regular channels.

What if people decide?

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 15:15:41 -0500

Micah, thanks for keeping track of the dots on this, and for connecting many of them for us.

It is undoubtedly important what comes out of the secret and semi-secret deliberations within the Obama campaign about the future of the movement-network--but one thing to point out is that some people seem to have made the decisions themselves. Notice for instance how ObamaNYC became Voterbook.com within weeks of the election--a group more into good government and keepin' an eye on elected officials than in volunteering for animal shelters, whatever comes out on the email list.

By the time the pros have decided what they want, what they thought they had may be gone, or at least dramatically different. Dean acted quickly in 2004, and had a defining imprint on what DFA became, but if you dig further back in history, think of how for example the progressive reform clubs that grew around Adlai Stevenson's candidacy really grew into an important autonomous force in many parts of the country (New York and California in particular), where they decided to take the entrenched party on at the local level.

Are these different scenarios good or bad? I don't know, it depends on what you want, and different people want different things--and maybe some people in Chicago would want some time to think about this that they are not going to get, because while some are still waiting to hear from C-town, other people seem to be making their own decisions, or simply dropping out of the network. A movement is a terrible thing to waste.

http://rasmuskleisnielsen.net/

Another reply to "The Other Transition"

jenjust — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 11:21:24 -0500

I have been conducting fascinating dialogs with several people - Micah among them - about the future of the movement propelled further by Barack Obama's election and to make sure my views are understood, I wanted to clarify a couple of items regarding my conversation with him yesterday as represented in his excellent piece.

I actually appreciated the organization of the conference calls, which also included a round robin element so that every field organizer was heard equally. There would have been no way to do this within a reasonable period of time if there had been more than 10 people on the call. I also liked the fact that people signed up randomly; you were on the phone with people you hadn't necessarily been in touch with during the campaign. Their careful planning made it clear to me that the organizers of the calls were spending a lot of time making sure that the next step of organization was informed by input from the folks who were working on the ground. I was interested to know what the outcome of the conference calls was, but I didn't expect necessarily to find out right away.

Regarding being "very irritated" that I didn't know about the meeting in Chicago, I actually did say that but I was on my second cup of coffee of the day and was a little hyperbolic as is often the case at that point in the morning! I did assume that as an Obama Campaign 'alumni' (which is how former campaign staffers are currently termed) I would be getting updates on such as that, but I do give the Transition team (and OFA) a bit of leeway as they have a lot on their plate.

I agree with Micah and the subsequent commenters (and this formed much of the substance of our conversation) that there are several forces at work here that traditionally have worked against one another - the desire for bottom up organization vs. the need for people to take the lead, the desire for complete transparency vs. the need to present a unifying message, etc. (I am only on my first cup of coffee today so am not as succinct today as I'd prefer!)

The Obama campaign managed brilliantly to accommodate these seemingly contradictory desires and needs as evidenced by his improbable and decisive victory. There has been some grumbling along the way (from myself as well!) as to whether the balance was truly in grassroots' favor. Now is the time, I'd argue, for volunteers to take the tools they got from the campaign and the lessons they learned, and organize in their communities now, either in preparation for whatever the structure turns out to be nationally or just to move forward on issues of concern to them. Be as open as they want to be, and as bottom-up as they want to be, and share the results with other groups...this could be a great national experiment in what types of grassroots organizations are going to be most effective in our country today.

As far as what the focus will be 'from the top,' my personal preference would be to mobilize volunteers for community service. Things are going to get worse in this country before they get better and we have an 'army' (can we find a better word??) of volunteers who poured hundreds of hours into this campaign and are poised to spend hundreds more hours on an equally meaningful endeavor. Making sure neighbors have enough food and clothing and can pay their bills seems to me to be about as meaningful a service as you can provide these days and I'm looking forward to working on same, in whatever capacity I can.

In the meantime, I'm looking forward to seeing what decisions might be made in the next few weeks - while continuing discussions here at home with volunteers who want to keep the energy going. Their voices and decisions will be at least as important, but at some point Barack's team is going to make some decisions, set an agenda, and lead and I have trust enough in the way Barack has conducted his campaign and now the Transition, to feel that whatever course is set is going to be something most of his supporters can live with.

Jennifer Just

On “The Other Transition: Whither Obama's Movement?”

wadehudson — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 18:37:16 -0500

Micah Sifry astutely comments on how “isolated individuals and disconnected house parties” offering input in a one-way process is less empowering than “being part of a national conversation” that is rooted in “democratic deliberation” that allows for reciprocal exchange of information and mutual influence.

In this regard, even though the Internet and modern technology offer valuable tools, face-to-face deliberation remains essential.

In “Barack, Please Lead the Movement [http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/11/29/17755/619/548/667623],” I argued, “Barack can resolve this issue quickly and easily. He can simply tell his staff to spin off an independent organization that is truly dedicated to community organizing.” Though Howard Dean did so with his campaign when he launched Democracy for America, no victorious Presidential campaign has ever done so. The lack of precedent, however, has not stopped Barack from taking other groundbreaking steps.

He needs to do so again by initiating an organization that can unite the fragmented elements of his campaign into a strong movement that empowers its members. At the least, such empowerment would involve asking local teams to select representatives to deliberate with representatives from other teams to develop meaningful input into national decisions. Barack’s stamp of approval will give an enormous boost to any such centralized effort.

The comments here by jelloformayor about the planning process are well-taken. To my mind, that process has not been perfect. Occasional reports about what was happening from the national office would have been helpul. These reports could have included information on basic points of agreement and perhaps asked for input on specific unresolved questions, rather than merely asking an open-ended question about structure in the conference calls. Instead, we've had to rely on reports from the media. But the process has had many strong points as well.

Regardless, the key issue is whether they establish an organization that facilitates unified, coordinated, timely national action and provides members a way to have a real voice in shaping the specific content of that action.

As Sifry points out, many Obama activists aren’t waiting for a decision from Barack and his team, but are proceeding to engage in self-directed organizing. Another of these efforts is Nations for Change [http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/www.nationsforchange.org].

Absent national leadership, these efforts will have to create their own structures to counter the special interests and help implement the goals of the Obama campaign.

This is the proper process

jelloformayor — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 16:54:21 -0500

I strenuously disagree with the notion that in defining a group's structure and mission, you shouldn't have a generally top-down process. Any successful nonprofit will quickly testify to the importance of a clear structure and focused mission statement, in its success. Conversely, the political landscape is littered with thousands of organizations that used an undisciplined/too-many-people-in-the-room process and quickly fell apart or never accomplished anything substantial.

From what you've chronicled here, this actually sounds like a good process. Obama's team got input from all their field staff on what they saw on the ground with their teams. Now they're doing a smaller session (likely of their top organizers) either to refine that down further or to present visions the top staff have already prepared and work them out further in the group. Add on that they're doing surveys and house party events to gather inputs on what issues to prioritize coming out of the gate, and I can really see them hitting the ground running.

In the campaign, central staff figured out the strategy, structure, and message. Then they gave their supporters the tools to build on top of that and create a community. Founding this new organization (and needing to figure out the complicated questions of tax status and it's ability to cooperate with Obama's staff in government office) requires starting with that type of top-down process as well. That doesn't mean that the resulting group won't be flexible, open, and use two-way communication with it's members. In fact, given how steeped the Obama team is in that exact type of campaigning, I'd be extremely surprised if the group he ends up founding doesn't have all of that built in extensively. But first they need to found something that folks can start building around.

Ownership

Wegerje — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 06:10:20 -0500

In Illinois we didn't participate in the fifty state program. In fact even Howard Dean joked that it was a 49 state program. And why is that. Because the Democratic party is screwed up in Illinois. Rahm Emanuel is the least of its problems here.

But the point I want to make is that ownership by the DNC is not going to be a long term workable solution for the MyBO social/political networking database and software. It needs, absolutely needs, self ownership with a democratic (small d) governing structure.

Jeff Wegerson

Just how BIG is that table? Well, it's up to US.

MadamaAmbi — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 13:39:57 -0500

We are all here because we want change and we all have our own, experience-based, biased ideas of what that means and how we get it. I do, too. I am a feminist with pretty radical ideas. I don't lead such a radical life, but my theories go straight to the roots. I want a seat at the table & I'm confident I will have one because I am a part of so many vital circuits that belong to other vital circuits that belong to other vital circuits, and so on. IMO, this is the heart, soul & strength of how we got here and how we will MOVE into Phase II.

I capitalize MOVE because this IS a movement, and movements move when people move, when people create, disagree, listen, and make room to process. Some people have a bad reaction to the word "process" and I know why, and that's ok. Give me some time and I'll come up with a better word! But here's my point: we need all kinds of leaders in this movement. It's important to identify who has what skills.

I do not consider myself a politico although I spent the last 9 months being ALL Obama ALL the time and getting on the nerves of friends & family! But victory is ours, and I am ready for what's next. What do I have to offer Phase II? I'm a thinker, a writer, a trained group facilitator, a trained listener, a creative, an activist, a feminist, a self-taught artist, a podcaster, a vlogger, a blogger, a trained singer--I communicate! Whatever it takes, I communicate. Whatever it takes, I listen and mirror back what I'm hearing. Whatever it takes, I work it, work it, work it, hoping that convergences can be uncovered where once we saw only painfully raw divergence. I have many projects in mind to make the invisible women & girls in our country not only visible but also speaking for themselves. IMO, this is vital for the future of democracy. I will be writing more about my ideas and I hope to be in dialogue with all thinkers, activists and agents for transparent democracy.

Oh, and I'm not looking for a job. I'm retired, thanks to my husband's government pension.

very truly yours
MadamaAmbi

Interview4Obama http://madamaambi.blogspot.com
subversonance http://subversonance.blogspot.com
Patriarchal Disorder http://patriarchaldisorder.com
madamaambi at gmail.com

I've added some of your points to my post...

Troutfishing — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 11:34:25 -0500

I think they get to, in a sense, the heart of the matter; to what extent will the coming Obama Administration and the future DNC seek to exert control over, rather than promote, political social networks that don't always behave in ways that administration or the DNC want ? In the past, the inclination towards control over, rather than the promotion of, grassroots political energy has prevailed in the DNC.

It would seem very counter intuitive, I agree, were Barack Obama, with his background in political organizing, to try and exert control to the point that it squelched grassroots energy.

Or...

Ruby Sinreich — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 18:07:47 -0400

Sorry to be cynical, but this seems like a joint exercise in irrelevance. They're not keeping debate alive, their debate is keeping them alive (or in the news, at least).

I can't speak for Gingrich or the right, but Kerry doesn't really carry much weight on the left.

Musta been a strong soda

Nancy Scola — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 09:47:31 -0500

Nope, Clark hasn't declared for 2008.

Wait! I thought he was running.

liza — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 11:24:49 -0500

Didn't he declare at the Winter DNC or is there something I missed while I was out looking for a soda?

:-/

Might Iran become the new Iraq?

nottellingwho — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 23:13:45 -0500

Iran might very well become an emergent issue. Wes Clark is clearly brilliant, and he may be hedging his bets that George Bush will attack Iran. If/when that happens he has been champion opposition to attacking Iran for months, he'd clearly get a big boost. So the question is, will Iran become the 2008 campaign's Iraq?