techPresident - my.barackobama.com - Comments

There is a way

crash83080 — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 13:19:19 -0400

There actually is a way to set up a whole new network quite easily. We in New Jersey have already done it, www.jerseyshore4obama.org, and it's very easy for anyone to set up and run. Check out Ning.com to see what I am talking about.

Stunning

Freedomfighter — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 10:53:17 -0400

There are many limitations to the myBO groups. Even searching them is difficult. However, I think you have pranced over the blatantly obvious.........the fishbowl effect. The anti-FISA Obama people are like fish which can see the world but are panicking over discovering they are all wet and can go no where because they are in a bowl. What would be interesting if the anti-FISA people actually teamed up with a civil liberties group and put out a video attacking Obama's flip-flop. However, the civil liberties groups, like the one at the link below, are stuck in protesting Bush as if Bush was running for office as he did in 2004. Things will become very interesting if such groups of people start actually interacting and get off the myBO site. Will Facebook or some other social network make it possible? Stay tuned.

http://www.constitutioncampaign.org/toolkit/declaration.php

Poll Driven versus Social Network Driven

owen93 — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:48:39 -0400

"Who gets the candidates ear" indeed.
Do we really want a President who runs their administration and therefore the country by "sharing power" with those who have a broadband connection and know how to use it ?
Poll driven candidates who blow hot and cold on policies based upon public opinion as derived from professional polling are usually treated with disdain. Is there a substantive difference between the Poll Driven Pol and the NetRoots driven Pol?
As has been pointed out the membership/registration policies of MYBO and the tools available there are apparently flawed and sparse. The social network movement is still very much in free for all mode and frankly needs to have some common sense structure applied to it. We zone our physical space, we do not allow anyone to shout anything they want anywhere they want. We allow judicial and legislative bodies to regulate the physical parameters of protest. Online Social Networks have no physical parameters though, and so we have not yet developed the tactics and tools to simulate common sense regulation of dissent.

We also have not had time yet to see what "Fresh Hell" can be raised by the trolls and flacks who get paid to be blogosphere agent provocateurs, but rest assured they are on their way. Ask yourself If you have any doubt that a handfull of such professional trouble makers can easily derail conversation into cat and dog fights and lead otherwise rational people to utter ridiculous pronouncements which amount to extensions of the attacks by the initial Guerrilla Ontology Warriors. I predict that once this becomes overwhelmingly obvious any resistance you might have had to common sense regulation will turn to demands that something be done about the situation.

LUX ./. owen

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Who shall follow the Thread beyond the Labyrinth of Words?

Solution

crash83080 — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:08:31 -0400

The groups I belonged to on myBO got crazy with the listserv emails and it got quite annoying. So, I created a social network for our group to coordinate and organize on. It provides a hell of a lot more flexibilty than the myBO site and allows for interaction and collaboration among the members. Anyone can make one too. My groups website is www.jerseyshore4obama.org.

17,590 and Counting

Alan Rosenblatt — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 17:51:49 -0400

Well, it has been 8 hours since Micah's post and the FISA No Immunity group is closing in on 18,000.

Alan Rosenblatt
AKA DrDigiPol (drdigipol.com)

Opt out of email

cfinnie — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:18:08 -0400

I got the same flood of email when I first signed up. So I went back and found a box that allowed me to opt out of email--which I quickly did! You could also choose a digest delivery, the way I handle the email overwhelm from my political listservs.

Since Obama has said he wants to use the Internet to make government more transparent and interactive, maybe you should send him you post on what they're doing with government 2.0 in the U.K.

Worthy

TroyMorris — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:07:26 -0400

I think it's worth noting that the creator of the group on myBO (which the 13 year-old in me wants to giggle at) also created a wiki.

I think there's something about that technology that works for politics. After all, content does live forever on the internet. It's a big improvement over traditional social networks because they can and do die after people begin their inevitable exodus.

Disclaimer: I work in the wiki world.

After the election

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 18:52:40 -0400

Fascinating post, I really appreciate the historical perspective.

I wonder what will happen if the movement feels that Obama lets them down. If he becomes President, and probably even just in the course of the general election, at least some of the larger clusters that have been drawn into the game are bound to be disappointed by one or more policy positions.

When it happens, will people be able to use the same infrastructure that assembled them to pressure him? Or will they just leave? Can the movement arraign itself to allow for processes or consultation and/or accountability that will give people the sense that even if they disagree with his stance or one thing or another, they at least had a fair chance to be heard, and should stay to fight, also on the internal fronts, another day? Would the campaign even want that?

It seems to me that a recurring tendency in somewhat decentralized and largely self-organized movements is that they are very inclusive, and may work pretty well, as long as everyone remains on more or less the same page in terms of the short-term and purely instrumental goals. But one thing is for a lot of people to come together because they agree that the country needs a Democratic President. Another is to maintain cohesion and the power it generates once things gets more complicated than that.

Interesting thought!

Joe212 — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 09:52:22 -0400

Interesting thought!

If he wins the election, and wants to successfully implement the changes promised, we'd need the support from his current organization/group to ensure Democratic Party majority controlled in both senate and congress. As such, I think his existing organization should be managed by the DNC. By the end of the day, it is all about "money" and "quit pro quo". In order for him to be able to advance his programs, he needs support both from those guys in Senate and Congress, who in turn also need his support to raise money for their reelection campaign.

One of the reasons of the party insiders/superdelegates have been exciting of supporting Obama is the ability of Obama and his campaign organization to raise money from small donors. (Why in the hell they want to support the other candidate whose campaign was in such huge debt?).

In any event, if this movement is sustainable, it will change the dynamic in American politics.

Campaigning vs. Governing

Luigi Montanez — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 00:01:53 -0400

It'll be interesting to see what will happen when this movement seeking to capture power actually attains that power. Didn't work out so well for the Conservative Movement these past few years.

Campaigns are competitions at their core. Americans like that. There are contests that we can follow, votes we can tally, dollars we can count. Governance, on the other hand, has no points system. Yes, Obama can keep revamp WhiteHouse.gov to be more transparent. He can continue to utilize his massive list with calls to action. But will his followers really respond the way they do now?

American government, from the federal level down to the local school board, is not a very attractive thing. But campaigns are great fun. They have clear winners, there's a clear goal, and there's a lot of drama. Governance is about the infinite shades of grey, and the outcomes are never clear, often frustrating, and always complicated. Who wants to get involved in that?

The only way I can see the Obama movement continuing is if a clear issue-based organizing infrastructure is set up. That way, supporters can pick and choose where they want to expend their energy. Those who want to see solutions to global warming can engage in one space, those interested in universal healthcare over here, etc. It may even make sense to organize around concrete initiatives within the larger issues. Whatever the solution, it needs to remain accessible to the masses while recognizing that attention is a scarce resource.

He'll probably keep BarackObama.com up

Patrick Ruffini — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 23:13:05 -0400

There's not a lot of precedent here, but past practice has been turn your list over to the RNC/DNC once you win.

I suspect Obama will keep his list independent of the DNC, and organize independently from there. As we've seen, the person is a lot more powerful a platform than the party.

very funny!

Freedomfighter — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 22:46:21 -0400

"it suggests that the era of Big Money and Big Media pre-selecting the nominee of the Democratic party may well be over" .........yeah right, ROFLMAO!

Here are some factors to consider:

1) the anti-Clinton movement gave Obama a huge advantage. Progressives did not like her, moderates hated her husband and young people found her unappealing. This made it easy for Obama to appeal to many types of voters.

2) white guilt which did not, and still does not want to criticize Obama, because it fears being seen as racist.

3) Young people under 26 who read more books of Harry Potter than history. Obama looks like a high school debate guy, and the young are drawn to him and react as if they are voting for American Idol or prom king instead of president. Doubts? How far would a white Republican candidate get if his middle name was "Hitler"?

4) George Bush sucks at speaking. Face it. The last ten presidents before Bush spoke a thousand times better. But just remember, a good speech does not mean a good president.

5) Obama raised lots of money from groups like Moveon. To say big money did not play a part is disingenuous.

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.