Open Left

I should put a point on this:

The emphasis on Millennials to the exclusion of other voters is a disaster waiting to happen. Look at the primary, despite huge pro-Obama, anti-Hillary new and traditional media bias, more than half of Democrats voted for Clinton. By March of '08, the volunteer forces were of similar size, but like every campaign, we can guarantee that the older vols of the two campaigns will have the staying power. Despite the hoopla of '04, a year later, like every election, it was the retirees on party phone banks and the kids were vapor.

Now, will virtual organizing tools change the paradigm and swell the numbers of young experienced vols? I doubt it. The thing any experienced field person will tell you is, people do what they want, and it is an organizer's job to facilitate willing participation. The bulk of willing participants will always be new young volunteers who have not yet started careers, and older, established party regulars. Our tools need to target those two groups, and the low hanging fruit will come to the innovators who figure out how to empower Democrats outside of the natural Netroots demographic. I should say, there is cause for optimism. I see a lot of mothers and grandmothers with smart phones and facebook accounts.

The question for us is, how do we harness people's natural talents and traditional social networks?

I would turn the problem upside down and ask, how can we get the maximum real life political action per online hour? The paradox is that the Hillary campaign generated by far the most votes per Internet-hour (by a factor of 10? 50? 100?), and did so by empowering face-to-face social networks with efficient use of electronic organizing. Hillary networks turned out to be underground channels driven from sight by the pro-Obama roar.

Here's an example of a highly efficient organizing: Clinton's name was entered into nomination primarily by an extremely effective blend of virtual and real life action. To avoid charges of wrecking the party, Clinton completely suspended communication with her delegates, and within most states, delegates were not even given email lists. Famously, at the Mayflower Hotel meeting with Clinton bundlers, Obama discouraged talk of Clinton's name being entered into nomination, or of a traditional roll call.

Enter Hillary's delegates. A few found the DNC rule that a candidate be entered into nomination with 300 delegates endorsing the petition. Mind you, there were no contact lists. They found each other by traditional social networking and organizing techniques, and gathered stack of well over 300 notarized signatures, forcing the convention to recognize the nomination, the elected delegates and half of the party's 36 million primary voters.

by: Pacific John @ Sat Jul 11, 2009 at 15:13:58 PM CDT