Ok, you want to get it together? Fine. Here’s how the political land lays:
- MoveOn, MovingIdeas, Media Matters (the “M”s), the 70 liberal blogs on your right, as well as the Democratic, Progressive, and Labor Parties all compete for your time, effort, and money. [Liability]
- Each and every one of those orgs likely contain a minimum 50% shared membership (conservative estimate). Redundancy of effort on a massive scale. [Liability]
||Balance||
- One blog (not listed) is comprised of over 900 people whose prime purpose is to gather, collate, and report information in-depth on a wide variety of subject matter. I call it the “library”, everyone else calls it ePluribus Media. [Asset]
- PTV is a new online only network attempting to gather information through a variety of media – video, audio, blogs – which provides an alternative to the dread “MSM”. [Questionable]
- ActBlue has built an incredible fund-raising mechanism for virtually anyone who has the bux to set up an account (liberally). [Asset]
- People. The most important element in generating a fully functioning network – on and offline – who are sympathetic to what we are calling “progressive” solutions. [Asset & Liability]
Tying all that together requires a great deal of time, but not that much in overall costs if the construct is flat. You’ll need an interactive map of the Country down to the County/Urban level, or in the alternative, precinct level. Data layers will include every blog, org, contact, and elected office + candidate in those precincts, interconnected in a manner that allows information to flow horizontally. [the Database]
So. You are in a rural precinct in say, North Dakota. You build your own affliliate shell site w/blog, and begin to survey and gather “assets” in your area. “X” precincts in a region, “X” regions in a State, all States on the map. You’re having a bake sale in downtown Minot in two weeks to support your local sheriff. That is a “localcast” with limited distribution. OTOH, you’re locally-supported candidate for the State leg needs help. That’s a “Region-Alert”. [the HomeGrown Media]
Carry the concept to the ’06 elections for Congress, and you move to PTV “webcasts”. ActBlue is your fundraising mechanism, the rest of the programming is up to some smart-ass 26-year-old programmer with way too much time on their hands. Easy money: 1) survey assets; 2) map assets; 3) build network. [National Exposure]
Four: get real. As simple as that outline is in concept, execution is a b*tch, because one of the biggest liabilities is the fight to put it together – to weave that cloth out of whole people. Yes, it can be done, and the last time I wrote that above outline a whole bunch of folk agreed.
That was then, this is now, and the result will likely be the same: don’t just do something, stand there.
That’s a nice looking outline. I noticed the database mention. I think this is where Rove’s crews have had the distinct advantage. I heard similar claims of that capability to drive down to specificity in voters in the Abramoff hearings.
That looks campaign oriented to my untrained eye. Is it?
The democratic party actually has the capability, as does DFA, and to some extent the others to drill down to the precinct level. From what little I know it’s a matter of sorting by various criteria, which in your example would include specific narrow issues.
But the outline is extremely basic, and not really a campaign-driven project. One of the reasons I think it’s possible.
I always thought they did, or should but some of the diaries I’ve seen about disorganization at the local level made me wonder about that.
There has to be sharing of names, and a single point of access for members of each group. And a single appeal, so the same people are not flooded and overwhelmed with appeals.
And coordination of effort – one of those things current laws make very difficult, but not impossible. If we cannot reach down to the precinct level, we will not succeed. Having see war within the party at the precinct level in the last Dem primary in my state – including inaccurate polling information circulated, I learned not to trust other groups. This is BAD. If we cannot trust other progressives, we are sunk.
Cooperation can be forced by focusing on an issue that is common to the groups. That will change with any two groups or more but the idea is the same. Trust is developed over time and working together.
Achieving goals through cooperation above disagreement.
So many people could be helped this way by giving those who work on specific issues the strength in the ability to work together as a larger group.
I understand the lack of trust (here also @ local level), which is one reason a basic framework like ActBlue, or the PacWest portal would serve the purpose in the short-term. One of the ways the system works is by local/regional/national content control: directed e-mail rather than systemwide solicitations.
Minot example, above.
I thought this was a very thoughtful proposal. You would never believe this, but it was a little on the technical side for me (that is a bash at my lack of understanding of all things computer — like, what’s a database). But I think that is a cool idea. The best I’ve seen outlined in terms of process. Though I’m just getting back on-line and starting to read.
So — are you the kind of leader who could take 20-40 e-bodies and make something like this work? Or at least give it a shot?