MeetUp on the Mall: Say Hello to Your Fellow Americans
BY Nancy Scola | Monday, January 19 2009
During the 2008 presidential race, it seemed like "community organizing" came to stand as a proxy for the competing world views of the Democratic and Republican tickets. Barack Obama, of course, drew on his experience as a grassroots organizer in Chicago to explain his vision for an America where my fortunes and freedoms were inextricably linked to yours. And Sarah Palin, you'll remember, mocked Obama's community organizing resume to a rousing response at the Republican National Convention.
Obama went so far as to bake that world view into his MyBarackObama.com tools, empowering the humblest among us to create events designed to draw our communities together in support of candidacy.
One thing he didn't do, however: make much use of MeetUp, which played such a talked-about role in Howard Dean's 04 candidacy. But MeetUp has a plan to get back into the mix. MeetUp and the Huffington Post have teamed up to hand out about a half of million of "Hello, My Fellow American, My Name Is..." name tags to the crowds amassed in DC for tomorrow's presidential inauguration.
Authorities are telling attendees to arrive down on the National Mall extra early, so there will be plenty of time for Americans to meet and greet one another. MeetUp's Scott Heiferman and Jeremy Heimans describe what they hope to accomplish:
[W]e want to turn a crowd into a community. We all need a little reminder that we're not just spectators and that Inauguration isn't just for celebrities. We can look at each other, and not just at the Jumbotrons. As Obama says, "We're the ones we've been waiting for."
And to that end of encouraging folks to jumpstart their own community organizing, the back of the name badges have a four-step guide for creating an organic grassroots group. The instructions exhort, "Be Like Barack!" If all goes well, some Americans will leave the National Mall tomorrow with a few new friends and some fresh plans to start creating change back home.