"Yes We Cannabis" (Updated)
BY Nancy Scola | Friday, January 8 2010
Okay, so there's a slight chance that our interest in the application of the Obama campaign's online lessons to other, non-presidential realms is edging over the line into obsession. But, the fact is that Obama '08 figured out how to accomplish some ultra-ambitious goals using digital tactics and smart strategy. Can Blue State Digital (or anyone else) find success in applying those lessons to other projects? Does the Obama online strategy and its focus on compelling human-centered narrative and thoughtful branding carry over to what other political organizations want to accomplish, the missions that political advocacy groups have set for themselves, the goals corporations hold. Can you do it without Barack Obama?
Who better to keep an eye on, then, than the people who did it for Barack Obama? See, obsession totally justified.
With that settled, we're in the clear to take note of a campaign that Blue State Digital currently has its hand in out in California that aims to normalize, if you will, marijuana use by treating it more like alcohol. The resulting tax gains, argues the "Tax & Regulate Cannabis" campaign, can help California pay for the luxuries they're having trouble affording. Like schools. And hospitals. (You might notice that that's some distance from what Obama himself has said about marijuana, in particular when, during an Open for Questions round, he laughed off the idea that legalization of marijuana could prove to be an economic boon.) The Tax Cannabis campaign is still just getting off the ground, and the goal is to pass legislation later this year.
The effort's slogan? "Yes We Cannabis."
UPDATE: Madeline Stanionis of the San Francisco-based online advocacy and fundraising firm Watershed writes to add some needed context to this post. Stanionis writes that it is her group, Watershed, that is handling the online strategy for the Tax Cannabis campaign, while Blue State Digital's role is limited to being the vendor behind the campaign's back-end contact relationship management software and online fundraising tools.
That is, of course, a meaningful distinction, and I'm glad that she shared it with us.