Cross-posted on e.politics
Over the past few months, we've gotten tantalizing hints of the level of integration of online and offline organizing that the Obama campaign has achieved. For instance, of the $32 million that his campaign raised last month, $28 million came in online, and though the vast majority of donations were small, this also tells us that the Obama people must have pushed almost ALL of their fundraising online, even for the people who would normally send a large check.
But politics is about mobilizing people, not just about raising money, and a few weeks ago we got this vignette:
In Sen. Barack Obama's Iowa headquarters, young staff members sit at computers, analyzing online voter data and targeting potential backers. They zip one e-mail to an undecided voter and zap a different message to a firm supporter.
Depending on the voter, they follow with Facebook reminders, telephone calls, text messages and, most important, house visits.
Matching the communications channel to the supporter! For another view, check out this part of Zephyr Teachout's lovely stream-of-consciousness look at on-the-ground canvassing:
I looked up Obama's SC office online, they emailed me the $26/night hotel, I used Google Maps to find the location, I showed up, they used computer printouts from a massive database, and an attached mapquest-generated map, and an attached database generated canvass map, to give me a set of doors to knock on. Eight years ago none of this would have happened.
E.politics has long preached the virtues of integrated online/offline communications, and it's fascinating to see a major campaign with big resources put the idea into action and really go beyond the basics. I have no special insight into the Obama campaign, just the same public information we all have access to, but the sense I get is that these folks are really using the web rather than just throwing things online. Their 2007 spending reflects it: in addition to any internal staff resources, "Obama spent more than $2 million on hardware and software, paid the Internet consulting firm Blue State Digital nearly $400,000 and paid technology consultant Joseph Rospars more than $90,000."
From fundraising to voter contact to social networking to online organizing of offline events, the critical point is that the Obama campaign seems to have integrated their supporter communications to a very effective degree — it's not one tool, it's the combination that matters. And the MoveOn.org endorsement is just the latest indicator that the internet community is responding. At this point, the Obama campaign looks like a model that for other campaigns going into the future, and I can't wait to talk with his online people when they're free to speak openly.
– cpd
Political puberty? Ouch! My political career started about 15 years ago, though, so at least the timing's about right.
As for the rest, let me just say that if integrated online/offline political organizing were so easy and "not much new," a lot more campaigns would be doing it. In the future, they will, and I suspect that one example they'll look to is the Obama campaign.
Colin Delany
e.politics
http://www.epolitics.com
I'm going to quote Zephyr:
"decentralized power is different than decentralized tasks. The internet enables both, but the former increases democracy, whereas the latter increases heirarchical control. The Dean campaign decentralized power; many campaigns have borrowed the tools and innovations from that cycle, but primarily for decentralizing tasks."
"Power is decentralized when participants have a meaningful chance to change the structure — what Jonathan Zittrain calls ”generativity.” Power is not decentralized every time a person participates. A supporter can make phone calls, door knock, forward emails, but not be encouraged to strategize on her own; she has little more power than a person sending in a video entry to a Cheerios contest for a new ad campaign. I regularly participate in the newspaper industry by reading papers, but that doesn't give me power to change the structure."
"Why should we care? Distributed power leads to distributed responsibility, which is good for a healthy polity."
I work for a company that exists because Dean's campaign actually trusted volunteers. The DeanSpace project birthed a community of companies working in progressive politics, innovating, competing - pushing for a better, more open, more progressive, flatter, decentralized, and more courageous Democratic Party structure/DC culture/national polity.
How many insurgent communities like that will succeed Obama's volunteer army? We'll see. After all, that's how we "change the way we do politics" as somebody likes to say. Obama's online campaign structure is not as inspirational as his rhetoric. It's certainly not transformative.
In many ways, Ron Paul's online campaign is what I would have liked the Democratic nominee to aspire to. Minus the insane spambots... and the affiliations to white supremacists... and the...
Hi Fred, this is fun. You make an excellent point, and I agree that the Obama campaign does not appear to have the same kind of transformative nature as the Dean campaign had. But, I don't think a campaign necessarily has to be transformative to be influential. Let me steal from something I wrote a few weeks ago:
I'm a big fan of people-powered politics: if you look back at the last 17 months of articles on e.politics, you'll find plenty that celebrate the power of digital networks to allow ordinary people to upset the political applecart in ways previously unimaginable. Internet activism is real, and it CAN be really powerful. But there's a big difference between a phenomenon, which is something that happens, and a strategy, which is an attempt to MAKE something happen. Political campaigns may well benefit if they can catch a wave of people-powered politics, but they still have to win elections even when the waters stay calm.
To me, the Dean and Paul campaigns are fascinating phenomena, and I'm looking forward to seeing plenty of other people-powered online movements over the next few years. Some of them may break out and become massively influential, though we may not always like the results: your noting of some of Ron Paul's less savory associates is a good reminder that populist does not always equal progressive. Still, I see Obama's campaign as almost certainly influential, if nothing else than because he's raised so much money and organized so many people online. Online politics is partly a craft, and plenty of practitioners will be looking his way for ideas about tools, techniques and tactics.
Also take a look at Alan Rosenblatt's follow-on piece on the Dean campaign — I think it's excellent, and I'm curious to see what you think.
Colin Delany
e.politics
http://www.epolitics.com
EVERYONE’s got a crush on Obama… presenting the brand new Obama Pizza Rap featuring Obama Girl:
http://digitalfuntown.squarespace.com/dft-blog/2008/2/4/obama-pizza-rap-...
I think Obama's campaign has done a great job, and should be applauded. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't also look at the counter-factual...what if they had run a more decentralized campaign up until this point? What if they had 3,000 local groups in the Feb. 5 states, instead of a few hundred...groups which then locked into the final days door-to-door?
These are impossible questions to answer, but we ought keep asking them, as starting in April, the general election candidates will have to ask: do they want to encourage and enable local, adult (as in responsible not as in naughty), self-directed creative groups? I hope the answer is yes, and the last few weeks of more loose relationships with local organizers have given the democratic candidates confidence that they won't fall off the rails if they depend more heavily on more autonomous action.
no doubt Obama's online campaign tactics are going to be influential. any successful marketing strategy will be emulated. however, Obama says he set out to transform the way we do politics.
the web creates opportunities, but it doesn’t “do” anything on its own. much of the online strategy this cycle has been a race to appropriate, institutionalize, and essentially fit into the vertical top-down power structure of traditional operations the many 3rd party technologies whose appeal and power for users are their distributed and decentralized properties.
the big truck “the interwebs” in and of itself is not going to be a change agent for American politics any more than the one time hope of a television in every home was ever going to eliminate America's illiteracy rate as some promised.
it's all about how it's used. the means.
thus, the national political establishment remains largely safe from the democratizing opportunities of this wacky series of tubes.
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Let me be the devil’s advocate here.
I apologize if this comes off sounding offensive…….but…here it goes. This essay sounds like the writer hit their political puberty six months ago and upon discovering masturbation, thinks they have found something truly unique or awesome. Gosh, wait till you find the sex toys, porn and a girlfriend!
Honestly, there is not much new being mentioned here. There are many ways to organize people. What matters with the internet technology is how efficiently does it help a campaign. So far, John McCain seems to be the only one to make efficient use of the internet. He has been outspent but he is the front runner
Let me be the devil’s advocate here.
Obama benefits from the internet only because of other factors. One third of Democrats can’t stand Hillary and/or her husband and will not vote for her. Two, young people, particularly those under 25, have a huge prejudicial bias against old people. Young people place old people in three categories, my parents, your parents and the pedophiles. He comes off sounding “just like me”. This is the myspace crowd and identity politics at its worst.
Three, he speaks well.
As for Moveon, they are the Lyndon LaRouches of the internet age. All emo with angst against Bush. What policy comes from that? Sure, they helped get the Democratic Congress elected which now has the lowest rating Congress has ever had.