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Blurring the edges

In a digital era, the edges of politics, governance, and advocacy blend into each other. Elected office and electoral campaigning. Talking and listening. Democratic and Republican. Organizing, strategizing, and messaging.

Yet, in an increasingly partisan era, we may not take advantage of the multitude of ideas and innovations across the aisle.

The 2009 Politics Online (April 20 & 21, 2009) will be a multi-partisan meeting of the minds and idea exchange -- without acrimony and manipulation. Politicos, techies, organizers, and advocates will metabolize what happened this election, nourish their intellects, and move forward, applying what was so successful in their campaigns to the commercial, non-profit, and government spaces. The kinds of multi-partisan discussions that will occur at the 2009 Politics Online Conference will encourage innovation on both sides of the aisle.

Smart people coming together to talk and think critically about politics and technology, forming partnerships, caucusing, learning, and developing new solutions for elections, elected office, and advocacy.

New venue
The 2009 Politics Online Conference will be held in the conference facilities of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, located at 1330 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC, 20004.

About the conveners
This year, the Politics Online Conference is hosted by three organizations: The Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet, Campaigns & Elections' Politics magazine, and GWU's Graduate School of Political Management.

The mission of the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet is to promote the use of the Internet and new communication technologies in politics to enhance democratic values, encourage citizen participation and improve governance, at home and abroad; in short, to “democratize democracy.”

Founded in 1980 by Stanley Foster Reed, Campaigns & Elections’ Politics magazine (www.politicsmagazine.com) covers the strategies, techniques and personalities of modern politics. It is read by thousands of federal, state and local elected officials, candidates for public office, party activists, issue campaigners, political consultants, campaign staffs, lobbyists, PAC directors, university professors, news reporters and numerous behind-the-scenes opinion makers.

GWU's Graduate School of Political Management (GSPM) seeks to improve politics by educating its students and professionals in the tools, principles and values of participatory democracy, preparing them for careers as ethical and effective advocates and leaders at the international, national and local levels.

For more information about sponsoring or attending the 2009 Politics Online Conference, email Lynn Stinson at lstinson@gwu.edu.

Learn more here.

News Briefs

RSS Feed yesterday >

Claire McCaskill Hires Blue State Digital's Alex Kellner As Digital Director

Missouri's senior Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill has hired Blue State Digital's Alex Kellner as its digital director. GO

Controversial Hoekstra Microsite Targeting Debbie Stabenow Created By The Prosper Group

Michigan Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra has caused a firestorm in the past 24 hours with a new campaign ad that depicts China as a young woman riding a bike in a rural area speaking in broken English. The thirty second spot aired in Michigan during the Super Bowl on Sunday, and it accuses Democratic incumbent Debbie Stabenow of aiding ... GO

White House CTO Aneesh Chopra's Exit Interview

On his way out of the White House and back to Virginia, where he is expected to run for public office — but will neither confirm or deny that's the plan — Aneesh Chopra describes the shape of the post he pioneered as the country's first-ever chief technology officer.

As a result of Chopra's interview with The Atlantic's tech/politics correspondent, Nancy Scola, there's now a public record of what this first-ever CTO thinks the CTO's job actually is ("On any topic that is a priority for the president, my role is evaluate how technology, data, and innovation can advance, support, and improve upon those strategies," among other things) and how it might be improved.

GO

friday >

Slovenian ambassador apologizes for signing ACTA, Poland halts ratification

Apparently, some EU countries are reconsidering their support to ACTA, only a week after signing the agreement.
Helena Drnovsek Zorko, Slovenia's ambassador to Japan, has in fact issued a public apology to her country for signing it. Meanwhile, Poland Prime Minister Donald Tusk says he's halting the ratification process of the international treaty.
Last week people took the streets in Poland, and a protest is planned in Ljubljana tomorrow. GO

thursday >

Did Newt Gingrich Lose Florida for Want of a Better API?

Slate's Sasha Issenberg has a great story outlining one narrative about Newt Gingrich's loss in Florida: He inspired a group of tech-savvy volunteers, but gave them no way to plug in to the campaign. GO

House GOP Hosts Legislative Data and Transparency Conference

Today, House Republicans are hosting a conference on legislative data and transparency. The goal, as it's been explained to me, is to set the table for a conversation between House leadership and open government/open data advocates about what the House could or should do next.

More information on the conference is here. It's being live streamed.

GO

When House Republicans Aren't Winning With Transparency

House Republicans have been pushing the results of their transparency initiatives, such as a pilot project to archive video of some committee hearings.

But other committee hearings are apparently off-limits. Politico reports today that documentary filmmaker Josh Fox was arrested while attempting to videotape a House Science Committee hearing on hydrofracking. Only credentialed members of the Congressional press corps can film hearings of that committee.

The archived webcast of that hearing, which was streamed live, is here, if you can get the software to work. Each committee chair has discretion over what to do with video of their hearings, although there's also an office of in-House broadcasters who keep archival footage of everything, staffers have told me previously. As a result, there's no universal standard for how hearings are streamed or archived. The Science Committee uses a content delivery platform powered by Akamai.

GO

Komen's Planned Parenthood Decision Raising Eyebrows Online

Online campaigns have begun to organize in response to news that the breast cancer group Susan G. Komen for the Cure would be cutting its financing to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screening and education programs. According to the news reports, Komen says the decision is not in response to pressure from anti-abortion groups, as Planned Parenthood alleges. Rather, a spokesperson told the A.P., the main factor is a new rule adopted by Komen that prohibits grants to organizations being investigated by local, state or federal authorities. Currently, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) is looking in to how Planned Parenthood spends and reports its money. "Susan D. Komen" has been trending on Google since yesterday. GO

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