Daily Digest: From the Ashes, a Blogging Class Emerges...
BY Nancy Scola | Wednesday, November 19 2008
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Online Right Sees a Chance to Take Root: Conservative bloggers are looking at the aftermath of the recent election and seeing opportunity, reports the Hill's Walter Alarkon. As the GOP struggles to find its footing and establishment conservatives like the Weekly Standard are playing the blame game, the time is ripe for new voices and new leadership on the right. And the left's netroots, of course, rose and flourished in opposition. But can the leaders of the online right really be gatecrashers when so many have held jobs inside the gates? The coalition list on RebuildtheParty.com, for example, includes the phrase "executive director of..." more than once. Conversely, the netroots' leaders came from seriously beyond the Beltway -- think Markos Moulitsas, Jerome Armstrong, and Matt Stoller. When they started out, they were so far outside the gates that they couldn't even see the gates from their houses. Wil that help or hurt the online right? We'll see.
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While the Online Left Considers the President Elect: Speaking of the netroots, are liberal bloggers disappointed with President-elect Barack Obama? Perhaps. From his hiring of Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff to his supposed Secretary of State offer to Hillary Clinton to his reported consideration of Larry Summers to helm Treasury to what amounts to a pardoning of Joe Lieberman, Barack Obama hasn't exactly played to the left's blogosphere since November 4th. But as Politico's Ben Smith points out, that's really nothing new: "[I]f there was ever a campaign that took the complaints of liberal bloggers seriously, it was ... well, not Obama's." So where does that leave the netroots? With the right roots, likely, attempting to navigate this new political landscape.
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The Agenda Returns, Somewhat Tamed: A full-fledged "Agenda" section returns to Change.gov, and as the New York Times Michael Falcone reports, it's a "kinder, gentler" message than what appeared when the site launched. Gone are full-throated campaign-style criticisms like references to "Bush-Cheney saber rattling." The old Change.gov agenda seemed to be a matter of the campaign getting ahead of the transition. But one tech tool made popular this cycle -- version tracking software like Versionista -- might cause the transition some heartburn.
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Inside a Team Meeting: Change.gov's latest inside-the-transition YouTube video, featuring a meeting of the transition's energy and environment policy team, is a rather pedestrian three-minute affair. But one hopeful note is team leader Carol Browner's admonition to her troops that they shouldn't "just sit in the traditional government stovepipes," saying "some of the best ideas will be ones that can move back and forth" across agencies and departments. Doing away with information siloing -- often the bane of getting major changes made in Washington -- is something that the 'net and other tech can be great at, so we'll be keeping an eye on how this develops.
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From World of Warcraft to Washington: It turns out that Kevin Werbach, the Wharton professor serving as co-lead on the transition's review of the FCC, is a die-hard World of Warcraft player, as GigaOm's Wagner James Au reports. In fact, one of the two WoW guilds to which Werbach belongs is a legendary one run tech world figure Joi Ito. In 2006, Werbach blogged in praise of how the game facilitates "collaborative production." If the news gives you the feeling that suddenly the sort of people you hang out with are now in charge of the world, you're not alone. (Thanks Brett Schenker.)
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Jobs in Internet Defense: Free Press -- the advocacy organization on the front lines of the major battles over how America communicates, from free and open Internet to the diversity of media ownership -- is in the hunt for an online campaign coordinator. It's a perfect opportunity for that perfect someone.
In Case You Missed It...
Sarah Granger has a great play-by-play on what Google CEO and oft-mentioned CTO contender Eric Schmidt had to say yesterday during his New American Foundation talk on technology, energy, innovation, and what's next for America.
Taking a look at the recent online organizing around the anti-Prop 8 "Join the Impact" movement, Tom Watson says that post-Obama organizing has already started in the streets.
Nancy Scola reports that the Obama campaign (such as it still is) is testing the waters for an ongoing grassroots movement for change. And elsewhere, Nancy gives a rundown on ObamaCTO.org and the possible job duties of Obama's CTO for the Worldchanging crowd.
Finally, a reminder that our Andrew Rasiej will be speaking at New York University at 3:30pm ET today on the topic of "Democracy, Civic Action, and Politics in a Networked World." The event is free and open to the public.