A very quick comment on the meaning of yesterday's special election in Massachusetts, in terms of the role of technology in changing politics:

First, I couldn't agree more with what Nancy wrote here yesterday:

I hate to break it to my friend Mark Tapscott, who I have made common cause with (and broken bread with) over the issues of government transparency and accountability, but my end-of-the-year post on the Obama Disconnect should not be read as saying, "the truth about the Obama campaign in 2008 was almost exactly the opposite" of the mainstream media's description of him as bottom-up and people-driven. I know this is as hard for folks on some parts of the Right, so wound up in their intense dislike of Obama, to understand, as hard as it seems to be for folks on some parts of the Left, so passionate in their support for him, but the picture I tried to describe--obviously not as successfully as I would like--is more nuanced than that.

Dear Karoli:

Obviously, we don't know each other. I didn't know if Karoli was your real name or your nom-de-blog; thanks for clearing up that confusion with your latest post. You clearly don't know me or my work, or you wouldn't be accusing me of "criticizing from afar." I forgive you.

I'm sorry if you think I'm being disrespectful of your passion. Actually, I really like it. People who are passionate about something are the ones who drive change. I just want passion married to facts, rather than illusions. And here's the facts about Obama, campaign finance, and his grassroots base:

A blogger who goes by the name named Karoli has posted a long critique of my Obama Disconnect post entitled "The Sifry Disconnect: When cynicism kills hope." It's fundamentally a sentimental post, arguing that it makes more sense to be a "positive catalyst for change," to take responsibility for making change into our own hands, and to "quit taking potshots at the President." Why the latter is in

One question that a number of people have raised in response to my post on The Obama Disconnect is essentially, "What's your alternative? What should the Obama team have done to keep the new political movement it had spawned going as a force for change? And how could they have better reconciled Obama's role as president of the whole country with his role as leader of a political organization beholden to him?" That's absolutely a fair question. Here's what I think could have been done...

It looks like Organizing for America, President Obama's de facto field organization based at the DNC, is ramping up its efforts to demonstrate support for health care reform. Last week I took a look at OFA's online directory of upcoming health care canvassing efforts, and found 561 events. Now the same search turns up 677 upcoming events across the country, a nominal increase at first glance--until you realize that the myBO database only shows upcoming actions, and many of the events listed in my search last week were for last weekend, and have thus expired. And states with likely Senate swing votes appear to be getting a lot of attention...

For a lazy summer weekend, the 404 561 local organizing events being advertised on Organizing for America's health-care action page look like a healthy (ahem) turnout for what some have called "President Obama's field operation."

The political world is abuzz, wondering whether the first big ask from Organizing for America to its multi-million email list is going to produce a shift in the battle over President Obama's budget proposal. It will take awhile to tell, of course, and the real measure will be in how Members of Congress respond to phone calls from their constituents, and indeed whether OFA can generate a big wave of grassroots pressure.

It's been interesting tracking the coverage of Organizing for America's weekend "Economic Recovery" house parties. On the right, bloggers have been passing around Mary Katherine Ham's report from two lightly attended parties in the DC area, where she found Obama supporters who expressed "disappointment" with both the process and the content of the recovery package. On the left, my old friend and colleague David Corn, Mother Jones's Washington editor, has been blogging repeatedly about Obama's seemingly unwillingness to "use his army," criticizing the organizing effort for only asking supporters to talk to their friends and neighbors about the legislation, rather than call members of Congress urging its passage.

It looks like President Obama's email list still has a lot of punch to it. Yesterday, he sent out a mass email asking people to watch a four-and-a-half minute video addressing the Organizing for America house parties, and so far that video has garnered more than 460,000 views, nearly as many as his first video announcing OFA's launch. Beyond these metrics, it's pretty interesting to listen to how Obama's talks to his base. He doesn't use the word "crowdsourcing," but tell me if you don't hear it in how he describes how he plans to use the web to make sure his recovery plan works.