"Undermining my electoral viability since 2001."

Oh Crap

Local church kicks out all Democrats for "sin" of voting for Kerry. This is a Bad Thing. Hopefully it will not catch on.

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WaPo/British Parties Not Getting It

In this little ditty called British Politics Dives Into the Web, WaPo reporter Robert MacMillan puts his ignorance on display with a little quotational backup from a academic at Oxford:

Despite predictions in the United States that 2004 would usher in an era in which Web campaigning would rival the 30-second TV spot in importance, elections are still about knocking on doors and glad-handing on the sidewalks. The same appears to be holding true in Britain.

"I think it would be a mistake to assume that the Web has become a significant campaigning tool either at the national level or at the constituency level of candidates," said Stephen Coleman, a professor at Oxford University's Internet Institute and an expert on the use of the Web in elections. "They have a fairly symbolic value. You need to be seen to have one, but [the parties] are not quite sure what to do with them."

Dutton might be right in that the parties are not quite sure what to do with the web, but MacMillan's obliviousness to the connection between a campaign's online life and it's on-the-street activities betrays a profound ignorance of what happened in the US in 2004. Either he never bothered to investigate the Dean campaign (beyond fundraising), Meetup or GOP Team Leader, or he's taking the inside-the-beltway conventional wisdom over the evidence.

The reality is that a number of campaigns in 2004 (Dean, Clark, Kucinish and Bush) made highly effective use of the internet. Fundraising grabbed a lot of headlines, but that's an old story. John McCain raised a million dollars in two days in 2000; the GOP has been raising tens of millions through direct-mail for years. What happened in 2004 was that the effective campaigns were the able to turn donors into activists by giving people a sense of ownership in return for their online donation. The $20 donation helps keep the campaign alive not just by adding to the bank account, but by more effectively binding the donor to the campaign.

The effective online campaign maximized this by providing opportunities to contribute via sweat-equity (aka volunteering) in combination to a direct financial gift. They used their online presence to recruit, organize and monitor these volunteers, as well as to seed dense grassroots networks which helped support their campaign without technically being a part of it. While this is not exactly a revelation in politics, the changing ways in which the net allows a campaign to communicate with its constituents are integral to the deployment of these tactics in 2004.

The conventional wisdom on what drives a campaign is broken. TV ads do not put people in the street or knocking on doors. To do that, you need organization. The internet is opening up new ways for campaigns to organize constituents, and more excitingly for "regular people" to self-organize independely of campaigns. TV and print ads are and will remain important for the sake of visibility and framing. Though the net is transforming those aspects as well, the old media remains dominant (object lesson: the Dean scream). However, when it comes to organizing, there's no question that the internet plays an integral role for savvy campaigns and parties.

The ironic thing is, until old-media reporters begin to understand and respect this distinction, the current frame around internet campaigning will remain largely intact. That provides some opportunities as well as frustrations. The GOP did very well in 2004 by keeping a lot of its organization off the mainstream radar. While I find journalistic ignorance to be annoying, I also kind of hope people keep underestimating the internet.

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Bizniz Minded

Passing through my instant message window today:

i used the line, "seeking strategic partners that synergize with our core competencies" with no irony whatsoever

i felt dirty.

People are getting back into business, and while it doesn't look like regular people have much hope of advancement, my guess is that in the next decade there will be an opportunity for the well informed/connected to get another little boom going for themselves. Given that I see this coming, it brings up a bunch of interesting questions on the subject of "career."

I'm forever entrepreneurial, that's just how I am, but there are real conflicts over what I really aught to do with my energy and expertise. I don't really know if it's possible to do a "tour of duty" in the business world. I used to think I might be able to sell myself out for a year, get rid of some debt, bank a little cash and the strike out on my own, but the reality is that at the level where you're getting that kind of pay they tend to want more from you than you really want to give.

The new alternatives seem to be either gearing down, going neo-boho, or getting ambitious again. Basically those mean:

  • Gearing Down: continuing the frugal lifestyle I've been leading for the past four months, adjusted for a more sustainability; probably going somewhere with a lower cost of living than NYC. Looking to settle into some kind of easy groove. Probably not likely, but always a possibility.
  • Neo-Boho: more or less continuing on-course in terms of work activity; freelancing; living a slightly more materially comfortable lifestyle (e.g. my own apartment); continuing to seek and sample. This is kind of the default plan, though I'm skeptical that I will find it very fulfilling for much longer.
  • Ambitious: making some solid choices about what I want to do and where I want to go and really attempting to go all the way with it. Putting my social and cultural capital on the line; calling in favors; starting to ask for what I want rather than just what I need.

When I write it out like that, the obvious gravitation is towards the latter choice. The problem is in the "making some solid choices" bit. I'm not really in a position to do that at the moment. So I'm sort of in default mode, and that's getting to be exhausting and a bore, so I entertain thoughts of going to ground and hibernating for a while. Maybe that's what I need to do in order to figure out my path. I'm not sure.

In any event, I'd like to have some of this square by the fall. Hopefully the road trip will help. Time's a-wasting.

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Back In The Saddle

I'm back in the saddle, going easy but loving it. Every day is a gift.

One of the things I realized happened while I was laid up is I kicked off caffeine. The overall miserableness of the whole scene covered up any withdrawl symptoms, so now I'm pleasently free of the driving need to consume coffee in quantity on a regular schedule. I had one small cup today and it was quite a pleasure.

It was a good weekend. I got a fair amount of work done, caught up with some old friends, drank some great beers, remembered what it is to be attracted to a girl, and got back up on my bike for the first time since the crash.

That's just more than a week ago but already it feels distant. Things don't slow down just because you're banged up. It's May, baby, and the attitude is coming 'roung again. Spring is in the air.

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