"Undermining my electoral viability since 2001."

Outlandish Josh

Published on Tue, 2003-09-16 18:31

Brooks Slams Dean Again

David Brooks sure does have it in for my man Howard Dean. In his last column, he went after the Doctor Governor for being too similar to Bush, attacking Dean's populist base of support by painting him as a playboy elitist. I debunked that here. In todays NYT, Brooks devotes his second consecutive column to attacking Dean, this time by putting forth the notion that the GOP would love to face him. It's a shrewed attack, but utterly baseless.

First of all, Brooks is an opinion columnist and a known GOP operative, not a journalist. He's playing for the other team, so the fact that he's attacked Dean twice in a row and is trying to push the notion that Bush is laughing at the prospect of facing off with Ho Ho should be taken with a shaker of salt. He doesn't name names or quote anyone. His objective is quite clearly to sew doubt among Dean's base of support.

Secondly, Bush is polling consistantly in the low 50s. An internal White House poll pegged him at 49%. He's not laughing at the prospect of facing anyone right now.

David Brook is attempting to sew Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt among the ranks of Democrats with regards to Dean. It's a pretty blatant and transparent attempt, so I don't think it will work. Mostly, it's up to the rest of to laugh this kind of BS off.

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Published on Tue, 2003-09-16 11:36

Day One: Learning The Ropes

I'm a low man on the totem pole. Unknown and largely in the way as I wait to fill out the necessary paperwork to authorize myself as a volunteer. Dean's running out front and they're just now getting the idea that they aught to keep track of who walks in off the street to lend a hand. It's still coming together.

But access was solved -- physical and network -- and I found myself in a cushioned chair at the end of a cul-de-sac of tech workers, just me and my laptop and the mission. I started drawing up a TODO list and soaking up the atmosphere.

It's a turbulent and young organization, DFA. Smaller than I imagined, dense and hot and brightly lit. The staff is lean, and they work for peanuts. I make my first mis-step early when I give the IT guy in charge of handing out wireless encryption keys a touch of the hassle. He's got a Sabbath t-shirt and ear-stretching rings, so I figure it's cool but I came on a little strong -- something I've been doing a lot since Burning Man -- and we got off on the wrong foot. But humor is a good salve for all wounds, and the atmosphere is so positive that the tension dissipates quickly. We're working here.

Here's the thing about the people who work for Dean: in their eyes it's their campaign. This is true of a lot of the grassroots too, but the sentiment is strong here, well thought out. These people see their purpose as saving the country, and the Doctor/Governor is their vehicle for doing this. We all love Dean, but he's a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. He knows this too, and he likes it. It's in his stump speech.

DFA is modeling a networked organization structure. People have autonomy, and they are charged with making their projects happen not by going to a manager and requisitioning resources, but by convincing other people in the office to help them. On an individual level it can be fragmented and distracting, a true multitasking environment, but the output of the organization vs. its burn rate of people and capital speaks for itself. This buzzword is a dead horse, but there's synergy in the air, the divine stimulant of Purpose keeping the whole works thundering forward.

At one point my cell phone wandered off. Zack took it to talk to David Weinberger, then handed it to Zephyr, who I gather gave it to Matt. Two hours later I was wondering where my phone was and what the bill might be; all part of the fun of an ambitious and relatively egoless organization.

It's 2:30am and it's time to go grab some sleep. The senior web team is still at it. Gray, a shining example of humanity who drove up from Birmingham Alabama and stayed, is drinking Yerba Mate. Some of the finance people are still working hard. The late shift has a magical quality to it, the workaholic equivalent to the power curve of a drinking binge. There's a lull around dinner time, but even the pros stick around until midnight.

The team here is bright and strong and amazingly pure of heart. People from the internet send them food. Young reporters struggle to wrap their minds around the reasons why people end up here, how people can meet through an unsolicited email and end up taking a 300 mile road trip to work at a labor of love. I sit here tippy-tapping into my laptop as the campaign swirls on around me in a state of grace. They're doing it the right way, and it's working.

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DFA Safari
Published on Sun, 2003-09-14 12:30

Day Zero

For this week, Britt Blaser and I are spending our lives volunteering as IT Angels at Dean Campaign HQ in Burlington. We hope to make this something of a tradition. We'll be co-blogging on the experience.

It was a late Saturday night in Brooklyn. We had BBQ and plenty of beer in the name of a free Eddie Cordova, and it was a chance for me to see a bunch of heads I probably wouldn't have otherwise run into. Whisky and beef and Brooklyn-brewed beer. My ostensible home is in disarray; no bedding, hot and humid, littered with the detritus of cross-country travel. It was a stagnant night of deep chemical sleep. The point was that I was kind of wrinkled when Britt swung by to pick me up in the morning.

We were headed up to Burlington, Dean country, looking to spend the week lending technological mojo to the campaign any way they could take it. It's adventure camp for wonks, and a good chance for me to make some contacts before I jet west to start work in earnest on Music For America.

The drive was bucolic, Britt and I swapping stories about our upbringings, finding more common ground than you might expect considering the generation gap between us. The weather came and went and he told me his best war story, crash-landing a burning C-130 full of white phosphorus at an airstrip 20 miles from the Cambodian border. We talked about the lost art of conversation and girls and doing things with great velocity.

Britt drives like a pilot and a rich man in the best possible sense, taking the shoulder to send us off on an adventure through Hartford, the kind of driving that creates drama and excitement and a sense that anything's possible. Life's yours for the taking, and asking permission is for kids; this is ok because we are honorable people. Reminds me of Hunter S. Thompson's outlaw credo. He's an American spirit, and a weird little dude. I enjoyed to road trip quite a bit.

Rolling up through central Mass and into Vermont the scenery stirred up some memories, romance and youth and a clean kind of being. I had a couple girlfriends who I saw up here, a unfiltered crush and pure puppy love, the last of my solid gold watches. I put me in a wistful mood, remembering old music and things done in haste.

As we got close to Burlington, the sky opened up in one of those humbling moments, nature flexing her artistic muscle with a rich palette of sky and sun and granite and green growing things. Coming from the west coast I felt we were cresting a hill and running down to the sea, but of course it was just Burlington around the bend.

And what a place it is. A beautiful city. We checked in to the hotel, small town friendly vibes only partially masked by the Marriot management overlay. First stop was Campaign HQ, buzzing with a kind of eager newsroom mojo at 8:30pm on a Sunday night. It reminded me of my best times working on my award winning High School Newspaper, all work and no ego and fun people with principles.

We got a tour and went to dinner and then went to one of the DFA crash pads -- the many houses in Burlington taken over by DFA staff -- to catch K street with the Gov. on HBO. The show's a little too pomo for it's own good, Soderburgh even further blurring the line between political reality and entertainment news. It's a neat experiment from a structural point of view, and I can watch James Carville all day long, but it might be a little too smart and meaningless to succeed.

After that we're tired, and Monday is looming. Britt and I make our winding way back to the hotel, and I attend to some personal phone calls and the evning wound down. This week is going to be exciting.

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DFA Safari
Published on Sat, 2003-09-13 20:29

VT Safari

Speaking of my dancing feet, it's Dean season and I just got my tags. I'm headed up to Burlington tomorrow with Britt Blaser and he tells me there's not a hotel to be booked in the whole damn town. Summer tourism is done and the fall leaf tours have yet to begin, so what's drawing the crowds to Vermont? I'm thinking it has something to do with the next president of the United States.

Britt and I will be friendly IT Angels, helping out with whatever needs doing. I'll also be connecting with Deanspace honcho Zack Rosen (who works for DFA) and try and spread the word about Music For America. Hopefully it will be a fun time. It should be.

Britt and I are going to be doing some kind of co-blog of our official adventures. We'll probably co-post some of the same content. We're also taking suggestions as to things we should plant in the ears of the Dean campaign. Let me know if you have any gems.

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