The Campaign and the Internets. Changing the Game. Destabilizing old Hierarchies

[Susan Kitchens]

I read a cluster of posts today that relate to and draw on that video of Obama addressing his Chicago organization that Al Giordano embedded in his Organizer in Chief post. These posts address Obama's use of the web and social software to build a movement and work his campaign. (Conversely, McCain's lack of computer savvy is mentioned by Tracy at The Back Forty.)

I wish to draw your attention to two posts from this cluster (each contains links to others), because they expand on themes we're discussing, and moreover we are doing here in this site. They each draw on a bit of history--whether history of some past presidential campaigns (the political angle), or history of the Silicon Valley itself (the tech angle):

Tech President: Micah L. Sifrey compares the presidential campaigns of Jesse Jackson, Ross Perot, Howard Dean and traces the fate of the organizations they built. He asks the Billion Dollar question: What will Obama do with his organization if he wins?

But there's another big reason why Obama's victory is so important. He is riding herd on the largest and most potent new political organization anyone has seen on the American landscape in at least sixteen years. He's probably got anywhere from four to eight million email addresses on top of his 1.5 million donors and 800,000 registered users of my.barackobama.com, his social networking platform. What happens with this organization if Obama wins? What will he do with it? And what will it do with him? For us here at techPresident, a website that is focused on how the candidates are using the web, and the web is using them, by the time November rolls around, this could be the billion-dollar question. [Read More]

Dave Winer at Scripting News, (I got my blogging start in late 1999 using Dave's software): Blow Up the Beltway. From the standpoint of a software developer who experienced an "inside the [Silicon] Valley" treatment, Winer draws a parallel to the "Inside the Beltway" mentality, and breaking out of it:

As much as I believe in the idea of Obama, if he doesn't live up to it, I'll still believe in the idea, because I always have. I don't want to be an insider, I don't want the insiders to rule, I don't want there to be insiders at all. I want to distribute opportunity and acknowledge intelligence and goodness where ever it appears. I fought against the centralized Inside The Beltway way of doing things in Silicon Valley, and we won. Of course a new aristocracy pops up but their power is as thin as the people whose power got popped in every bubble that came before. The Internet destabilizes every hierarchy it contacts. It erases every barrier to entry. The only way to win is to point off-site, in every way you can think of. Win by offering better value, not by locking users in. People will become instant refugees to escape your clutches. Think you're immune? Think again. [Emphasis mine. Read More]

[Tara Van Niman]

Why can't I see Al's post today on the activist principles? Can't recall the title...the one with the 14 or whatever it was principles that we were supposed to apply to the campaign thus far. I feel like I'm dreaming. I can't find it on the The Field.

[Susan Kitchens]

John, here are some other examples of destabilizing going on... and the question of what was stable can be couched in terms of a former power structure. Thanks to the Internet, that which was strong is no longer strong:

-- News media. Cable, Print, Radio, Letters to the Editor. Oh, and Classified Advertising. The Internet has turned all that on its head. (or, in the case of the Cable Alleged News Media, the Internet is turning that on its head.) The broadcast model (print or actual, you know, broadcast) -- where one or a few produce something meant for the general populace -- is crumbling.

-- Classified Ads. Worth a mention all on its own. Craigs List has done more to newspaper's cash cow than ever thought possible.

-- Music business. The fluke of luck that allowed a vast music library can be exploited not once (vinyl) but twice (Audio CD) in order to generate revenues to music label companies is a business model that is no longer working. Musicians who are able to self promote and self-distribute shakes up the hierarchies of "We're gonna discover and you're gonna be a star, baby. Sign here. (you're indentured to us now)"

-- Democracy. You Are Here.

This isn't to say one way or another that the forms of internet communication and/or community that have emerged are or are not stable. But those communities we speak of are on the other side of a process where other people ruled the game.

I think that the perfect example for Internet Destabilizes a Hierarchy -- Special Case, Democracy -- is Obama's emphasis on "the way things are done in Washington" (lobbyists, K street, etc.). His tech emphasis is a means to get transparency and put power back into the hands of the people (examples: Cabinet-level Chief Technology Officer in an Obama Administration, the USASpending.gov website that's a result of an Obama-sponsored bill is the means to allow us all to see where the money goes. That is a step toward destabilizing the hierarchy of Lobbyists Write The Laws to their benefit but not to our benefit.)

[John in Illinois]

Sometimes I am not so sure about the destabilizing aspect of the Internet. In fact, I think it can be very stabilizing and I think that is exactly what has happened ith the Obama candidacy.

Only through the Internet could the disparate groups and peoples that Sifrey mentions have been able to be formed into a stable structure. And in keeping with one of the main missions of the Mother Ship, Al and his site has probably done a lot to stabilize the thinking of people when they were becoming destabilized through events happening in the primaries. So, although that is not necessarily what Winer was addressing, but I think it is an important concept to remember. And it is also where McCain may have his biggest problem because his strongest demographic, like Clinton's is in the over 50 group. Now, I am in that group too, but I would hardly call myself computer savvy and many in that group barely touch the computer and enter the Internet at all. It will not be able to be a stabilizing influence for them, whereas it will continue to be for Obama's supporters.

In regards to Sifrey's main question, I think Obama will turn his computer based base into missionaries of sorts as he works to get policies implemented. In other words, the same ground organization that will get him elected will also be utilized to educate and convince the public to support his initiatives, etc.