I'm quoted in two pieces today on the momentum events of the last few days. One, by the ever-sharp Susan Milligan in today's Boston Globe, talks about why Senator Clinton lost:
More damaging, critics say, is that the veteran staff was operating from an old playbook, misreading the mood of the country and the new makeup of a 21st-century Democratic electorate.
With her promises to wage war on the enemy - be it Republicans, pharmaceutical companies, or oil interests - Clinton made a textbook appeal to the Democratic Party of old: working-class white Americans, union members, and senior citizens. Obama, however, picked up on the physical and emotional exhaustion many Americans felt after the bitterly partisan Bush and Clinton years, and built a new Democratic coalition among young, educated, and independent voters.
Obama had been to 30 states to campaign for fellow Democrats in 2006, and developed a keen sense of the country's mood, analysts said. Clinton, who was obliged to concentrate on her own reelection in New York, traveled to only 14 states to campaign for fellow Democrats in 2006, and did not pick up on the direction the country was headed politically, they said.
"They didn't understand how much politics has changed since the 1990s. They were slow to use the Internet and the new media. Their understanding of the new coalition was imperfect," said Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democratic Network and a veteran of Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign.
Ever since the internet propelled Howard Dean's campaign to national importance in 2004, observers have expected the web would soon play a pivotal role in electing a president. As Obama makes history by becoming the first African-American presumptive presidential nominee, his campaign is also the first to fulfill that long-anticipated internet promise. With an enormous internet-driven donor base of 1.5 million people, more than 500,000 of whom have accounts on Obama's social networking website, Obama is the first internet candidate to win mainstream success. His online supporters have created more than 30,000 events to promote his candidacy, some of which are still underway in the last primary states of Montana and South Dakota.
"It's impossible to imagine Barack Obama's rise without the modern methods that his campaign used to organize itself, particularly around the internet," says Simon Rosenberg, president and founder of the non-profit think tank the New Democratic Network. "This really was the most successful campaign of the 21st century."
"This is what happens is when you have a charismatic candidate, and you organize on a scale not seen before," he adds. "Literally, the size and scale of this is unprecedented in American political history, and it wouldn't have been possible without the money, and passion, and support of millions of American people."
The campaign came up with a number of innovations on the internet. It used wikis -- online collaborative software -- to coordinate and churn out precinct captains in both California and Texas. And it created a counter-viral e-mail campaign to combat the anonymous e-mail smears that question his religious faith and patriotism. It set up policy pages that solicited ideas from supporters, and at one point, the campaign solicited letters from supporters over the internet to lobby the undecided superdelegates.
And Obama's campaign constantly updated its YouTube channel to keep its supporters around the country up to speed on his latest speeches.
Obama's campaign spent significant resources on physical offices in battleground states. But those efforts often came to follow the informal infrastructure that his supporters built ahead of time by finding each other through my.barackobama.com and coordinating off-line to campaign for their candidate.
The most obvious area in which it led was online fund-raising. Just under half its record-level of $265 million raised so far came from donations of $200 or less, much of which flowed to the campaign through the internet. The Clinton campaign ended up tweaking its fund-raising approach after Obama's initial successes and began asking supporters for smaller amounts of money in online fund-raising drives following each primary victory.
In contrast to Obama's campaign, presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain has raised only $90.5 million during the same 2007 and 2008 period. Just over a third of his donations came from the $200-and-under crowd. Forty-two percent of it came through contributions at the maximum $2,000 level. For Obama, just under a quarter of his donations came from $2,000-level donations.
Obama's record fund raising enabled him to out-blast his chief rival through traditional television ads in battleground states during the Democratic primaries, as well as build out the physical infrastructure needed to organize volunteers.
But it was also savvy off-line campaigning that boosted the size of his online cadre of supporters, notes Rosenberg.
"One of the reasons that they have so many donors is that they were able to collect millions and millions of names through their rallies," he says, referring to Obama's stadium-sized political events, one of which took place tonight at the Xcel Energy Center, where the Republican National Convention is scheduled to take place this summer. "It was all part of an ecosystem where they made it clear that they wanted supporters to be at the center of the campaign."
Each of these interesting articles visit themes we've been talking about here for years - the emergence of a new politics of the 21st century. I end this post with a long repost of an essay I wrote in early February right before Super Tuesday which offers a way of thinking about what this new people based model of politics Dean pioneered and Obama took to another level means. To me what we are seeing is the emergence of a virtuous cycle of participation, which I guess could be described as a political version of the network effect. But the key here is that what Obama, David Plouffe, Steve Hildebrand and others have done is to create a new and better model for how we organize our politics and advocacy, one that brings together on and off-line, and that is,simply, a much better model than the old 20th century tv-based broadcast model we all used for so long:
A Virtuous Cycle of Participation - Finally, Obama has one very powerful advantage in these final days that is hard to see and evaluate - the power of his virtual community across the country. We saw the power of this community with the truly extraordinary amount of money it raised for him in January. But equally important in these final days will be the virtual door knocking these millions of people will be doing - emails to their address books, actions on MySpace, Facebook and other social networking sites, text messages sent to friends, viral videos linked too, and comments left on blogs, newspapers and call in radio shows. It is no exaggeration to say that this million or so impassioned Obama supporters will reach tens of millions of voters in highly personal ways in the next few days, providing a messaging and personal validation of Obama that may be equal in weight to the final round of TV ads, free media and traditional grassroots methods.
All the way back in 2003, I wrote an essay about this new era of participation in politics that argued the new Dean campaign model was changing the way we had to imagine what a Presidential campaign was all about. In the 20th century, a Presidential campaign was about 30 second spots, tarmac hits and 200 kids in a headquarters. In the 21st century, the race for the Presidency would be about ten million people going to work each day, wired into the campaign through the campaign's site, through email, sms, social networking sites etc acting as full partners in the fight not just passive couch potatoes to be persuaded.
This is a very different model of politics. One begun by Dean but being taken to a whole other level by Obama. It puts people and their passion for a better nation at the core of politics. When used correctly, it creates a virtuous cycle of participation, where more and more people engage, take an action and bring others in, creating a self-perpetuating and dynamic network of support. It is also why the endorsements of entities with large, active virtual communities - Kerry.org, MoveOn - is so meaningful for Obama. He has created an on-line ecosystem that can quickly take advantage of the support of the millions of people now doing politics in this new 21st century way and exponentially grow his dynamic community of change.
The Democratic Party is one entire Presidential cycle ahead of the Republicans in adopting this new model, and I will argue it is simply not possible for the Republican nominee to catch up this year. Too much experimentation, too much trial and error goes into inventing this new model for it to be easily and quickly adapted. It has to be invented, not adapted. I'm sure the GOP will catch up over time, but this year year the only GOP candidate who has taken this new model seriously has been Ron Paul - and they have paid the price. Obama raised almost as much money in January of this year as John McCain raised in all of 2007. Democrats are raising much more money across the board, seeing historic levels of voter turnout, increased Party registrations and millions more working along side with the campaigns - all of which is creating an extraordinary virtuous cycle of participation that continues to grow the number getting engaged in politics as never before. While there can be little doubt that anger towards Bush and disapointment with his government is a driving force behind this, the key takeaway is that the adoption of this new politics by Democrats allowed the Party to take advantage of this tidal wave in unprecedented ways, and will be one of the Democratic Party's most significant advantages going into the fall elections.
Much attention has been given to the money raised by this Obama network. Much more needs to be given to the power of it to deliver message, provide personal validation to friends, neighbors, colleagues and peers in ways so powerful, and ways never seen before in American history. I have no doubt that it has been the campaign's ability to foster and channel the passion of his supporters - creating a vrituous cycle of particpation - into an unprecedented national network - helping amplify and reinforce the power of Obama's argument - that is playing a critical role in Obama's closing the gap with Clinton in these final exciting and dramatic days before Super Tuesday.
The challenge for McCain of course is that he has yet to even begins experimenting with this people based model, and is, at this point, not in a position to catch up. As one begins to handicap the fall election this yawning gap in models between the two campaigns will emerge as one of the greatest differences between the a new and dynamic 21st century politics and what I think will be seen as a last gasp of an old - and failed - 20th century politics.
NDN has a very aggressive schedule over the next few weeks. I'll be involved in many of these events, and am excited to reconnect with many of you.
Today in DC, we host an excellent event on how the most important medium of politics, television, is changing. It will showcase a remarkable panel of experts, including the head of audience research for TiVo, who among other things, will be discussing the impact of DVRs on how people are now relating to their TV. You won't want to miss this one.
Next Monday, I will be in New York hosting a forum on the growing power of the Millennial Generation, the largest generation in American history. Joining us will be Morley Winograd and Mike Hais, the two authors of a critically acclaimed new book, Millennial Makeover, and the man who introduced us to the whole Millennial concept, something NPI has done a great job promoting the last few years. Also joining us will be two people who work closely with Millennials, Jon Schnur of New Leaders for New Schools and Alicia Menendez of Rock the Vote.
The following Monday, May 5, again in New York City, I will be hosting a Bernard Schwartz Forum on Economic Policy that will celebrate the compelling new book of our Globalization Initiative Chairman, Dr. Robert Shapiro. Rob's book is a far-reaching look at how the world is likely to play out over the next 15 to 20 years, and the forum will be a discussion you won't want to miss. It will also be a good opportunity to talk politics and look at what is happening on the national stage these days.
Finally, I'll be back in DC on May 9, where Peter Leyden and I will be hosting a day-long working session on the important new tools and new audiences critical to 21st century politics. This event will feature several plenary sessions but will also include 10 or so breakouts to help our family drill down further on specific tools or demographics you might want to learn more about. We've got a terrifc line up of speakers and panelists, which you won't want to miss.
Of course there is more than even all this. We are hosting U.S. Rep. Barney Frank on May 20 here in DC, and have many more events in the hopper that we hope to announce soon. Additionally, the able NDN/NPI team is producing a great deal of new and dynamic content each day, which is best viewed here on our blog.
So keep coming back here, and I hope to catch many of you at our many interesting events over the next few weeks.
Building on a post Simon Rosenberg wrote yesterday morning and a paper he co-authored a year ago advocating a one laptop per child program, I would like to elaborate on a theme NDN has been developing on the Democratizing power of technological developments. The argument is based on the assumption that making technology available to all people—across socio-economic delineations and geographic boundaries—is having a profound and world changing effect where previously disenfranchised peopled are becoming increasingly empowered. More and more, we are seeing a mounting body of evidence, as manifested in world events, to support this world-view.
While the article in The New York Times Magazine that Simon mentions focuses primarily on economics, it is not difficult to see the link between the promise of aiding millions (if not billions) in pulling themselves out of poverty and engendering citizens with greater freedom, as increased wealth pushes them up the hierarchy of needs. But I would like to focus in on some of the many examples—some of which Simon alluded to—of ordinary people using what is becoming ubiquitous technology to make their voices heard.
Most recently, the protests in Tibet showed how even the Chinese government, infamous for it's ability to control the movement of electronic information, wasn't able to silence news of the violence.
Tibetan monks at a monastery in Sichuan province sent word to exiled monks in Dharamsala, India, that two monks were arrested after they e-mailed photographs of monks killed in protests to the news media. Internet and phone service has since been interrupted to the Amdo Ngaba Kirti Monastery in Ngaba County, the exiles told CNN.
Of course, the Chinese government continues to exert its control over digital information as is evidenced above and its move to block YouTube and other online video sites. Still, these efforts are not fully effective as is noted here:
Beijing's blocking of the Web sites was not 100 percent effective: Tests by researchers at UC Davis and the University of New Mexico showed that banned words reached their destinations on about 28 percent of the paths they tested. Filtering was least effective during periods of heavy Internet traffic.
Last week in Egypt, we saw the use of cellphone messages to organize strikes. Not only were people using the medium to congregate, but the messages also helped citizens unify their message.
What may have most spooked officials was the way technology, especially cellphones, was used to spread the word, political analysts said. Mass messages circulated listing “demands” that included increased security, no more inflation, housing aid for young couples and an end to “torture in police stations.”
These are not isolated incidents. During the violent suppression of protests in Myanmar, ordinary citizens equipped with mobile devices were able record video, take pictures and transmit this information outside the country fostering international condemnation of the Burmese government's actions. Cuba has seen the emergence of a vibrant blogger community, which openly questions the government. (Although this may amount to the spread of an unhealthy habit.) Looking a little further back, in 2006, marches for immigrant-rights were strengthened by new communication tools. One reporter in San Francisco notes:
What's equally clear is that the immigrant protests in recent weeks haven't been the result of a formal plan issued by pro-immigrant organizations. Rather they've been fueled by word of mouth reinforced by Spanish language talk radio and television, and a plethora of new technologies, including cell phones, instant messaging and Web sites such as myspace.com.
The examples listed above may simply be the portent of a much larger shift. A shift that isn't merely a suped up vehicle carrying the same forms of communication, but rather a change that fundamentally alters the nature of our communication. One such alteration could be what Simon referred to as the virtuous cycle of participation, where new tools allow for a dynamic and fluid kind of networking. One where the barrier to entry is so low that anyone with an internet connection or a cellphone can immediately become an active member of a muscular and potent organization.
As further evidence emerges of new technologies giving voice to dissenting views and pulling people out of poverty, I'll try—along with others and NDN and NPI—to document these developments.
At the New Politics Institute we have already done a great deal of work examining the power of these new technologies to influence politics. That work can be found here.
The emergence of a whole new set of rapidly changing media and technology tools and several important new audiences is helping create a new politics of the 21st century, one very different from the century just past. To help progressives adapt to these new developments, NDN and NPI have developed a set of powerful resources, including papers that will help you:
Additionally, we've done a great deal of research on some of the most important new audiences of today's politics, including millennials, Hispanics, those who live in the exurbs, influentials; and have taken a good hard look at how America itself is going through perhaps its most dramatic demographic transformation in its history. As we recently wrote in a major magazine article, interacting with these communities in new ways has created a new politics that progressives can emerge from stronger than ever. In fact, progressives are already making great strides by starting out with an advantage in what we call the virtuous cycle of participation - the ability to build a community, raise money from it, then engage and grow it - which is further enabled through the use of technology.
To learn more about all of this, we've put together two great outreach events that will help you better understand both the new tools and the new audiences. First, our Reimagine Video: The End of Broadcast event will be on Thursday, April 24th. We'll hear top experts analyze the profound changes in the dominant media of politics to date, television, as well as the impact of cable and DVRs. Second, our New Tools, New Audiences event is on Friday, May 9th. At this day-long gathering, we're going to discuss the critical role the new tools and new constituencies played in the presidential nomination process and that they can be expected to play in the general election in the fall. We will then conduct practical breakout sessions that will focus closely on how each new tool might be used by advocacy efforts of campaigns and organizations, big and small.
As always, you can keep in touch with all of this on NDN's website, www.ndn.org, and blog, www.ndnblog.org.
As Hillary says herself, this is not a typical ad. It runs a full minute and consists entirely of Hillary speaking directly to the camera, describing the concerns that she says voters have communicated to her. Perhaps the more personal and empathetic feel of the ad is meant to address the concern that some have had that Hillary needs to show a more sensitive side.
Also of note is what comes towards the end of the ad. Hillary directs viewers to www.NCAskMe.com, which in turn redirects you to a page on the campaign website where anyone can submit questions. As she did in her web video announcing her exploratory committee, Hillary talks about engaging in a conversation with voters. She says that she will be using her TV ads to answer questions submitted by voters. This strategy is an interesting hybrid of old and new media. The campaign looks to be channeling the participatory spirit of new media through the powerful pipelines of old media.
Be sure to pay attention to the sort of questions the Hillary campaign chooses to answer. In this case, the kind of participation that is allowed can be the most salient indicator of the willingness of the campaign to adopt new media strategies.
For more on the use of web video check out the New Politics Institute memo.
The explosion of innovation in the Presidential campaign has shown how important mastery of the new tools of politics has become. The surge of participation of critical constituencies like Hispanics and young people has disrupted the status quo for good. These new tools and new audiences are changing the way politics and advocacy will be conducted on all levels, national and local, large and small scale. The Presidentials are just showing the way forward.
And we've been watching it every step of the way. We first launched our New Tools Campaign in 2006, encouraging the adoption of four new tools. Then we built on it and launched four more tools in our 2007 campaign. On Friday, May 9th, we'll be making a big push to further promote the use of the tools which are leveraging the new strategies that are being perfected in the campaign so far.
Come join the New Politics Institute for a free, day-long gathering at the Phoenix Park Hotel on Friday, May 9th where we analyze the critical role the new tools and new constituencies played in the presidential nomination process and that they can be expected to play in the general election in the fall. We will then conduct practical breakout sessions that look closely at how each new tool might be used by advocacy efforts of campaigns and organizations, big and small.
The day will go from big-picture strategic analysis to practical hands-on advice, and allow ample time for networking with colleagues and experts. Lunch will be provided, and the day will be capped by a cocktail reception. We will update you in coming weeks on featured speakers and other experts. For now just keep your schedule open and the date clear.
The New Tools and New Audiences of Campaign 2008 How the Presidential Campaigns are Blazing a Trail Into the New Politics for All of Us
Friday, May 9
10:00 am - 4:00 pm
Phoenix Park Hotel
520 N Capitol St NW
Washington, DC 20001
(Cocktails to follow at a location TBD)
A Kos diarist has yet another report on the huge early vote numbers out of Texas. In the 15 largest counties there has been historic levels of turnout, and 3 times as many Democrats have voted as Republicans.
This year has seen record numbers of voters, record amounts of money and record numbers of citizens participating in the process - all of course wildly favoring Democrats so far.
If the Obama Feb money rumors are true - over $40 million - Senator Obama will have raised as much money in Feb as Senator McCain did in all of 2007. For more on this new age of citizen-led politics, check out the video of Joe Trippi and I at our recent forum on politics.
