Poliblogging
Dave Winer is
asking PWB's (People with Blogs) to point to his piece yesterday
on
how
candidates should leverage the blogging world. It's a good piece, and worthy
of every campaign
staff's
review:
"It's not surprising to me, in a way, that weblogs have
become such an important part of the early 2004 presidential campaign.
I expect this campaign will take place more on the Web than it does on
TV networks. That's why I think candidates who use the Web to raise money
for TV ads aren't making enough of a bet on the Web, and are leaving
the door open for those who do. But it must be hard to let go of a way
of life. Politics has "always" worked that way, right? Anyway,
it's surprising when a vision comes true, no matter how strongly you
felt it would."
The sentiment is good, but the details seem to advocate a
top-down mentality that is contrary to the weblog world. Dave lists seven
suggestions for campaigns that would leverage whatever power blogs may have:
- Run a real weblog*
"you must link to all articles
about your candidate, not just favorable ones"
Is this a good way to earn the respect of campaign professionals
– start off by telling them what they must do? Is such
inclusive linking even possible? Just how would the
the Dean
campaign could even identify all the Dean links? The official
Blog lists
257 Dean-specific blogs alone. Inclusive linkage is a job for someone
else, like Google or Technorati.
- Get a pied piper*
"Get an experienced blogger with
a large community to write your main weblog."
A key revolution of the Dean campaign is to share the voices of the campaign
staff, who have become celebrities in their own right. Why would a qualified
blogger do such a thing? If you're willing to do this,
you're
stuffing
your own
voice
for
more than
a year,
or you're
limiting
your editorial options. The great thing about blogs is that we do these things
anyway, as independent voices.
- Include independent bloggers*
"On the press bus,
include people who are...making their minds up, people who will
ask challenging questions"
- Publish advocacy guidelines*
"Teach the people who
represent you on the Web to do so with respect for others, respect for
the candidate and the campaign, but most important, self-respect.
Does top-down rules work anywhere? Self-organizing groups
police each other based on the only standards they're prepared to conform
to. This stuff simply
cannot
be mandated
by
a campaign, any more than it can be managed for an RSS controversy.
- Publish your schedule*
"Make sure your candidate's
schedule is on your website and it's current.
Also, keep track of where your competition is, and consider publishing that
as well."
Good idea.
- Choice in tools*
"The Dean campaign made a big mistake, imho, by getting into the software
business. Now it looks like the Edwards campaign is following them.
Software and the candidates should be separate.
I feel particularly qualified to respond to this point, since
much of the early thinking on the DeanSpace initiative took
place in
my apartment, and I've attended IRC meetings and participate on the
Dec mailing list.
Dave's just wrong here. The campaign isn't in the
software business. Zephyr encouraged
the
open source
volunteers
to
do
what
they wanted
to do anyway. It's not even clear that the volunteers are in the software
business, since they're simply customizing a special Drupal installation
("community plumbing")
and configuring it as a downloadable kit. Extending the Drupal toolset
is precisely the act of "Building on what the weblog community has
accomplished" that Dave recommends.
Might the complaint be that they are building
the kit on open source tools?
- Speak about democracy*
"Advocate the benefits of
citizens participating in government. Use some of your campaign money
to buy Internet presence for voters. Talk about Jefferson, the First
Amendment, etc etc. Ralph Waldo Emerson."
Isn't this a suggestion to do what's criticized in item 6? The amazing
comments section at the Dean Blog are full of deeper talk than has emerged
from any think tank in the past 3 decades.
Dana's Points
Dana Blankenhorn has also responded to
Winer's call for linkage to his post. Dana has posted some great stuff at
GreaterDemocracy.org, including
an insightful article
yesterday on how and why military
families may lead us to a better understanding of the problems of Bushism.
His take is also different from Dave
Winer's:
"One thing I disagree with Dave on is his advice against
creating software tools, as the Dean folks are doing. (Here's their latest.)
In most cases, I agree with him...why reinvent the wheel? But in the
case of a Presidential campaign, in a political world that lacks really
useful industry-specific tools, I can't argue against it.
One thing Howard
Dean's people have realized, that no one else (including Dave Winer)
has realized, is that in a very short period of time they will
become the Democratic Party. All candidates get temporary control of the
apparatus once they are nominated. But this control is going to mean more
this time, because the tools and sensibilities Dean is bringing to the
Democrats mean more than Dean himself, and go beyond either him or his
message. The
Dean campaign brings lessons in social technology that every Democrat must
have to compete, and a cadre of people who can teach those lessons. That
will resonate long after Dean is forgotten.
Despite Dave Winer's attempts
to be fair politics is being changed today by only one campaign, that of
Howard Dean. (And not
by his home page, either -- by this
page .) And it's not about him. It's
about an important lesson campaign manager Joe Trippi had to fight
to learn some months ago, the lesson of letting go.
Give people the tools and they will make their own
politics. That is your Clue for today."
Yeah. That's what we're talkin' about!
6:21:22 PM 
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