3rd Party or 3rd Rail?
My friend and ORG board advisor, Micah Sifry, riffs
on a Thomas Friedman column suggesting that the stage might be set for
a 3rd political party. In fact, Friedman is partly riffing on Micah,
quoting him in his NYTimes PayWall column. Dissatisfaction with the
Dems and the GOP is not surprising. When you've been serially dating
two people for years and can't stand either one, your eye is sure to
wander. Micah points
out, citing Ross Perot in 1992,
Could
it happen again?
Well, here are some harbingers. The latest
USA Today/Gallup Poll shows that disatisfaction with the
direction of the country is today at levels that echo the 1994 election
that swung the House from Democratic into Republican hands. This
November, that may mean big gains for the Democrats, but by 2007, if
the country is experiencing more partisan gridlock, conditions might be
ripe for an independent or third-party bid for president.
And, as Friedman writes, the two major parties are hardly demonstrating
much leadership on the critical issues facing America, like our
dependence of carbon-based fuels and the global warming crisis.
And while the tinder may be dry, new technology guarantees that a
third-party fire would spread quickly. In 1991-92, remember, people
sneered when maverick candidates like Jerry Brown and Ross Perot used
800-numbers to go around the mainstream media and connect directly with
grass-roots volunteers. Not so today, in the Age of Connectedness. Ah yes, that pesky Age of Connectedness. Not a surprising
sentiment from one of Mrs. Sifry's boys.
Bricks, Mortar or Bits?
If you had unlimited funds and support, you'd start with some
idea about what it is that a political party does and how to go about
building one. Micah and I have discussed this, and we agree on some
basics. It's unlikely you'd start by renting 50,000 feet of prime DC
real estate and order up a bunch of Aeron chairs and cubicle modules.
You'd recognize that the core of your party will be the web services it
offers and the on- and off-line organizing that your web service
supports.
A political party purports to be a vote delivery system. It
blesses candidates and positions and convinces people to show up on
election day and make a meaningful gesture. It operates a Geographic
Information System (mostly on paper) to do that, since some geography
is more important than others. Its workforce is mostly volunteers but
knows nothing about the genius and passions and potential energy of
those volunteers. Above all, a party is credited by its candidates for
getting them elected, even when it doesn't.
Any force that does those things is a 3rd (through nth) party. It only
earns the third party label if it has an effect on the real parties.
Building a First Party
Why build a 3rd party when you could build the First Party?
Why not imagine a hostile takeover of American politics? There's only
one force strong enough to hijack the American political system, and
that's the American people. The stage is set for open source
governance, which is the only political dynamic interesting enough to
work on. I'm far more intrigued by interesting large-scale problems
than by fine-tuning around the margins of a broken system. So is the
American electorate. So, what's next?
Our tiny band continues to toil away on our warez. Micah has
invited me to present ORGware at Personal Democracy Forum on May 15th.
I'll make a formal announcement of our political marketing strategy for
2006. Our grand vision is not so grand, really – it's mostly
driven by how late we are to the, well, party. We think we
have some useful approaches to inspiring user thought and engagement
and building aggressively viral sites from those raw materials. If that's right
– a BIG If
– then our platform can host lots of conversations about lots
of issues and lots of candidates.
Get Yer Democracy Samples Here!
Govern Early and
Often. That's the secret to successful campaigning in this
Connected Age, so beloved by the Brothers Sifry. Why hound people for
donations when it's easier to hand out free Democracy Samples?
Democracy in the Connected Age means a broad and deep conversation that
leads directly to specific platforms and legislation. Yep, we're
talking laws and lawmakers representing the common sense of those who
help craft the and wording of the laws, in large enough numbers that it
shifts the political landscape (governing early and often is described
in more detail near the bottom of this page).
While your opponent is out mouthing sound bites, spending
expensive donations on consultants and their expensive message, try
governing on line and partnering with whoever shows up. If your message
is and participation is galvanizing, your support will grow, will
migrate off line and will carry the day.
If your message and participation is not galvanizing, why
bother? Since we won't have time to sell ORGware for the fall, we'll
just set up sites for those candidates and issues that appeal to those
with common sense. If nothing else, we'll learn what needs the most
improving, but with any luck, the site will do what any political party
does – deliver votes – without the money part.
11:02:24 AM 
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