For sixteen years Edward Kennedy was my Senator. Then I left Massachusetts, and now Ted has left all of us. We will all miss the “Lion of the Senate,” as will the Senate itself. I’m not just talking partisan politics here: Kennedy was vital to Congress because he hearkened back to an era when the [...]
President Obama and his new media team are rightfully receiving kudos for their inaugural online town hall. Roundup at Personal Democracy Forum. But as a pilot, there’s room to improve, as the first commenter on the linked PDF post points out. Moving forward, the new media team should focus on re-tuning the technology to hit [...]
The Boston Globe’s Mark Feeney asks, “Where would an Obama Library make most sense: Hawaii? Kansas?”
The answer, obviously, is cyberspace. As our first Web-savvy President, Barack Obama should put his Presidential Library online. If his Transparency and Open Government Initiative succeeds, most of the Library will already be built by the end of his term. [...]
Whatever the accolades for the speech that Obama delivered at his inauguration, it seems it won’t generate a singular sound bite as in JFK’s “Ask not…” or FDR’s “Fear itself” (Many of the major papers picked themes, rather than pluck quotes, although a few took to “hope over fear“). Pundits have hailed Obama as a [...]
Building Collective Capacity : New Forms of Political Organizing
I’m here at the Internet & Politics conference at Harvard University, co-hosted by the
Berkman Center for Internet & Society and the Institute of Politics. The purpose of
this event is to gather leading practitioners and scholars to reflect on lessons
learned from the recent Presidential election and preliminary thoughts [...]
It featured minimal graphics, no sound effects, and deeply flawed gameplay. Yet one of the most important game titles of 2008 was played by thousands and helped change the face of American politics. I’m writing about My.BarackObama.com.
Game designer and scholar Ian Bogost considered it a washout election cycle for political games. McCain had his “Pork [...]
“Yes we can,” as an election slogan, implies a relatively simple mission: get more people to cast a ballot for your candidate than for the other one. But as Barack Obama’s creed pivots from a battle cry to a governing philosophy, what, exactly, “we can” becomes a much larger and more complex matter. So, too, [...]
The morning of November 4, 2008 found me — like thousands of others all across the nation — rushing from door to door the final phase of the get-out-the-vote (GOTV) effort. In those pre-dawn hours in rural New Hampshire, the fate of the election came down to the mundane work of footsoldiers armed with low-tech [...]
Recently, Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, became a source of inspiration for many Americans. In his Last Lecture, given soon after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Pausch spoke about what it takes to achieve your lifelong dreams. It takes, he said, believing that the barriers we face are only [...]
There’s been much speculation about what kind of puppy the Obamas might buy for the girls. Some have suggested a pit bull (named “Maverick,” of course). But we would commend the suggestion of Saturday Night Live’s “Crazy McCain Rally Lady,” who opined that “Obama cavorts with terriers.” We prefer Cairn Terriers ourselves:
(Terrier courtesy of tanakawho, [...]
