Asking myself the question: What are the underlying phenomena, and how
are they different from the more visible epiphenomena? Or as
Thoreau
said, “Obey the law that reveals, and not the law revealed.”
1. Gore’s endorsment is very important, but as much as a marker
as a driver. People who are critical of the Gore endorsement
might as well object to gravity. Gore’s endorsement is the result
of a movement, not (at least as yet) the cause of one.
The real
dynamic in this election (and in this economy, as David Kirkpatrick of
Fortune reminded me yesterday) is that bottom-up power is increasing,
and top down decreasing. Those who listen to the grassroots
rule. Howard Dean’s fundraising and popular success is a
phenomena of the grassroots, and so is Al Gore’s endorsement of him. Al
responded to what he correctly perceived as a powerful movement of
everyday folks.
Bottom-up is also present in the SEIU and AFSCME endorsements.
Labor leaders in general support Gephardt, due to a long alliance with
him, but rank-and-file union members support Dean. It is no
surprise that the more progressive and democratic union leaders are
responding to their own roots.
You will see more endorsements driven by the same dynamic.
Leaders will be serving the emergent, rising liberal power in our
society.
2. No candidate is perfect–so we would do well to examine the
movements that support the candidates, along with the leaders
themselves. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin
were imperfect vessels. But they learned, they were helped, and
somehow wisdom more or less prevailed.
So here is the key point:
compare movements, not just candidates. Howard Dean
is the Democrat with a real movement. And by the way, George
Bush continues to succeed in building the greatest grassroots campaign
infrastructure of our time. Now, let’s understand their
movements, understand the values that inspire the movement
members, and consider which of these we hope expands to transform
America and shape our future.
3. Winning the election is not the only important thing. Dave
pointed out something to me: The important thing is winning in a
way that sets up the conditions that make it possible for the president
to ask the American people to accept sacrifice, collaborate and share,
and innovate and create in order to make a better world.
A
president who wins the campaign by using a cynical $200 million dollar
TV campaign, and promising to send men to the moon, is not connected to
the people. Bush has no ability to ask Americans to stop smoking,
exercise, control guns, drive safer cars, or create more cohesive and
emotionally open families in order to reduce health care
costs. And yet these are the emergent movements that are
most important to health, and to reducing medical costs.
Most of
our serious problems do not require technical fixes, they requre
cooperative social change. Education, health care, jobs, personal
safety, and freedom from racism, sexism and ethnocentrism,
all require social commitment. Bush does not have the trust or
the connection to the nation to ask for real behavior change–unless he
compells it. So he takes military action, conscripts citizens to
fight in his wars, and reduces civil liberties. This is the
only way he can act, at all.
Howard Dean is attempting to create a platform for adaptive
leadership. He is using the net to listen. He made his most
important political decision of the campaign through public, audited
on-line voting. When he says to people that they are the
solution, he means it. His innovations–far from complete, and
far from perfect, but more powerful than any before used–are intended to
involve millions of people in coming together to shape a better future.
4. Blogs are not the primary driver of change, either. We should
value blogging, but not worship it. The success of blogs is a
reflection of bottom-up power, of the will of individuals to be heard,
and of the desire for people to communicate and come together.
Yossi Vardi says it well, “Never bet against a technology that makes it
easier for people to get emotionally close to each other.”
Instant messaging, texting, mobile phones, and blogging are all
powerful enablers. But so are football games, raves, and
rallys. All of these are powerful because people desperately want
to be enabled to be with each other.
If you want to understand politics today, look at the evolution of
the
means to connect–including those like Meetup and Match.com that start
online and lead to realworld relationships. Howard Dean’s
campaign is not a phenomenaon of the Internet, it is a real world
movement, energized not only by Dean but by many many other contributors,
with the Internet and blogging as one powerful means of connection.
