Apologies for not blogging for a few days, but I’ve been busier than
you might imagine. I’m now back in my home west of Boston, on Christmas Eve day. Thank G*D for the holiday!
It has been a wild few days. This past Saturday a dozen of us from Dean
headquarters in Burlington, Vermont journeyed over-mountain to
Manchester, New Hampshire, to deepen our understanding of the
grassroots campaign.
We joined informational house meetings and
local organizing groups’ leadership meetings, in citizens’ homes.
The meeting pictured above is a leadership meeting, with volunteers who
are organizing their small rural town.
And Karen Hicks
(our New Hampshire campaign director) and her team of community
organizers took us through a crash course in grassroots values.
organization and leadership. Remarkable process, born of years of
experience with face-to-face community organizing.
As one organizer said, “I worked on a senatorial campaign here in New
Hampshire in 2002. We spent $10 million on TV ads, and left nothing
behind in terms of community capability.” Karen said,
“Television air wars leave voters more cynical, with less information,
and more alienated from the political process at the end of a campaign
than at the beginning.”
The point of the Dean campaign in New Hampshire is to help voters work
together to establish personal relationships and networks that will
persist and expand over time–long after this primary is over. In
one sense, the Dean campaign in New Hampshire is an opportunity to
build political capability in the electorate, rather than an end in
itself.
Note to Joi Ito and others who are learning with the Dean
campaign and hope to transfer lessons to other venues, including
Japan:
To win we must find more and more ways to deepen the
support that online organizing provides for face-to-face
community. Face-to-face meetings generate and feed the intimate
daily personal communication networks
that help people stand up to the media-driven information assaults that
currently define politics as usual. Face-to-face community
involves identifying local people who share your values, obtaining
social permission to get together and talk politics, sharing
information and developing understanding, and taking meaningful
personal
action to play a part in a larger political whole.
On Sunday back in Vermont, a five hour planning session on how to use
our data resources to more effectively empower grassroots organizers
and groups.
As some of you know, I’m a few days into my new job as Director of
Internet and Information Services for the Dean campaign.
I love the team–who I have been working with for the past 11 weeks as
a volunteer (actually, I’m still volunteering, except that now I have
an official job to do). We are challenged to deal with the
fast-rising scale and complexity and speed of the movement. The trick
is how to both embrace emergence and allow it to shape us, while also
leading emergence and helping shape it.
We
are committed to anticipating and benefiting from the challenges
ahead. For a general intro to our perspective, check out this
article in Wired.
Our allies and we are pioneering new forms of network
organizations, and learning how to work with them. For example, we have
a
full-spectrum new media and technology operation within the
campaign, and we must find better ways to relate to the dozens (or
perhaps hundreds) of similar organizations in our extended universe.
Our
environment changes daily, and we face tough
competitors–both our fellow Democratic candidates and the organization
of George Bush/Karl
Rove. The Bush folks have extensive grassroots networks, are
dominant in broadcast radio, and strong in broadcast television.
Bush allies are already on the air with negative televion ads in Iowa.
Our Dean strength is grassroots
community organizing–as described above and by thousands of freelance
organizations across the country–combined with swarming, richly
diverse alternative media
including blogging and email, plus conventional media including
television. We also think it helps to be telling the truth, and
to have values that include asking for the best in people, rather than
stiring up fear and strife. And last but not least, we have the
best candidate–a person with courage, intelligence, wisdom and the
ability to trust people and connect with people in this deeply
troubling time.
Warm holiday wishes to all!
Peace and Joy
PS: If you are in the sciences, you can help form Scientists for Dean, being organized with the stewardship of Bob Kopp and David Isenberg.
