Digital Democracy Teach-in
I took a bunch of notes at yesterday's Digital Democracy Teach-in in San Diego. I hope to write them up during the plane ride back to Denver today. Phil Windley is blogging during the sessions this week.
Update: Tim O'Relly started off the shindig with a brief introduction to the motivation for having the teach-in. It was a real 60's kind of thing. Gather a community of peers and teach each other.
He asked the participants to use the tools of technology to exert influence over the democratic process. For the most part, according to O'Reilly, this is a new and untapped area. The day was dedicated to passing on knowledge to others, enabling us to listen to the pioneers, find issues to work on, and making a difference.
Down from the Mountain: My Experience with the Dean Campaign - Joe Trippi
Joe Trippi was the keynote speaker. He talked about his experiences as Howard Dean's campaign manager. According to Mr. Trippi Howard Dean's campaign was a Dotcom miracle, not a failure. They managed to get people involved in a new a different way. He thinks that the U.S. is at a pivotal point in our history and the ball is in our court. The only debate that is happening is on the Internet because Big Media has failed democracy. The 'Net is where issues are being discussed. The Dean camp was about bringing change to a rotted corrupt system. Since 1960 politics became a race for money to buy television ads to win elections. This took the people out of politics.
The Dean campaign was trying to change the system that is now locked in place. There is only one tool that will allow the American people to take the government back, the Internet. One year ago the Dean campaign had $157,000, 7 staffers, and 432 people signed up nationwide. In 2003 they raised $45 million and have 200,000 people in meetups, 640,000 signed up on the website. Bill Clinton set a record for 3rd quarter fundraising that Howard Dean's campaign broke. Dean also raised more money the following quarter unlike Clinton. Clinto was a sitting president, not a former govenor of a small state. Because of the Dean campaign there will be debate in this country again.
Trippi went on to describe many of the things that went right with the campaign. The idea to use meetups came from Trippi reading a weblog. It wasn't even an "A List" blog. This illustrates the potential of mining weblogs for ideas. Not a bad strategy for any organization. The campaign learned some best practices of the Internet and community from MoveOn.org including hare with everybody.
Trippi thinks that the public press does not have a clue about the Internet community. Conversely the Internet community does not understand the media. He cited the famous "I have a scream" speech and bitched about how overplayed it became. The clip hurt the campaign.
Trippi went on to say that Howard Dean took on the press and Washington over the war in Iraq. He taught the Democrats how to be an opposition party again. Suddenly there was a debate. The Internet enabled the debate. States are seeing record turnout in the primaries and caucuses. They are reporting increased numbers of young voters. Other candidates have had to copy the Dean campaign in use of Internet tools and it's not going to end. Broadcast media's influence will diminish from now.
The Democratic party and broadcast media felt threatened by the Dean compaign, according to Mr. Trippi. The Dems rely more on donors that can afford to give over a $1 million than do the Repuclicans. The Internet turned that on it's head. The American people finally control the tools to raise money from small donors outside of the political parties. This could not have happened before 2003.
Mt. Trippi claims that after the nomination of Jimmy Carter in 1976 the parties have stacked the deck against an insurgent campaign. The system with it's cycle of faster and faster primaries is designed for an establishment front-runner. Dean's best hope was to win Iowa and New Hampshire big. The campaign ran up against broadcast politics and after Al Gore's endorsement alarms went off everwhere to kill Howard Dean's campaign (ed. there's a chance that this opinion is paranoia on Mr. Trippi's part  ). Every candidate started hitting Dean while Gephardt committed a "murder/suicide." The establishment wants the netroots to fail.
Trippi went on to say "God help us" if a mistake by himself, Howard Dean, or Dick Gephardt, brings down the power of the Internet in democracy. It is the most powerful tool ever put in the hands of Americans. Dean's campaign was owned by the people and out of the campaign the people need to build a movement. We (the techies at the teach-in) have the power to give the American people the country back. The power is the Internet.
Trippi left the stage to a standing ovation.
Q & A with Joe Trippi - Moderated by Ed Cone
Mr. Cone asked Joe Trippi what worked in the campaign. The answer? Online tools that enabled the campaign to be more effective offline, local tools to set up house parties, Dean links. The Internet however is suceptible to dirty tricks.
Of course Mr. Cone could not help but ask about Trippi's reported windfall from the media buys. Trippi answered that he didn't know what was more offensive, being accused of being a thief or being accused of being a bad thief. He stated that he made around $165,000 last year. He did not control the campaign budget not did he control the media buys. He thinks the smears are not about getting Joe Trippi, he thinks that it's all about driving away the small donations by making people think that there money is going to line the pockets of the campaign manager. He stated that his firm did not take the normal 15% commission and that he only found out that they took 7% last week. The campaign was not a Joe Trippi get rich scheme. Trippi emphasized that we need to knock this story down now.
Another question was about incorporating ideas from the grassroots. Trippi said that they received so many ideas that keeping up wth them all was hard.
Trippi feels that an Internet campaign is applicable to state and local politics. Use meetups to organize locallay, it may take 4-8 years to turn the tide, and there is too much power in the wrong places.
Mt. Trippi said one mistake of the campaign was his belief that Wesley Clark would not get in. He also felt that an Internet campaign, with it's transparency, causes problems for the traditional campaign strategies such as keeping media buys secret from opponents. How do you have honest online communication with supporters when you want to keep other candidates out of the loop? Candidates running an Innternet campaign must teach political strategy to the netroots.
Dan Gillmor asked the first question from the audience, "What will it take to get a different kind of journalism?" Mr, Trippi replied that it is already happening. He cited Trent Lott's resignation Majority Leader in the Senate. He observed that while the story went cold in the broadcast media, weblogs kept it alive. Trippi said, "It's the money stupid," implying that broadcast journalism will not bite the hand that feeds it. Controversy doesn't sell because some of your customers will disagree with you and turn away from your message and therefore your advertisements.
When asked "Who owns the Dean for America list," Trippi replied, "I'm not there, I don't know." He thinks Dean for America will continue past the election.
Meetup and "On the Ground" Organizing - Scott Heiferman/Jonah Seiger
Jonah Seiger
Jonah Seiger told us that he's been around since 1994-1995 fighting for privacy on the Internet. He's now with Institute for Privacy, Democracy and the Internet. He gave us a glimpse of a statistical look at "Online Political Citizens" from a study released last Thursday. They are 62% male, 59% have college degrees, 42% earn more than $75,000 per year, 36% are between 18 and 34 years old, 34% are single, 86% are white. They are a mix of old and new regarding political participation, 44% are new to the election process. Democrats outnumber Republicans 49% to 29%. This may be due to the contested presidential nomination in the Democratic party. 46% have contributed money this election cycle. Among the Online Political Citizens, 69% are considered Influentials from the defintion in the book of the same name by Edward Keller and Jonathan Berry.
According to Mr. Seiger, Howard Dean tipped into a network that is disproportionally influential. So why did Dean get tromped in Iowa? Seiger asserts that there were several factors at work: John Kerry won the votes from less active Iowans; Dean stepped on his message; Dean's campaign energized voters but they voted for someone else.
Scott Heiferman
Meetup.com was created by 6-8 people according to Scott. He took some inspiration from Lord of the Rings fans that had organized online. He contends that Meetup.com is the, "Hallmark of the Internet," because "we invent holidays." One interesting fact from political Meetups is that 50% of attendees have never been to a political meeting before. People go to Meetup to learn from their neighbors. The cat is out of the bag (a common theme), the people have it in mind now that they can organize themselves. Scott talked about people being organizers and joiners from the 1800's to the mid-1900's. Then came the era of TV. 2004 marks the era of 'Net organization. Meetup is a tool for building communities.
More to come.
6:46:08 AM 
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