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Software for the Grass Roots
An anonymous reader writes "In February at the O'Reilly Digital Democracy Teach-In, technologists from the Dean, Kucinich, Clark and Kerry campaigns laid down arms to share tech plans while their respective camps were still battling it out in the primaries. A (private) list and requirements for fall campaign organizing ensued. Just six weeks ago, a few of the developers converged in San Francisco for a show and tell of their emerging free software tools. Today, the AdvoKit project was the first to tag beta, hoping to kick-start the campaign software revolution in time for November 2nd."
Hmmm... I had to convince a friend that free software is a plausible notion, as he simply argued that "If people aren't paying for it, what incentive is there?" But then again, if you're working on free software, then you have some sort of desire... While if you're working underpaid in a cubicle, you wind up having a lot less drive than someone doing it purely for pleasure. I respect those who work on free software immensely...
The GOP plays Big Brother for our own protection (becasue they truly care about us, the people), while the Democrats want to know our most intimate details so they can harm us (look into fluoridation of water to find out more), understand?
One wants to prevent your wife from knowing you're cheatin on her, the other wants to help you score with the babysitter.
I disagree with this. I think we don't need more between the voter and the politicians, we need less. What I want to see is the politicians go door to door, meet people, talk to them. The more politics becomes some equation with all the consultants and marketing experts, the less voting will mean. Politicians will secure their base, do research to find out how to make the middle swing their way, and then give speeches to satisfy those people. More technology will just reinforce this new paradigm. And once this happens, the real power will be with lobbyists, the ones who can fund a candidate to have the best consultants and marketing.
I would love to see a genuinely inspired person run a campagin going door to door, speaking passionatly about what they believe in (and not something scripted by consultants). I would like to see this guy/gal reject lobbyists and do it the old fashioned, grass roots way. Can it be done today, and still win? I think so. But to the uninspired who want the title/power/prestige of public office (and not the public service), they will take the easy way and do a media blitz.
I will finish with one last question. Should it really cost 10 million dollars to run a "sucessful" senate campaign? Should it cost 200 million dollars to run for president? And how does that limit who can run? Only the wealthy? Only the well connected? What about Joe Sixpack who has some good ideas about making life better for the avarage american? Can he possibly run and compete?
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
The AGPL is a GNU recognized free software license.
It's essentially a modified GPL - with a "running this software over a network constitutes distribution" clause.
Very cool - I had no idea this was around - might be worth some Free Software developers jumping onto until GPL v3 comes out (which will have a similar clause).
For those who have no idea what I'm going on about - read devchannel's explanation: Closing the GPL's distibution loophole
My pics.
Also worth checking out is CivicSpace, the new incarnation of DeanSpace, currently being developed by Civic Space Labs. They recently released a free (speech and beer) zipcode database, and are building in tools mimicing the "get local" aspects of the Dean campaign along with some really cool GOTV stuff.
Everything is based on Drupal, and is very tech friendly....RSS feeds, iCal files for events, etc. It's syndication gone political and is damn impressive stuff.
I built a few sites during the Dean campaign using the first iteration of the tools, and have watched them progress from there. It's definitely worth checking them out if you're looking to build a camapaign site for a candidate or a movement.
I have no idea how you came to this conclusion. I was critisizing how it is so expensive to run for office. If you look at history, it is the republicans who have been breaking records with the amount of money they raise. And it is the democrats that go into neighborhoods meeting people. How many poorer neighborhoods did Bush go into? Yet I remember Clinton going into ghettos shaking anyones hand who wanted to, and kissing little black babies. I am pretty sure Bush spent more time at $500 a plate fund raising dinners. To be fair, the democrats did it too. But wouldn't it be better if they spent that time with us, rather than giving a canned speech to their supporters?
There is also the question of escalation and responding. If one side starts raising the amount of money they spend, the other side has to try and compete or they will lose. Same thing with tools. One side starts hiring experts to determine what makes the voters tick, and then customizes a campaign to tell the voters what they want to hear, not the real ideas the candidate has. What will the other side do? They will follow those methods or fear losing. And even if one side does something new, and it works, it will be repeated in following elections.
Technology is good because it increases Democracy
What makes you say this? Why is technology good for democoracy? Just because technology is usefull for some things, does it mean it is usefull for all? The problem with technology and politics is it is more easily maipulated than if the candidate was on your block, in front of you, talking with you. You can ask the candidate questions, view their body language. With technology they will sell you a politician the way McDonalds sells hamburgers. They will put up only what they want. The other side will try to smear them. And what are you left with? Do you really know the person?
Hilary Clinton or Barack Obama could run, but they have no chance of winning. It's about winning isnt it?
And while the ultimate goal is to win, sometimes it is about a messege. How popular a topic was the budget deficit before Ross Perot and his commercials. Remember the millions of dollars he spent so his same half hour commercial would be on all the major stations so he could show off his charts? Well, it had an effect. He did not win, but it forced politicians to do something. Because of him, Clinton balanced the budget. And while the republicans out there might say it was congress, the leader of our nation is always the president. He makes all the final decisions, which way to lead our country and what bills to sign into law.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
More like Astroturf if you ask me. If I understand it correctly, the software is meant to tie people together in a way suitable to a political cause, specifically to raise money by judging from the AdvoKit introduction. Reading that, I'd say this is about raising money to finance these ridiculously expensive campaigns (to us Dutch, American politics sometimes seems to revolve around money and little else...) and not about furthering democracy. Tying people together into a pre-arranged framework with the sole purpose of raising money and/or support for a particular cause is not grass-roots, it's Astroturf. Or fund raising, take your pick.
----- One learns to itch where one can scratch.
The constitution originally called for one repersentative for every 30,000 citizens. If this had not been changed, there would be about 10,000 representatives today.
I've watched the way elections work in states such as New Hampshire and Vermont where there are large legislatures and few voters. An aspiring politician can actually meet and talk with every voter. These states are well noted for low priced political ventures.
There are fewer taxes voted when everyone in your district actually knows you, and can go to your door to complain.
This also diffuses political power and makes it difficult for a small clique or boss to run the the legislature as a personal fief.
The solution to the problem of communicating with voters is to have more politicians and smaller districts. Then the only solftware needed would be a few pairs of sneakers.
Its still active and of the major campaign blogs it kicked major ass. It allowed all registered users to have their own blog, which became a very useful feature for individuals to post and retain community information.
It also didn't moderate (except for particularly egregious postings) by removal of posts. It used the moderation system from kuro5hin.org (and was based on scoop), which let the users moderate posts up and down. It worked pretty well, and the community kept a pretty fair hand in moderating.
When the Clark campaign was in full gear, it was the best of the major campaign blogs, by far. There was and is no comparison. And it formed a nice community that is still actively discussing things today.
I always get the shakes before a drop.
Isn't that a perhaps obstructively cynical?
You say: "the software is meant to tie people together in a way suitable to a political cause, specifically to raise money" -- what's wrong with forum designed to allow people who support a cause to organize themselves more efficiently?
I spent a lot of time on a candidate blog this season, and thought it was a good experience. Moral support for activism, with a lot of discussion about what was working and what wasn't. I thought it was a very healthy experience.
As for money, what are we supposed to do? In Holland, maybe you can just shout and everybody will hear you. Here there are 300 million people scattered across four time zones, plus AK and HI. You need mass media to get your message out. People don't contribute because they're snookered into it, they do it to help spread a message they believe in.
Kill, Tux, kill!
you forget group interaction; namely, rallys and such. Events such as these can spark discussion and help develop consensue that does not require one on one intreaction with every voter.
The parent of your post was speaking to the human aspect of democracy being marginalized via technology. In that, I very strongly agree.
If our decisions are actually going to mean something, we need to spend a little time discussing them in a very real way.
Blogging because I can...
Where do you get that AdvoKit is a tool to make money? AdvoKit is tool to keep track of voter records and volunteers. AdvoKit can be used to find lists of voters in your area and to record results after those voters have been contacted. (ie, did they like my candididate, do they want a yard sign, do they want to volunteer, etc). It also keeps track of the volunteers so you can manage your campaign.
http://www.windmeadow.com/