Slashdot Mirror
House Candidate Lets Web Users Set His Schedule
brahn at actblue writes "From ABC News: Jeff Seemann, running for one of Ohio's seats in the House of Representatives, '...has an unusual approach in deciding how to spend his campaign. He asks Web surfers: Should he sleep in? Prepare for his debate? Campaign door to door?' (More coverage here and here.)
Best of all: Jeff is fighting back against Diebold and their paperless voting machines -- and they're based in his district!"
Sleep in, read slashot and surf for porn. I want someone that reflects my values.
Because letting bored internet users make plans for you is always a good idea.
its nice to see a new angle pop up every now and again, but if elected do you think he will still be letting the web votes run his time in office?
considering how Diebold is in his district and will proably crush him with massive donations to his opponent.
If he is very good and genuine, he may stand a chance, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Nifty Ideas for input, though. And I can appriciate a man who stands up for what he thinks is right.
If I had a real
I don't really think any more needs to be said.
Software piracy is victimless theft.
www.subservientcandidate.com :)
Are you sure this isn't just a plug for the next Maxis game?
Best of all: Jeff is fighting back against Diebold and their paperless voting machines -- and they're based in his district!
He's doomed.
$ whatis themeaningoflife
themeaningoflife: not found
Lose the flash. Lose the white on light-blue. Lose the red submit button. Lose the JavaScript.
And then Ramen noodles for lunch. Yum!
"An infinite number of monkeys typing into GNU emacs would never make a good program."
I thought this was a joke, especially after reading his last name, but it seems serious.
He's trying a gimmick, a bad one at that, to get elected. Getting "in touch with the community" doesn't mean letting them completely plan your day...
Wouldn't it be nice if most of the voters in his district were slashdot readers. Then he might get a lot of the vote even while he was against a big company.
How fitting that a story about a Diebold activist would be posted a few lines above the review for the election consipiracy book Mezonic Agenda: Hacking the Presidency...makes you think...
To me it is just plain marketing. For one side he gets info for his planning (which days he can gather more people at each place, etc.), even if it is biased (not everyone is connected to the web).
For the other, (and more important), he is doing his supporters more active (it is not just going to an speech, it is more participative) so they do more work (some old studies about media and politics showed that the message from the leaders was mainly received by their supporters, who where the ones in charge of, one by one, trying to convince the undecided voters -> P.F. Lazarsfield).
What happens when his opponent hires someone to use millions of proxies for him to drop out of the race? Or something similar?
got sig?
I have always wondered what would happen if one of our representatives hosted a web site that allowed people in his/her district to know what votes were coming up in Congress, how he/she is planning to vote and why, and allowed some informal polling and commentary on the issues. I know this isn't what this guy is doing, but I wonder if it isn't the logical next step. You'd have to think that that sort of system would be the ideal of a representative democracy, but alas I don't expect any career politician to actually document their position on everything and set themselves up to be held accountable to their constituency. Especially since if they ever run for higher office that sort of thing gets used against them.
is this our candidate?
What an appallingly-tacky joke. I hope you get your cum-uppance.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
OOO! Let me try. How about build a house with one room. Once inside, take away the door. Hilarity ensues.
"It attracts people to come and engage with your campaign in a way that is fun and interesting," Noble said.
I agree he's trying a gimmick, but is it necessarily a bad one? He's recieving press, he's getting his name out, and if he continues with schedules like the ones suggested in the article, he could make a very good name for himself.
No harm in him trying to make himself stand out from candidates that do sleep in, don't attend events, but have enough money to advertise their campaign to death. Don't communities want leaders that get involved rather than sit idly by?
They control the closed voting machines that are full of back doors. They can hand his opponent the win.
... the first web-controlled candidate. This is jsut crazy enough to catch on.
He posts on DailyKos.com sometimes, so do a few of his campaign staff. From what I recall of his postings there he seems like he's a genuinely nice guy, definitely intelligent and aware of the issues. He started promoting this gimmick in a diary on DailyKos. It seems like an interesting idea to me, it's a good way to show people what kind of things he does as part of his campaign and it gives them a sense that he is responsive to them.
Although I'm sure this must be a troll, I'll respond nevertheless.
The reason they're called "representatives" is that they represent US, their constituents. Therefore, in a perfect democracy (ha!), they are exactly required to "do what we want them to do". It's their job, you see.
Did anyone notice that the server claims to be running GWS/2.1, the same thing that Google uses?
curl -I jeffseemannforcongress.com 2>&1|grep ^Server
Server: GWS/2.1
This means that if his server gets slashdotted he will do nothing?
"So, what is my schedule today?"
"Today you got slashdotted sir."
"What does that mean?"
"It's like getting fucked in the ass virtually."
Best of all: Jeff is fighting back against Diebold and their paperless voting machines -- and they're based in his district!
I can see Diebold continually voting for him to "sleep in past noon" and "begin another cocaine binge" in an attempt to make him lose the election.
It might not be that bad of a gimmick. It really depends on his intentions.
Educating the public on what is involved in the political process would be a noble goal and could be done in this way.
The disconnect between the an {insert country name} politician and the public can't be helping to create a healthier democracy.
Quack, quack.
As Walmart found with a small town in CA- when a corporate giant leans into the political process that blatantly, people get really pissed.
They won't have to do a thing- if Diebold has enough employees in the county, he'll simply loose because a vote for him will be turned into a vote for putting Diebold employees out of work. Happens allllll the time, and people are dumb enough to fall for it every single time.
Please help metamoderate.
A sort-of on-topic question which occurred to me during the VP debate, when Cheney was chiding Edwards for missing votes in the senate: why is it so hard to get our congress-people to vote? "Missing votes" seems to be a ongoing and constant criticism of even our best political representatives.
Do they have to be physically present to cast a vote? If so, why? Can't we afford to get these people a blackberry or a treo or something? (I'm not being facetious, I just don't know.)
~jeff
Why did I see this article? I can't stand reading /. politics section, thus I set my preferences not to show any politics on the front page. However, I keep on getting them.
Come play Heroes of Might and Magic Mini online.
What is this, the political expansion for the Sime or something? Other than a gimmick, I'm not sure what this gentleman hopes to achieve.
What will he do if he gets elected? Hold nightly cam sessions to allow his fans to tell him what to do and wear?
Just sounds all so wierd to me.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The constituents are supposed to use an electronic, paperless voting system to support someone who is against... electronic,... paperless... voting... systems??
I think my brain is starting to bleed.
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
If the schedule breaks... he gets the day off!
Ok, maybe not... but I'd personally write a little script to automate my voting if he had an option to 'sit home, masturbate while on the phone with DC'.
If a politician ran on a platform of almost total transparency I would like to think he would get total voteage.
Republican or Democrat doesn't really matter when you worry they do something meriting impeachment behind closed doors.
Politicians that do this WILL win it's as simple as that.
It's the American way! Build capital and let the interest do the work for you. So it goes with voting . . .
A politician has already acquired the office - so they kick back and let the staff and PACs do all the hard work of figuring out issues. The average citizen never fought or died in a war for the freedoms such as voting - so they kick back and watch cable. Perhaps if one had to register and vote in order to buy cable-tv, or beer, or cigarettes - more citizens would vote.
Perhaps if PACs were outlawed, and the media empires put candidates on TV/Radio for free, and staffers and officials weren't busy sleeping with one another, some real work could get done.
I believe they do have to be physically present on the floor to vote. I'd rather they were there voting in person than voting electronically. Much as I feel citizens should only be voting in the analog mode. Stylus + Paper Ballot. Just add a card reader and receipt printer to the current process and all this obfuscation about tabulation errros goes away.
I think it would be better for them to do all their other business(campaigning) by electronic means rather than electronicizing their voting. Why should a Senator or Represenatative of one state ever travel to another state for any reason? Why not telecommute?
There is profit in internet transactions and they haven't figured out how to tax it yet - that should make everyone realize politicians have no idea what the technology boom has brought. They have no idea. They are ignorant. And that's the name of that tune. IM(NS)HO
Stuff that matters.
I promise you, when they figure out PayPal, they are gonna be all over that.
this isn't a sig. i type this (including the two dashes), every time i post, just to make it look like a sig.
Damn, you still have that include, all this time after I made fun of your little error. You rule.
AC to save karma, but you know who I am.
we still delegate our authority to individuals so that they can give it back to us to delegate back to them.
Someday soon, we'll all be able to vote on issues ourselves rather than vote for other people to vote for them.
I used to live right by the Diebold building. It's pretty creepy looking, in an NSA sort of way. One of my best friends from high school who died a few years back, his father is their Network Administrator. I haven't really talked to the family since his death, but I know his father frequents Slashdot. John, if you're out there, can you give us your opinion on this whole thing?