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Starting a Political Career with Open Source?

Posted by Cliff on from the if-you-must-fall-to-the-dark-side dept.

byronmiller desires to get to the root of the following issue: "I have chosen to run for office to represent the people of the 16th district of Pennsylvania. I am looking for software and solutions to help manage a grass roots and budget friendly campaign. What applications are available for everything from district management/contact management solutions to online fund raising and campaign management solutions? We are already rolling out staff PC's running Suse 9.2, OpenOffice.org and of course Firefox. Are there any collaboration suites and mail systems that we can use for calendaring, notes, email and conferencing? Anyone build a campaign using open source technology or is Politics still only putting money where your mouth is? Technology is a major initiative of my campaign and i'm very interested in what political software and civic solutions are available - especially experience and reviews of such."

12 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. Keep your eye on the ball by astrashe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Running open source in your office is a noble gesture, but doesn't really help anyone else.

    Getting a vote in Congress probably won't help anyone either, since the leadership of the majority party can do whatever they want. But at least there's a chance that you could do some good down the road if you win.

    Do what you can to win. Don't focus on things that aren't directly related to winning. Winning is hard, and if you don't focus on it, you will probably lose.

    Winning might include open source -- if you want to set up community web sites to bring people into your campaign, for example, open source might be the way to go. Take what you can from Joe Trippi's Dean campaign.

    But don't get hung up making people type letters in open office, because it won't help you win.

    1. Re:Keep your eye on the ball by Ithika · · Score: 3, Insightful

      -1, Missed the Point

      That's exactly what *everyone else* is doing and see what's happened? Focusing on winning with no interest in *why* you're winning or at what cost, leaves the whole exercise pointless. The poster may as well not stand at all if they're just going to do what everyone else does.

      --
      the layman's guide to computer science
    2. Re:Keep your eye on the ball by x2A · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Running open source in your office is a noble gesture, but doesn't really help anyone else
      Are you saying there's no actual benefit to using OSS? Is a company that moves over to OSS (esp free OSS) just performing a 'noble gesture', or could, for example, CUTTING COSTS, increase how competitive you can be?

      If you spend less money on software for your staff to use, does that not leave you more money for more/better staff? If you spend less money on software for designing posters, does that not leave you more money to print more posters?

      Does how efficiently your representative spends your money not effect who you choose to represent you?

      I say go for it.

      -2A
      --
      The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
    3. Re:Keep your eye on the ball by Jjeff1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Getting a vote in Congress probably won't help anyone either

      Wrong! Anyone interested in real sweeping changes in the government needs to realize that it won't happen overnight. Our next president will be a Republican or a Democrat, so will the next.

      What we need is to get in at the ground floor. 1 or 2 3rd party members in congress won't do a lot, but when that number grows to 10% of the floor, then they have some power.

    4. Re:Keep your eye on the ball by byronmiller · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There is no wrong way to go about politics. The software/backend and systems you build your campaign on don't necessarily reflect your political ideals across the board either. I happen to be quite the tech head myself, but that isn't the overriding factor of the campaign. We're looking for something we can roll out to save time re-developing the wheel as well as to implement something we can pass down to other potential candidates so the opportunity for others to have great tools will be afforded. If you have systems that can help you streamline, communicate, be aware, react as well as be pro-active and cost effective you can't be beat. If you loose the vote well atleast you have some technology to hand down and hope others will make use off.

      --
      Byron Miller for Congress.
    5. Re:Keep your eye on the ball by rimmon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But you do realize that most democracies have no problem with more than two parties?
      And wait, a smaller party working together with a bigger one so that they have a majority, where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, it's called a coaltion and it's absolutely normal in most democracies.

  2. you're screwed is more like it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    You're taking on Joe Pitts, a five-termer Republican in an area of PA that is very Republican. Even if you're a Republican yourself, you're taking on quite a challenge with the opponent being a long-time incumbent.

    Your best bet is not to worry about what operating system is runnign your campaign website or other computers, but rather what your political platform and campaign slogan will be.

    1. Re:you're screwed is more like it by lilmouse · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That's why he's focusing on the technology. So 6 years from now, when Joe retires, he's ready w/ all the technology.

      --LWM

  3. Scribus by Tufriast · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I can suggest using Scribus for making great quality pamphlets. I can suggest using GIMP to touch up those images of yourself with dazzling beauty. Here is one GREAT meeting software using Gnome. I am dang sure there is other software out there, in addition to Skype.

    --
    Help me, help you. - Jerry McGuire
  4. In what way ... by zangdesign · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Technology is a major initiative of my campaign ...

    In what way is "technology a major initiative of your campaign"? We've heard candidates state the same things before, at all levels of government, but what does it really mean? While it's obvious that technology cannot be the sole focus of your candidacy, does it mean you are going to be pushing some form of Open Source adoption or what? Are you going to pushing digital rights legislation? There are a myriad of technological concerns that are being pushed into the political realm, where the people most likely to legislate are the ones least likely to be informed. Is this focus on technology merely a way to get low-cost assistance at pushing the same old non-tech issues?

    So, again, how is technology a major initiative of your campaign?

    --
    To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
  5. CivicSpace/DemocracyInAction by cleetus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As a political consultant/PAC founder who bootstrapped the entire enterprise from hand-rolled code and open source projects, The best I've seen so far is the CivicSpace initiative started by the techies from the Dean campaign. It's still at 0.8.0.3, and so there will still be bugs, but they fix patches quickly and the team is quite responsive. In addition, if you combine a CivicSpace installation with some intelligently placed hooks into the great stuff at Democracy In Action, you will be able to communicate and co-ordinate with your grass roots (and collect money from them), all at an extremely low cost.

    Tim

  6. Thanks.. by byronmiller · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Hula looks good, just don't know if i can rely on it just yet. A bit too new - Looking for systems "Tried and true"

    --
    Byron Miller for Congress.