May 2006 Archive

This past Monday, while in the midst of a campaign, I had a prior commitment to a friend to help the Personal Democracy Forum to do their podcasting and speak on the panel, “Free, Easy and/or Cheap Tools That Anyone Can Use”. After a terrific conference with various speakers which included NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, Markos from Daily Kos, Jerome Armstrong (formerly of myDD), Congressman Anthony Weiner, Joe Trippi and a host of other luminaries in the political and technology world - it was said that this conference was a resounding success.

During my panel, I was talking about a number of products that I found to be very useful in doing a number of tasks necessary in political campaigning. And to that end, I wanted to list them for public consumption. These are not necessarily “endorsements”, they are recommendations to others on my experiences of products I have used to deliver the needed services during my time in eCampaigning. Note - this is a list of free, cheap and/or easy tools - ones that give great service for the price (when price really matters).

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Spent part of Saturday at the TriBreca Film Festival - where my friend purchased tickets to see “Land of the Blind” - a new film by director Robert Edward. While the actors were enough to create a draw (Ralph Fiennes, Donald Sutherland, and Lara Flynn Boyle), what intrigued me was the opening discussion - that the film was a “satiric political drama about terrorism, assassination, and the power of memory”. As written in Ralph Fiennes own website:

Land of the Blind is a satiric political drama about terrorism, assassination, and the power of memory. The film is set in an unnamed place and time, where an idealistic soldier named Joe (Ralph Fiennes) strikes up an illicit friendship with a political prisoner named Thorne (Donald Sutherland). Through their conversations in the high-security military prison where Thorne is held, Joe slowly begins to question his allegiance to the country’s brutal but clownish dictator and his Machiavellian wife. Eventually Thorne succeeds in recruiting Joe to the rebel cause, leading to a bloody coup d’etat with echoes of countless tyrannies, revolutions, and counter-revolutions throughout history. But in the post-revolutionary world, what Thorne asks of Joe leads the two men into bitter conflict, spiraling downward into madness until Joe’s co-conspirators conclude that they must erase him from history.

You are welcome to look at the site link above, but I would suggest getting a chance to see the film on the big screen. I was engaged with the story because there were far too many connections to the past four years, but what was interesting was after the half-way point - where what you expect in Hollywood terms takes a completely different turn.

This movie was a combination of a number of historical references: I saw Lenin and Stalin, Democrats and Republicans, Labour and Tories, Arabs and Israelis. The challenges between idealism and reality. Between what is assumed to be right and wrong. And the last act - leaves you in a state of unreality: was he free or was he still in prison?

Simply put - highly recommend the movie - especially for the politically inclined.

Tags: Land of the Blind, Robert Edward

This year, the Personal Democracy Forum is being held in New York City at the CUNY Graduate Center.

This year, the keynote speaker is Attorney General Elliot Spitzer, candidate for Governor of New York with Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas signing their book, “Crashing the Gate”.

Various topics will be discussed, including

• Opening Plenary: The Changing Nature of Political Media
  With Merrill Brown moderating, Chuck Defeo, Joshua Marshall,
  Chris Nolan, David L. Sifry, and Ben Smith
• How Campaigning Online Will Affect Who Will Win in 2006
  With Matt Bai (moderator), Jonathan Garthwaite, Markos Moulitsas, Joe Rospars, and Patrick Ruffini discussing the potential impact of online campaigns
• “Net Neutrality” or “Hands Off the Internet”
  A debate with Susan Crawford, Stephen Effros, Timothy Karr, Chris Wolf and Congressman Anthony Wiener moderating
• The Rising Power of Local Political Blogs
  Conversations with local political bloggers and their tactics on how to influence campaigns within the local community
• To Blog or Not to Blog
  Should campaigns or advocacy organizations adopt a blogging strategy, and if so, how to do it right.
• How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Blogosphere
  Developing smart relations, and how to deal with a “blog-swarm.”
• Fundraising Best Practices
  How to turn supporters into donors, how to choose the right fundraising software, mistakes to avoid.
• Making Online Work Offline and in the Field
  How to use your list to strengthen your field and communication operations and vice versa.
• Why Your Website is Probably Obsolete (And How to Fix it)
  Top political website designers will show what works, and what doesn’t (submit your own site for discussion, if you dare).
• Online Political Advertising With, and Without, Money
  Where to spend your money (i.e. Flash movies? Google ads? Blogs?), and how to get attention cheap, or for free.
• Is Online Video More Powerful Than TV Advertising?
  Do you YouTube? Hear from pioneering videobloggers and top campaign strategists who are integrating interactive video into their efforts.
• MySpace for Politics
  How campaigns and advocacy groups can use online social network platforms to create powerful political communities.
• Regulating Online Politics? The FEC, Bloggers and Campaigns
  Will the feds crack down on online politics and should they? The experts speak.
• TxtMessaging and Mobile Politics
  The Next Generation Platform: Hear from leaders in the rising field of phone-based fundraising and mobilization on what’s over the horizon.
• Free, Easy or Cheap Tools That Anyone Can Use
  Working on a small budget? You can practically run an organization or campaign for free with these tools.

Feel free to signup - and when you so, tell them that you were sent by me - and I believe there is a discount avaiilable.

Tags: Personal Democracy Forum