Campaign 2008 Archive

Tonight, I spent the evening listening to a number of people discussing the future of the Obama Administration and how technology may enable it. I live-blogged the event and provide my transcript below:

NYSIA January Monthly Meeting: Government By the People 2.0

Is technology changing democracy? With our panel, we’ll explore that issue, look back at the presidential campaign, and ahead to the new administration and look at the many ways that the Internet and technology is reconfiguring the way citizens connect with politics and policy.

Panelists:

• Josh Levy, Managing Editor, Change.org
• Micah Sifry, Co-founder and Editor, Personal Democracy Forum
• Rachel Sterne, CEO, GroundReport.com
• Tom Watson, Managing Partner, CauseWired

Moderator: Howard Greenstein, President, The Harbrooke Group

Bruce Bernstein (founder of NYSIA) makes intros and explains to the audience how NYSIA helps grow small tech businesses in NY. Bruce thanks Chase for sponsoring, and then intros Howard Greenstein, who has been running the panels and special events.

Howard opens the event with a discussion on participatory democracy: there is a potential for significant changes - how much is real, how much is perception.

The question is: what can we (the entrepreneurs) do to make it “work” for us. How can we use the tools the Obama Campaign has used and use it to our advantage (small and medium companies)?

Introductions

• Tom Watson: new book “CauseWired” (third printing) - came out in November - online social activism. Politics to non-for-profit causes. New firm - CauseWired Communications - turn them into Causes.
• Josh Levy: 19 different online social movements at Change.org
• Rachel Sterne: GroundReport.com citizen journalism platform and make money off the platform. 3500 reporters on the ground. Rachel was a Business Developer at LimeWire and a reporter on the Security Council at the U.N.
• Micah Sifry: Personal Democracy Forum curator, techpresident.com blog, consulting with Advocacy Organizations on the Web. Primary client is the Sunlight Foundation - grabbing ahold of the massive amounts of the government data and shine the light on what goes on with Congress.

Q: Did social media tech affect the election?
MS: Should the question be about “new media” vs “old media”? If we focus on YouTube, where candidates were sharing own content, initiating own events - yes. I believe that Obama would not have won the Democratic primary without the astute use of Internet technologies. The Obama team believed they needed to ride the new wave. Normally, the tactic for winning the Democratic Primary is about tapping big donor networks, then big media cheerleading for you, then elected officials / union officials.

Hillary had all of those things, and Obama won. Obama was able to continue to tap this unknown area. Hillary was supposed to win the Super Tuesday race. But it was about the caucus states was about having the most delegates. Obama organized technology to organize the massive base of potential support into pyramids across the states. 2 out of 5 in the major swing states. Obama Campaign used their own tools to mobilize and activate.

JL: that is the most specific you are going to get. At techpresident, they were charting YouTube usage by the campaigns. What it did was showed was the fact that the campaign could rout around the mainstream media. Continue the platforms LONG after the media cycle.

TW: “bottom-up stuff” - Obama benefited from the bottom up. The core of supporters did their own thing - and ignored the centralized control. The social network “influenced” the MSM. Self-perpetuating cycle.

RS: parallels are occurring in the larger, MSM media - everyone can participate, everyone can contribute. NowPublic, NewsVine, GroundReport - MSM orgs are recognizing the benefit of access to the community (e.g. iReport for CNN).
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On the latest Yi-Tan Tech Conference Call, Jerry Michalski sent us a link to a terrific visual that literally says it all (from Gong Szeto’s blog):

This evening, after spending the day babysitting the twittervotereport machines with Dave Troy of twittervision fame and the guys at NetworkRedux (Thomas Brenneke, Damien Korzenoski, and others), I had a suite of parties to go to this year, since everyone was incredibly jazzed to see the election results.

I took a walk to the DL21C party (located in a beautiful theater with three levels) but it was incredibly crowded and not quite personal. So, after a while, I followed a friend from BALCONY to the New York State Dems Party at the Sheridan near Times Square. In that party were a lot of the same people I have seen in other NY State parties and watched as Obama was declared the winner by CNN to be the President-Elect.

My friend Mitchell and I decided to get out of there - and decided to head toward Times Square - all the while discussing the incredulousness of that had just happened. It was something like a dream. As we walked, Mitchell joked that there would be no one at Times Square at this late hour. And then we came upon the CNN Election Watch Party at the crossroads of 50th and Broadway.

All four sides of the street were lined up with people just waiting for the chance to cheer on their new President, and we patiently waited while Senator McCain gave his concession speech. And then we waited until we were told Senator Obama was coming to the stage. And as he strode forward, the cheers erupted aloud and all of Times Square was nothing but an extension of the crowd in Chicago.

Suddenly, the TV goes out!

Yep - as we are about to listen to Senator Obama speak, the big screens surrounding us suddenly go to rainbow test colors - and we can not see anything except the screen int he far distance being run by the ABC crew. The people there are insane with cries of “WTF?!?”
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Simply put - wanted to thank all of my readers who have written me and commented on the posts for this election. To make it easier to find answers to your questions, I wanted to provide a link to all of the posts for your information.

Broward County Charter Initiatives

Broward County Charter Initiatives - details on the changes to the Broward County Charter

Florida Constitutional Amendments

Florida Amendments - details on the proposed changes to the Florida Constitution

Elected Officials

Elected Officials - summary of the Presidential Election, for Florida Congressional District 19 and the Broward Sheriff

Oliver Parker vs Fred Segal

Oliver Parker vs Fred Segal - information on the Broward County Soil and Water Conservation District, Seat 3

This has been one of the more popular posts - especially since both candidates decided not to campaign for this seat. I was able to get Mr. Segal to respond, but I have yet to hear from Mr. Parker.

Christine Jennings vs Vern Buchanan

Christine Jennings vs Vern Buchanan - information on the Florida Congressional District 13 race in Sarasota, Florida.

Update November 5th at noon: Congratulations to Sheriff Lamberti on his successful win (at least as far as I know today).  As for Mr. Parker, congratulations - and I sincerely hope you leverage Mr. Segal to help Broward County.  He is a good man and can be of great service to the community.

In the past few months, I have been talking with various campaigns (advising on the QT) since I have been somewhat swamped this year with business initiatives across the board. One of the teams I spoke with is the Democratic contender for the Congressional seat in Florida 13th, Mrs. Christine Jennings.

In my conversations with her Campaign Manager and her Communications Director, I learn a lot about the differences between the two candidates and asked for a comparison between the two candidates. Following is a breakdown of both Vern Buchanan’s positions/actions as Congressman and Ms. Jennings’ positions on the issues.
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One of the projects I have been working with is twittervotereport.com and the following video is a reasonably fun way to learn about what is happening right before your eyes:

Cameos by Nancy Scola, Billy Gray, Beka Economopoulos, Matt Cooperrider and Noel Hidalgo.
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So - after a blog comment expressing a familiar refrain of frustration on who are Oliver Parker and Fred Segal, I decided to dial some of my contacts and look into reaching out to the two candidates for the position of Broward County Soil and Water Conservation District 3.

What I discovered is interesting - the position, which is a county-wide position, is an unpaid position, and focused on the environment, land use and preservation and supporting the agricultural needs of the county. It turns out that this seat is a very obscure position - the Broward Supervisor of Elections even left it off the sample ballot when mailed out before the election. The Board of Supervisors meetings discussing the issues of the District, and the two candidates have interesting backgrounds. Below, I provide you with information on the two men - one from an interview I had over the phone, and one from what limited knowledge I have learned about him on the web. I have left a phone message with Mr. Parker and am waiting for replies/photos from both men.

Fred Segal, current incumbent

Mr. Segal is the incumbent in the seat, and had been appointed to fill a vacancy in the District back in June 2008. He said that he was appointed to the seat because he normally attended the Board of Supervisors meetings for over three years and is involved with many orgs on environment, water, etc - and the roles are important.
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In 2000, after the debacle in the Supreme Court (can you tell where I am biased?), I was in London with my new company and was reading a copy of the USA Today around the time of the Inauguration. In the article, the reporter was describing the makeup of the “new” President’s Cabinet.

For some reason, I have always misremembered the opening paragraph within the article - in my mind, I always interpreted it to be “would you rather have a strong cabinet with a weak leader or a weak cabinet with a strong leader?” especially since he seemed to be hiring the same people that had brought the recession upon us at that time.
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One of the most amazing things that happened this past week was my own frustration on trying to vote ont he Broward County ballot and then discovering how much content was missing.  Simply put - being an informed voter is not easy at all this year.  

Yes, our attention has been super-glued to the media and robocalls and volunteer efforts to bring out the vote by the Presidential campaigns - which means that supporters from both parties are going to be driven to the polls. The Presidential pick and the Congressional picks are relatively easy since people are pushing an effort out - but what about the local elections?

Sure, the Florida Amendments and the Broward County Charter changes are administrative - which is why I have included the summary of the amendments and the statements from the newspaper’s Editorial Boards for your perusal.  

Disappointingly, very little information was out there for the non-exciting amendments (e.g. the amusingly named “Marriage Protection Amendment”) which made the Editorial Boards important in terms of fleshing out the Amendments.

What bothered me the most was the lack of information from the local candidates for the various roles.  In particular, a bunch of the candidates did not tell me who they are - and support their case with details on what they stand for and why I should choose them for office.  Let me break down the Broward ballot and show you what I mean.
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In keeping with my promise, I am including the ten amendments that are being discussed to modify the Broward County Charter. I have been very careful about my publishing of these summaries since I am not trying to suggest one way or another on how to vote.

I know my family and friends who have been reading these posts have appreciated the content and the access to the information that makes voting easier and more effective. I will comment that my biggest frustration lied in voting for the position of Broward Soil and Water Conservation District role (between Oliver Parker and Fred Segal), and since I could not find any information on them, I chose not to vote for either of them.

[UPDATE: Oliver and Fred - would you mind putting some information up somewhere? Even in my comments would be great.]

For the ten initiatives to modify the Broward County Charter, I am listing what I have found published at CBS4.com’s site (with a corresponding link) and the opinion of the Miami Herald and the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel.
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