The Internet President

Since Howard Dean's unprecedented fundraising success online in 2003, a lot of speculation has gone into how the technology of the Internet might transform politics and when we might have our first "Internet President." Over the course of the 2008 election, we witnessed a phenomenon that could never have occurred in the past as a little known senator harnessed the tools of technology to reach out to the masses, engaging us and giving us shared ownership of his national campaign. The Obama campaign was the likes of which we've never seen before, and because of their decisive mastery of the Internet, he not only won the presidency, but he won by a substantial margin.

In this election it was very clear that the Internet was a major force in helping Barack Obama win. Without it, he likely would not have secured the nomination or the presidency. His inspiring message of change resonated perfectly with the openness of the Internet and instead of just talking to one person in a small town who then used word of mouth to transport his message on the ground, he presented his message online as well, letting word ripple out across the country, building a huge wave.

Obama was able to do this via social networking tools and the most interactive political website built to date, along with online outreach through e-mail and and the blogosphere. Most importantly, the campaign was able to bridge the gap between online and ground level activism, fundraising through small donations and leveraging that money for expensive TV ad buys required to reach across the country to win big. It may never be possible to win a campaign entirely online, but Obama utilized a combination of traditional grassroots organizing and netroots tactics for success.

To understand why this was possible, it helps to understand the numbers - according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project report released early in the summer, we have nearly reached a point where the majority of American adults are using the Internet to learn about candidates and participate in elections. Merging that with Democratic voter demographics including a majority of youth and urban voters, we had an ideal online environment for a Democratic campaign to take the lead.

The McCain campaign in comparison, took more advantage of advanced Internet tools later in their campaign, admitting they were not targeting voters as actively that way because e-mail was still more successful in reaching their base online. In the Democratic primary race, the Clinton campaign held tightly onto traditional organizing methods rather than allowing for increased online techniques, which contributed to the campaign's demise. They did some impressive things through the Internet and new media, but without an infrastructure that embraced it in the way Obama's did, they were unable to sustain the same level of fundraising success or volunteer mobilization.

In an earlier article, I addressed what all of this means to the future of modern democracy in terms of open government by Obama, noting that our level of participation should expand drastically. Expect whitehouse.gov to look more like mybarackobama.com than the static website we've seen in the past, including a public comment area where the new president will invite feedback online for five days on any non-emergency legislation before he signs it into law. It signals the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Congratulations, Internet President Obama.

Originally posted at The Huffington Post, Off the Bus, November 5, 2008.

Women Leaders in Technology & Politics

I published a post earlier today that was a long time coming that lists many of the talented women working in the field of technology and politics at The Political Voices of Women, a blog launched in the past year by BlogHer and Care2 Contributing Editor, Catherine Morgan. The list I hope will become a living document like her list of what began as under 200 women bloggers who write about politics and now spans beyond 450.

Twitter Debate Online Leading Up to PDF Conference

Beginning a little bit ago, two reps from each campaign are debating issues related to technology on Twitter. Given 1-2 questions/day through the end of Tuesday's PDF '08 conference, the campaign reps will be responding to each other and commenting on issues, 140 characters at a time.

Easiest to follow at summize.com, check out the hashtag #pdfdebate. The participants, @ anamariecox, MikeNelson, and LizMair, are a Time magazine blogger, outside advisor for Obama, and RNC Online Communications Director, respectively.

So far Mike Nelson is dominating the conversation with a lot of great information. We'll see how the rest of the weekend transpires...

See also: the piece I wrote about the Twitter debate for The Huffington Post "Off the Bus".

Obama on Net Neutrality

Anne Broache of CNET has a good article up about Obama indicating during the Mtv and MySpace forum that he's in favor of Net neutrality. This is nothing earth-shattering, of course, as all of the Democrats are in favor of an equal opportunity Internet, but it sounds like Obama has a good grasp of the concept, citing that companies like Google might not exist if it weren't for Net neutrality.

Broache also noted that, while Net neutrality is not a "make-or-break issue akin to healthcare, immigration or the Iraq War," it still holds some heat. As the question was posed by MoveOn, I would venture to second that assertion since they wouldn't waste their bandwidth on a question of little importance. As someone who works from a remote office and who has used everything from 300 baud to a T3, I say speed does matter and anyone who says otherwise is just selling something.

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Originally posted at sairy.com, the personal blog of FutureCampaigns founder, Sarah Granger.

A Preview of New Congress's Tech Policy Agenda

Here is what Cameron Wilson, the USACM Public Policy Director says about what the new Democratic-led Congress will be doing with respect to technology policy. He focuses on six big areas that have been in focus by recent administrations: innovation, offshoring, privacy, copyright, e-voting, and Internet regulation.

Here's what's not on that list. First, biometrics and national IDs. Even with conservatives in the minority, this probably won't go away. It's scary because those things don't actually give us greater security although we might think they will. But my guess is this will continue to be something that's discussed in the name of security. As to Homeland security, I think Democrats will step it up a notch as they're able. (I think a Democratic president or Guiliani or McCain would also do this after '08 though.) I also think that the Dems will put a stop to all of this wiretapping and over-the-top surveillance that's borderline unconstitutional.

As to the six main categories, I can only hope the VVPAT bill goes national so we can make sure that when (not if) e-voting machines fail we have some way of verifying the votes cast. In the globalization arena, yes - we must deal with these visa issues. All of the talk about immigration problems is always about illegals but what about the workers who are skilled who come to this country to take jobs and then can't get them because of visa problems on our end? That's just silly. And yes, education's a factor here - we need to be training more skilled tech workers here, but that's another issue. As to IP, I can only hope the DMCA is reduced to rubble but that may be a pipe dream since so many Hollywood are tied to the Democratic party.

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Originally posted at sairy.com, the personal blog of FutureCampaigns founder, Sarah Granger.