Election Day

November 10th, 2008 Richard

This is an email, I sent to my family the day after the election, describing the experience that Maureen (my wife) and I had election day …

Yesterday, Maureen and I took off work at noon to work for the Obama campaign, going to the doors of people who had said they were going to vote for Obama and asking if they’d voted. If they hadn’t we would ask if they needed a ride and/or encourage them etc. Maureen lambasted this poor young guy who was working on his truck, who said he didn’t think he had time. She went on about, how important it was for his generation etc., and finally shamed him into saying he’d vote.

Maureen also called and canvased on other days too, plus, I found out that, apparently, we (meaning Maureen) were one of those, who, through a number of 10-25 dollar donations, every time Barak Obama sent an email asking for money, ended up donating a tidy sum.

The thing that is so interesting and powerful here, is that neither of us has ever done anything like this for supporting a campaign. The other interesting thing is that it appears to me that there were lots and lots of other people like us across the country. Before going door to door yesterday, they gave us a packet with the address of each person, a map of Rolla showing locations, and a page where we noted, if the person was voting, if we contacted them, or left a note on their door (which included a printed thing we hung on their door, specialized to the point that it even gave the location where they vote, and voting times etc), then we bring it back and all this was fed into a data base. But the thing is, this is happening everywhere in the United States, where virtually every person who had said they were voting for Obama was contacted by one of a massive Army of inspired volunteers making sure they voted.

The thing that I started realizing is that somehow “that one” created a phenomenal machine, running on the power of people not getting paid anything (and, in fact, the same people who are donating money themselves). This whole infrastructure didn’t rely on traditional Democratic operatives/organizations, rather he built the whole thing himself.

Some time ago, I heard a reporter talking about what Obama’s answer was when the reporter questioned his experience. Obama said – watch how I run my campaign.

I’m saying, if there is anyone who can get the US out of the mess we’re in, he’s the one. If he can run the country, the way he ran this campaign, happy days are here again.

Last night, when we watched his acceptance speech, Maureen and I both sat there blubbering like babies.

Surely one of the higlights of my life.

Posted in obama, politics | No Comments »

Obamma and the Wild Web

February 24th, 2008 Richard

There was a great article by Jose Antonio Vargas, in yesterday’s Washington post about Obama Fever breaking on the web. Vargas contends

In recent days, sites have popped up indicating that the ongoing online Obamamania has hit a wall. What kind of wall? A snarky, ironic, this-Obama-thing-has-gotten-over-the-top wall.

He then goes on to describe sites such as SenatorObamas.com and Is Barack Obama the Messiah?, interesting and negative variations on the Obama phenomenon.

I don’t see this web development is as negative as the title implies, rather it is inevitable, and it does make the important point that Obama on the web has grown way beyond the control of Obama’s campaign organizers. The web culture has taken the Obama message and facilitated it through YouTube videos like Yes I Can, and the more recent, and more entertaining, No You Can’t. Since that time, as the article points out, things have gotten out of hand, the Obama archetype has been co-opted, remixed, exaggerated, attacked, and generally taken on a life (many lives) of its own; good, bad, and ugly.

That’s the way the web works. Something grows at exponential speeds, and then branches off into a cornucopia of interrelated entities, each containing some part of the original, and no one can control it. Not even a Barak Obama or his campaign – they can only hang on for the ride.

Posted in politics, web and new media | 4 Comments »

Mahalo Daily Summarizes Debates

February 7th, 2008 Richard

One of my favorite new video blogs, Mahalo Daily, created some short entertaining videos “summarizing” the January 31 Republican and Democratic debates.

Posted in politics, web and new media | 5 Comments »

The upTake and Citizen Journalism

February 7th, 2008 Richard

My video blogging friend Chuck Olson and others formed a media company, the uptake, the purpose of which is to cover politics via citizen journalists.

Posted in politics, web and new media | 3 Comments »

Does the Web Transform Politics?

February 7th, 2008 Richard

The answer to the title of this post is “yes” if you believe Micah L. Sifry, one of the founders of the techPresident blog, which is blog dedicated to discussion of how the presidential candidates are using the web. He explains in this post why he believes the internet has resulted in the decline in big media and big money and the author goes so far as to say that Hillary Clinton would have already wrapped up the nomination if not for the internet.

Posted in politics, web and new media | 6 Comments »

Cool Stuff I found on the web yesterday.

January 31st, 2008 Richard

  • MyBoneYard: Recycles electronic stuff. But unlike other similar efforts they will actually give you some cash for stuff you recycle. (Learned about it from GeekBrief.TV).
  • An interesting piece on Mobuzz TV: Daily Buzz about the “micro bloggingtwitter phenomenon, including a more secure wordpress service called prologue, and tweetmeme that keeps track of the most popular twitter conversations. (This 5 minute episode also includes some other, bizarre stuff, such as a woman who’se trying to get us to pay for her breast transplants – bymeboobs.)
  • An very creative and interesting (and typical) episode of rocketboom, which is mainly about buying property on the moon.
  • A really interesting web site with a video podcast from The University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center, FactCheck.org, where they present facts that both democratic and republicans got wrong.

Posted in cool stuff, politics, recycle, web and new media | 12 Comments »

Electoral Compass

January 16th, 2008 Richard

I learned of this electoral compass site via twitter with a post from my friend Charles Hope, a very bright guy, who is a co-founder of blip.tv.

It doesn’t take long to answer the questions and I turned out to be awfully strong in social liberalism and economically left. Below is a screen shot of my profile, also showing candidates. (Ok, actually I added the picture and my name – the site just shows the pencil.) I was closest to Barack Obama, though I was disappointed to see the site did not even include Dennis Kucinich, and my guess is that I would be closer to his views.

In any case, this is not a political blog, except as it relates to web issues, and, lord knows, I could not survive in the Ozarks at a technological university if I didn’t appreciate and get along with conservatives. However, I’m not secret about my views (this is America, damn it :) and mainly I thought the site was very well designed, functionally intuitive, and appears to do a good job of summarizing candidates views relative to mine.

Of course, the big question is, who created this site, and how much do I trust them to represent my views or the candidates? With a little effort (clicking on an obscure disclaimer button at the bottom of the page) I found that site isn’t even a US site, but is the work of a company called Kieskompas BV, located in the Netherlands. Further, they say that the data may be used for “scientific research” and may be published in “the media”, though I doubt seriously that this will involve any peer review, the cornerstone of academic scholarship and, of course, there is the other big question as to who they will sell these data too. Anyway, I thought it was a cool tool, though, of course, you must take these things with a grain of salt.

Posted in politics, web and new media | 7 Comments »