...there is no agenda or leadership of the blogosphere. There is no threat at all from those who pray at the altar of political http organizing, just a recognition that the browser is a great facilitator of classic political organizing and conversation, not some hoary beast that's difficult to understand or harness.
The blogosphere likes to serve. If you know how to ask in the right way and ask for the right things you get nuclear results, like a nobody from VT becoming the Democratic candidate frontrunner and getting endorsed by Al Gore...
The entire article is well worth a read, because it's so damn correct. It's right because, in all of my time organizing and participating in virtual communities, one concept overrides all others - the ability to network and conduct activism at the grassroots level, regardless of the cause. Left (and Right) Blogistan is participatory politics at the grassroots level. More than just not "getting it", the old guard is scared by that concept - and that's true in both major political parties.
It amazes me every day that, from the time the web exploded in the mid-90s through today, only one politician seems to have successfully tapped into this network on a participatory level. Howard Dean. You'd think that the Democratic Party would have embraced the power of online networking after Governor Dean's meteoric rise in the party.
But, no.
There's a big difference between harnessing the power of online activism and exploiting it. The Dems did a great job of exploiting Left Blogistan for campaign buckage in the past election. But whether we progressives like to admit it or not, the GOP did a better job of harnessing the potential of the web in organizing and transmitting the message. Collecting online campaign donations was clearly secondary to the RNC, because they already had a big, fat, traditional money machine.
Maybe the difference between how the Dems used the web and how the GOP used the same medium was born out of necessity. Clearly, without the web fundraising effort, the Dems would have been at a distinct disadvantage money-wise. But in making the decision to use web content almost exclusively as a fundraising tool, the DNC and Kerry Campaign took their eyes off the most important aspect of any campaign: deliver the message.
No one should be suckered into the false illusion that maybe, just maybe the old guard of the Democratic Party learned anything from their failure to use the natural online network that existed in 2004. The background given in the posting on Left Coaster makes that fact abundantly clear.
The DNC doesn't know what to do with folks like us. None of the other third parties seem to be able to get past the need for ideological purity to deal with it, either. The good news is, when someone does eventually figure it out, maybe true progressives will finally find a political "home".
We've been wandering in the desert for way too long.
