Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Staying Connected
The Pew Internet & American Life Project released results yesterday from a survey on voter engagement post-election. During the primaries, some skeptical observers questioned whether the excitement about Obama's candidacy would translate into turnout. And during the general election, they wondered whether Obama supporters could sustain their engagement after the long, closely-contested primary season. Now, of course, the question is whether the new Obama administration can keep their supporters and other voters engaged as they switch from campaigning to governing.
So far, the answer appears to be yes. 62% of Obama voters told Pew researchers that they expect to lobby others to support Obama administration policies over the next year. Almost half (46%) expect ongoing communication from Obama, whether via email, text message, or social networking sites. And that communication has continued, with Obama releasing weekly addresses on YouTube and the campaign sending a pre-Christmas message from Michelle Obama urging supporters to donate to local food banks or send care packages to soldiers over the holidays.
But Obama supporters are also continuing to use the networks they set up during the campaign to organize themselves and stay connected. Local Obama groups continue to meet in local libraries coffee shops, they're setting up service events for the National Day of Service on January 19. During the campaign, Obama organizers held this up as their goal--give volunteers responsibility, they said, and the networks will survive beyond the campaign. No one yet knows, though, what the impact of these networks will be.
The Obama networks do give Democrats an organizing and communications advantage over Republicans. Not surprisingly, the Pew study found that McCain voters have had minimal contact with the GOP via websites, email, etc. Even though some Republicans are invested in a struggle to re-make the GOP, you wouldn't expect supporters of the losing candidate to be politically engaged in the months immediately following an election.
But Democratic dominance online pre-dates the 2008 campaign and will be significant going forward. For decades, Republicans held a similar advantage as they mastered direct mail techniques to reach supporters and persuade undecided voters. They have been shockingly slow, however, to develop online strategies--the 2008 candidates who did have a strong web presence, like Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee, were initially just trying to figure out how to offset the financial edge their opponents enjoyed. The GOP's resolution for 2009 might be to figure out this whole internets thing.
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Senior Writer Karen Tumulty has been TIME's National Political Correspondent since 2001, and has also covered the White House and Congress for the magazine. A native of San Antonio, she is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and Harvard Business School, where her career choice has significantly lowered the average salary of her graduating class. But she gets lots of free magazines. Read More »
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Joe Klein is TIME's political columnist and author of six books, most recently Politics Lost. His weekly TIME column, "In the Arena," covers national and international affairs. In 2004 he won the National Headliner Award for best magazine column. Read More »
Michael Scherer is the White House correspondent for TIME. He previously worked for Salon.com, Mother Jones, and the Daily Hampshire Gazette. A native of San Francisco, he graduated from U.C. Santa Cruz and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. Read More » Follow Michael Scherer on Twitter
Jay Newton-Small is the congressional correspondent for TIME. Born in New York, she spent time growing up in Asia, Australia and Europe following her vagabond United Nations parents. A graduate of Tufts University and Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, Jay previously covered politics for Bloomberg News. And, yes, despite the misleading name SHE is a she. Read More » Follow Jay Newton-Small on Twitter
Amy Sullivan is a senior editor at TIME magazine, and author of the book The Party Faithful: How and Why Democrats are Closing the God Gap (Scribner, 2008). A Michigan native, she holds degrees from the University of Michigan and Harvard Divinity School. She writes about religion and politics for TIME, but no longer answers to the name "Bible Girl." Read More »
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Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Is this surprising? This is the difference between a President who started a war, yet told the citizens to just keep shopping and gave us a tax cut, vs. a President whose training in community organizing gave him a firm belief in the power of the grassroots. As for us, we don't trust the powers that be to have any competence whatsoever -- look how they handled the last eight years.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Happy New Year, Amy. Any thoughts about the Republican's network being through their church, business, college/grad school, and country/yacht club connections?
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Just after the election Obama sent out an email asking how many hours a week we were willing to commit to community service, and in what areas of interest. I liked that.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 1:56 pm
You've got it wrong. The GOP thinks the Internet is digital direct mail. They think a network is a megaphone. Need proof? Look no further than the big post-election effort to learn from the Democrats. They created a website called Rebuild The Party, supposedly a bottom-up effort to collect ideas about building a new GOP. Two of the ideas consistently offered and getting top vote totals were censored -- deleted over and over again as they were re-offered and rose in vote totals. The GOP doesn't need to figure out the Internet. They need to figure out themselves. FAIL.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Amy Sullivan:
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Please be so good as to provide links to or quotes from said "skeptics", so that we may understand and judge for ourselves whether or not these concerns were significant in any way.
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"During the primaries, some skeptical observers questioned whether the excitement about Obama's candidacy would translate into turnout."
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Who are you talking about specifically? Bill Crystal? Juan Williams? Bret Hume? Who?
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"And during the general election, they wondered..."
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Who was doing the wondering? Were these savants wondering aloud in public print, or were they sending you private emails? Surely there should be some material available to demonstrate this, right Amy Sullivan?
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"Now, of course, the question is..."
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Really? There's some consensus on that question? That's funny--I've been perusing the intertubes for quite some time this year since November, and it doesn't strike me as something that's terribly up in the air. Have the people who've settled on this "question" visited the cyber-tubes recently? Does AOL go there? Who are these individuals asking these questions? Do they have names, Amy Sullivan? Do you not know how to create links?
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In our world, when people who write columns in which the importance (or even existence) of such concerns are simply asserted and assumed --especially when it comes to matters involving internet participation and campaigns-- without actually quoting or linking to the real, credible people expressing such ambivalence, we tend to think that those columnists talked to people who heard other people say those things at Beltway cocktail parties, and are therefore...well, not particularly credible (would be a nice way to put it).
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Amy, thanks for the substantive post. I was one of the many thousands that took part in an Obama House Party a few weeks ago. At 55, I was the youngest person in the room - and no one remembered ever being asked by a President for anything like this kind of involvement/engagement before. Grins all around, heady stuff.
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Now if the chattering classes would just stop trying to take this guy down a peg based on nothing, just cause they can and he's a Dem, that would be really good.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Did I say "Bill Crystal"?
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LOL
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Forgive me, Amy Sullivan, I (of course) meant "Bill Kristol"
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Damn you, preview abolishers!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 2:08 pm
sz, thanks for the "some said" pushback! Exactly right.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 2:24 pm
To follow on from what Andy from MA said, perhaps Amy could offer a follow-up discussing other ways Democrats network: through prison networking jail networking, half-way house networking substance abuse networking, drug market networking, and so on and so forth.
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Meanwhile, the fact that only half expect future communication from BHO provides a clue to how he won. Any smart person who signed up for one of his lists knew the emails would keep coming no matter what happened. Of course, note the "smart" qualifier.
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And, of course, the GOP's problems go much deeper than the Internet; see, for just one data point, the Swampland-related comment from me here.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 2:27 pm
The value or lack thereof of online participation will depend entirely on how the Obama administration actually responds to the feedback it gets. As of today, this is the top "National Security" question at http://change.gov:
Will President Obama eliminate domestic warrantless wiretapping of US citizens by modifying the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" (TSP)? Is the Fourth Amendment going to be restored, or weakened further by the Obama Administration?"
While the question doesn't directly address the fact that the previous administration's crimes carried out with the complicity of the major telecoms and the Democratic Congressional leadership will remain uninvestigated, it does make clear trhat Obama's online supporters intend to hold him accountable for his actions and not function merely as a fundraising/cheerleading squad.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 2:31 pm
It may well be impossible for the wingers to use the internet the way Dems do, because they have an inherently top-down bent:
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Dean contends, and amply documents, that the "conservative" movement has become, at its core, an authoritarian movement composed of those with a psychological and emotional need to follow a strong authority figure which provides them a sense of moral clarity and a feeling of individual power, the absence of which creates fear and insecurity in the individuals who crave it. By definition, its followers' devotion to authority and the movement's own power is supreme, thereby overriding the consciences of its individual members and removing any intellectual and moral limits on what will be justified in defense of their movement.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Well said, Dirks.
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Obama's online supporters intend to hold him accountable for his actions and not function merely as a fundraising/cheerleading squad
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This is, of course, what Obama professes to believe:
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He will be held accountable...especially if he does not re-institute accountability by investigating, and, if necessary, prosecuting those responsible for besmirching the honor of our nation over the past eight years.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Not to pile on the new kid(Amy,welcome)but ditto on the pushback from #5 about the "some say" device that most "journalists" use these days. The "some says" that were used throughout the primaries and the GE have to be called out. Because a lot of the time they were used to substantiate a flimsy meme,i.e "some say that Obama has trouble with working class whites,"etc,etc.,ad nauseum.
Again,Amy,not to pile on, but we would all love for the "some say" people to be identified, that way we get to weigh for ourselves who is doing the saying and what political agenda they might be potentially promoting with their quotes. Is that too much too ask?
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 2:54 pm
other ways Democrats network: through prison networking jail networking, half-way house networking substance abuse networking, drug market networking
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Me and my dealer are hella tight, yo.
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From kattest's comment on thenextright.com:
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2. KarenTumulty was recently able to ID me under a different screen name because I'm the only person commenting over at their site from a non-DailyKos perspective. I thrice tried to get FReepers and once tried to get readers of this site to go sign up for accounts there and begin discrediting their hacks, all without luck. If people can't even be roused to the incredibly easy task of discrediting JoeKlein, perhaps there's a deeper problem.
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You missed those posts from Joe where all the conservative trolls from The Corner or wherever would come over here and whine for ten minutes and then disappear for ever. You guys just don't have any staying power.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 3:00 pm
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Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 3:10 pm
kettest: If people can't even be roused to the incredibly easy task of discrediting JoeKlein, perhaps there's a deeper problem. Actually, the sentient beings here ate JoeK's lunch back when he persisted in saying stupid, wrong things (see: FISA, Klein, Hoekstra). That was back when he stenographically transmitted the RW stupidity so beloved of you FReepers. Lately, he decided to swear of teh stoopid. You might try it some time.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 3:16 pm
You know, I have no problem with dissenting opinions -- it might even perk up the back-and-forth around here -- but how dumb is that post from kattest? There's no content there. It's bizarrely incoherent and empty. Can't the right send over someone with something interesting to say?
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 3:21 pm
This reporter at the Washington Post got it right:
The GOP sez: "participatory democracy? Reasoning citizens in a functioning public sphere? Do not want."
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Still hungry for more. Could you provide links to everything you've ever written. I can't get enough.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Someone has to find Joe Trippi and Howard Dean some great high-profile jobs...
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Also, kattest - great use of the word "thrice." Do you get a free Robin Hood hat for your RenFairs every time you use it?
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 4:03 pm
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pourmecoffee: Still hungry for more.
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Nice snark, but be careful what you wish for...Kattest/Blather/Lonewacko has been blogwhoring her particular brand of xenophobic lunacy all over the Intertubes for years. Takes a lot for a right-winger to get banned from Redstate and QandO for being too freakin' crazy.
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Sullivan: The GOP's resolution for 2009 might be to figure out this whole internets thing.
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I'd like to reiterate the weakness of the 'some said' argument stated earlier...I'd also like to mention that you'd have to be blind as a Beltway bat not to see that it wasn't the GOP's lack of online organization that cost them the election. It was their failure to effectively govern, do right by We The People, hold themselves accountable, and put forth a set of policy proposals to which the majority would respond favorably.
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Believe it or not, I actually do applaud the effort on the Repubs' part to figure out what's wrong with them. I'm afraid that effort will fail, not due to lack of online expertise, but due to the fact that they will have to be different, which their ideology won't allow.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 4:12 pm
The reason they're not connected is that the repubs live in a world that pre-dates the internets. Where men with crew-cuts protect the country (and their daughters) from dirty pinko hippies. You might as well ask them why they haven't taken advantage of the telleporter.
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And Kattest/NoMore- The "deeper problem" you face trying to get your people "roused" is that many here are well-informed and will make substantive arguments. I think the crowd you're pitching is information-adverse.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 4:12 pm
In Amy's defense, during the campaign, I did encounter much of the same doubts she was expressing. That those doubts originated from the circle-jerk formation of CW spinners that make up our mediascape is a fundemental fact. The ability to see the phenomenon is a good litmus test to separate Villagers from DFH's. Welcome to the interface, Amy.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 5:27 pm
"The GOP's resolution for 2009 might be to figure out this whole internets thing."
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But, but ... wouldn't that be like community organizing? (LOL)
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All snark asides, they need to do that, but the Web 2.0 stuff only really (IMO) levelled the playing field with the Religious Right using churches or para-church organizations to GOTV.
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They also need to figure out how to keep the Paulistas (who are very wired-in) from dominating the online conversation. Everything I've seen so far (rebuildtheparty.com being a notable example) had the Paulistas all over, out of all proportion to their actual percentage of the party. (Speaking of rebuildtheparty, there were some merry pranksters as well due to poorly-thought-out site security.)
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 5:45 pm
...the Web 2.0 stuff only really (IMO) levelled the playing field with the Religious Right using churches or para-church organizations to GOTV.
I liked Josh Marshall's concise analysis from a while back about how the GOP establishment really only likes the religious right if it stays in its place as a source of GOTV grunts and not much else.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Interesting.
1. For my fans, here's a pic of me and my tool.
2. Here's more on RedState.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Well kattest, Swampland might be moonbat territory but it's hard to get banned unless you start threatening people.
Thursday, January 1, 2009 at 11:17 am
JJ: Indeed. The tensions between the "Moral Majority" type voters and the old-school "country club" type Republicans have been evident since the days of, well, the Moral Majority's rise. There are certainly fewer of the latter around since I was a wee bit lassie.
But how the Republican party manages the tension will determine its future success. Unfortunately the Dominionists within the party have a big agenda (um, theocracy, anyone?) and tend not to be interested in negotiation and compromise, believing themselves on a mission from God.
Thursday, January 1, 2009 at 3:59 pm
"The GOP's resolution for 2009 might be to figure out this whole internets thing."
Perhaps they should try to figure out this whole reality thing first. Then they go on to the whole humanity, society and government things. Then maybe they can come up with something worth communicating.
Thursday, January 1, 2009 at 4:23 pm
"Well kattest, Swampland might be moonbat territory but it's hard to get banned unless you start threatening people."
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Doh! Just when he's discovered that GOPers ban people simply to avoid undermining the authoritarian-led propaganda point of the day. Happy New Year!