Like many folks, I was certainly intrigued by the way President Obama ran his campaign in 2008, using various online tools to actually empower his supporters to be proactive and play a real role in the campaign. Many suggested that this was a facade, and that it would be politics as usual once he took office. While it’s still early, there does appear to be some evidence that this is, in fact, the case. This isn’t surprising, but that doesn’t mean it’s not disappointing. Last year, we saw this with the various stimulus proposals, where the plans were worked on in backrooms with the usual political insiders and then presented to the public afterwards. There was no real participation from the public. And since then, we’ve see the same pattern repeated over and over again. On healthcare, certainly, and (of course) on the secret negotiations on ACTA. This is not participatory democracy.
Micah Sifry has a great article at TechPresident exploring this “disconnect,” and suggesting that while it was true that the campaign really did enable thousands upon thousands of volunteers to step up and contribute, it may have been more of an accident of the techies who were involved, rather than an explicit plan by the Obama team. And, as a result, after the election, the team really didn’t know what to do with the mass of supporters it had built up, and they did (of course) the same old political thing: believing that it was a broadcast list, rather than a group of committed folks who wanted to actually participate. It’s hard to argue with this. The campaign still sends out emails, but they’re never about asking for input or participating in a larger discussion. They’re almost always about supporting the President.
I know that there are still many folks involved with the administration who are trying to build up the tools that can enable the public to be more involved, but it really looks like the administration totally dropped the ball on using the giant community it had already built up.
Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
