True Open Source Politics

by Dana Blankenhorn

To win, Democrats must become IBM, and embrace true open source.

A recent post I wrote about Dean and technology brings up this follow-up question.

What would open source politics be?

We know what we have today. We have "interest group politics." The left seemed to invent this type of politics, but it was perfected on the right (and at roughly the same time, the 1960s). The NRA doesn't really care about the Christian Coalition. The neo-cons are in many ways incompatible with Wall Street tycoons. Yet all these interests have been artfully managed for a generation, each getting their share of the spoils below the Web, so their knees will jerk in unison even when they're not getting everything they want. Democrats tried to do this, as I said. There was a great "Daily Show" spoof of this at the Boston convention, by Stephen Colbert. He put stickers on various delegates - black, lesbian, hippie, tree-hugger - then tried to make them argue with one another. He concluded, "Now on to New York where you can be sure none of these voices will be heard at all."

Interest group politics is, at its heart, proprietary. It's an association of what are really businesses, regardless of their legal configuration. Churches, trade groups, charities, and think tanks all have budgets, just like government, just like businesses. Those that are well-managed, accounting for growth as well as present needs, out-live their founders and become true institutions. Those that don't, don't.

But the way to success in interest group politics lies in communication among an elite few, namely the leaders of the institutions that can give you a majority. This is what I have called "below the Web" politics, and the GOP has become a master at causing these knees to jerk. They're Microsoft.

To win, Democrats must become IBM, and embrace true open source.

This is a more difficult question that it first appears. It's not just "who elected Howard Dean?" It's also "who elected Joe Trippi and Zephyr Teachout." You have to embrace the roots in how you manage campaigns, how you come up with platforms, in everything.

You have to let go of the discussion, just as open source programmers let go of their copyrights. You get paid for service to constituents.

In some ways the system works already, and many Democrats wonder "why change?" Joe and Zephyr volunteered. The Doctor earned his shot by winning election a half-dozen times, in the process transforming Vermont from the most reliable Republican state in the nation (as Maine goes so goes Vermont) into a place with a nationwide reputation for blue politics. Merit, willingness to work, and experience are all valued in the system we have.

The problem lies not just in energizing the roots, as Dean did, but in empowering them, as no one has yet done.

Software can help. Community tools, including user-generated polls, the rating of posts, and local-national system compatibility all help.

But they only go so far. What do you need to do, once you have the tools in place, to create a true open source politics? A new type of political management is called for.

Here are some of the skills needed for open source politics:

1.. Careful Listening - You must have a way for those on the bottom to be heard from the top. This takes time, personal time. People wrote to the Dean blog in 2003 believing they were being heard by the people at the top, but in fact most weren't. All the Dean command really heard were the sounds of bats being broken, and cheers ringing out at rallies.

2.. Managed Follow-Up - When issues come in they can't be dropped. This is as true for local issues as national ones. Congresscritters don't just win re-election because they get the big bucks, but because they also do "constituent service," following up on requests that can be met, investigating causes that are brought to the staff's attention. And each request that isn't heard and managed becomes an issue, it makes powerful enemies.

3.. A Leadership Ladder - An open source politics finds ways to turn respondents into leaders, and to help them climb the ladder of real political leadership, starting at the bottom-most rungs. Sometimes just connecting people to those of like-mind, and helping build local causes, can do the job. But when the cause is won, an open source campaign knows how to transform that energy toward the next cause, and the next, and the next.

4.. A Complete Structure - This is something the Dean campaign actively resisted, citing campaign laws. The national campaign couldn't communicate with state or local chapters, and local organizations could not do their own fundraising. It's easy to see, looking at this, why Dean might threaten established Democratic Party relationships, why he might be refused the DNC chairmanship.

This, I believe, would be a very good thing. Because as campaign laws are structured today, it may be impossible to create a truly open source campaign and stay within the law.

I saw this in 2003. I suggested that local groups sell stuff to raise funds. No can do, they said. And national backed them up. The only way to contribute was through the top, and the only way to spend was from the top.

A truly open source party would be open 24-7, and 365 (366 in election years). DFA, which replaced the Dean campaign after Wisconsin last year, was a shadow, and remains a wraith. But its legal structure is a model which can be built on to create a new type of political party, a truly open source party, assuming the tools and management challenges are truly embraced. It's a much cleaner model than the current campaign finance laws that bind the Democratic Party (in a futile attempt to bind the Republicans).

Losing his present fight could be the start of something really important. It would force Howard Dean to confront some key questions, like what is Deanism, and how do you really translate online organization into offline action?

Moveon.Org doesn't know this. They're a money machine that acts as an interest group. None of the existing organizations now tied to the Democratic Party - whether unions like SEIU, or interest groups like AARP, or ethnic organizations such as LULAC and the NAACP, know this.

Only the original Dean campaign had a Clue. And if Dean doesn't lead the move, then someone else with real political power must do so.

Maybe Obama.

Posted by Jock Gill at February 1, 2005 4:57 PM | TrackBack