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Campaigns, technology, and people

This year's SXSW panel on net politics (featuring Republican blogger Patrick Ruffini, Mark SooHoo of the McCain campaign, Texas Rep. Mark Strama, and Clay Johnson of Blue State Digital) was very smart, but I had a queasy feeling about it. Why?

Having thought about the source of my discomfort, I realized that candidate politics creeps me out. It's exciting, and it can be lucrative for those in support roles, including developers of technologies to support political campaigns. (Blue State Digital seems to be doing well, for instance; Clay told me they're managing 70 or so campaign sites, including Obama's and Richardson's).

But at a time when we so desperately need authentic solutions, "doing well" in this sense is a problem. Candidates and their campaigns are not really about governance. They're business first, like any company, a way to raise cash and create jobs. Despite the breathless talk about technology driving democratic solutions, business comes first, even for developers of political technology who in 2004 were more idealistic about the potential for their work to make a grassroots difference.

Campaign consultants, handlers, media flaks and technologists may be affiliated with particular parties or issues, but are they really amoral opportunists who focus on specific problems or issues only insofar as they provide ways to advance the specific campaign? Their business doesn't even require them to get candidates elected - they're paid, not for winning elections, but for raising money. Why do you see so many unwinnable candidates vying for the presidency? If they have any possibility of a constituency and can engage competent handlers who know how to work the system, they create a business. It's a living.

Their positive cash flow is unfortunately related to dysfunctional aspects of politics. Working within an axis of moneyand power, it's hard to avoid the taint of corruption, however subtle. I have a friend who's a political consultant, and he does care about ethics and good government - but he puts that aspect of his personality in the cold-steel lockbox when he's working a campaign. In conversation he'll admit he has a sleazy side, but it's his job, and it pays well.

I'm pretty much a realist, so this isn't meant to be an idealistic rant about how the world should work. It is what it is. However I write this because many of you will consider working for politicians and their campaigns, and I think there's a better way.

Instead of working for candidates, you might consider building organizations and technologies that serve the interests of citizens, that connect them with the political process so that they can have audible voices in a conversation that is often completely controlled by lobbyists and larger interest groups.

I acknowledge that it's not enough to get connected. You also have to be smart about political process and the issues du jour. For instance, effective global warming activists should understand that mitigation has economic consequences, because without that nuanced understanding, it's hard to have meaningful, multidimensional input. Effective solutions emerge from deep understanding.

I.e. rather than putting our energies into electing specific candidates, we should swarm elected officials with smart mobs advocating effective solutions to specific problems. Forget ideology, focus on action and results.

I was struck by one comment in particular from the SXSW panel I mentioned earlier. The panelists agreed that their job was not to build online communities, but to drive people away from their computers and into the physical world to recruit, persuade, and get out the vote. I might disagree that you have to leave your computer to connect and persuade, but it's worthwhile to note that no social technology, however sophisticated, will change the world.

People will and do change the world, however; technology may help, but the real solutions are social.

Photo by Jon Lebkowsky: Clay Johnson, Mark SooHoo, Patrick Ruffini, and Mark Strama at SXSW Interactive.

jon posted this at 8:25 PM
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