Changing Politics is Hard

Changing Politics is Hard: " Micha Sifry was the eCampaign manager for Andrew Rasiej bid to become the number two man in New York politics: Public Advocate. They run an open source political campaign: We had three over-arching goals for this campaign: 1) that we could push into the public debate some big new ideas about reinventing municipal government, fostering civic engagement, and the value of getting everyone an affordable highspeed Internet connection; 2) that the right way to run for office is to be as open, transparent, people-centered, small-donor-based and network-driven as possible (building on the experiences of various 2004 campaigns); and 3) that reform-minded individuals, groups, writers, editorialists, bloggers, and institutions, along with locally-focused civic activists, would find all of this refreshing and inspiring and they would rally to our banner and help amplify our message. This is where the potential of new technology lies and where also some of my hopes for positive change are rooted. Unfortunately they didn't manifest this time and Micha Sifry has an excellent post mortem sharing his perspective. * Tech “community” a fiction? ...But the fabled tech community turned out to be mostly a fable when it came to actually embracing Andrew’s campaign and setting aside time to spread its message. Yes, about 100 local and national bloggers lin"