Greg Knauss isn’t impressed with Dave Winer’s blog campaign to elect Libertarian Party candidate Tara Sue Grubb to Congress:
All this means that Tara Sue Grubb really is the “weblog candidate.” She’s an empty page, capable of being filled in with whatever people like Dave Winer and his philosophical bedmates want to see. He can think that supporting a losing cause is action against the disappearance of his rights, he can think that dismissing Lessig and the EFF strikes a blow for consumers and artists, he can think that the calcified institutions of the US political system will crumble to dust in the face of a few thousand people posting messages on the Internet. He can think whatever he wants, but it all ends up meaningless, pointless, useless talk. And very little action.
Knauss’ larger point is that tech people don’t understand politics, aren’t active in it, and are seemingly incapable of doing the things you have to do in order to be effective in politics. He’s right, of course. I personally spent five years lobbying my state legislature on a regular basis, so I know something about how the game is played: you show up in person at the Capitol, get meetings with lawmakers, press your case, and then work it in the media.
You show up at hearings and testify on bills, and then you plead with every member for their vote. When the other side has the votes, you seek amendments that will blunt the effect of their victory. And you put your own bills together to protect your position and to repeal any gains made by the other side. Playing the game like this for years, you begin getting invited to testify at special hearings, and you’re invited to serve on panels, boards, and commissions. More important, your name gets around the Capitol, so that media folks interview you when they’re spilling major ink, deep-pockets donors seek your advice about where to spend their money, and you get connected to people with real access who operate behind the scenes. In time, you win some victories, many of them unnoticed by the media but important in the aggregate.
Almost invariably, the tech people who wanted to get involved in my cause thought they could accomplish the task by writing e-mail to lawmakers and to each other, mainly the latter. So they spent their time creating web sites, model laws and mailing lists instead of doing real work. Promoting a Libertarian Party member for Congress does exactly what Knauss says it does — drains off resources of time and money that could be spent doing something real. It’s a sad way to go. (via Matt Welch)
The only people whining are the naysayers such as yourself. And the money being wasted is a rounding error in the EFF’s annual budget. What you describe is a lifetime spent achieving virtually nothing of note compared to several weeks to have a non-trivial impact. I don’t understand what you are complaining about. How sad that you believe noone should run for elected positions who aren’t part of the machine and that supporters are just idiots wasting their time and money. I’m sure the miniscule amount of money and resources that Tara is draining from who knows what is going to be sorely missed. Not.
What you describe is a lifetime spent achieving virtually nothing of note compared to several weeks to have a non-trivial impact.
Like I said, tech people think they can achieve the quick fix in politics with a web site, an e-mail list, or a model law, and this statement illustrates my point. If Winer is serious about electing the unelectable, why doesn’t he write Tara Grub a check instead of just hacking together a fifteen minute web site? The answer, of course, is obvious.
Hollywood can be stopped on this issue if effective opposition is marshalled. That means Cisco, AT&T, Microsoft, and Oracle. It doesn’t mean some rag-tag candidate that isn’t a threat to Coble in the wildest dreams of Harry Browne.
I fail to see why the Libs are still running political candidates. There is no Lib as mayor of a town of over 2500 people. Their ideas always seem to come from the think tanks and influence mainstream concepts. That is where they make the most impact. Why do the Libs run still as political candidates?
A combination of ego and brain-damage, near as I can tell.
I’m gonna disagree with you here, Richard, on only one small point. While this “weblogger candidate” thing might be a waste of time and money, I think it’s still a good thing to do, for one reason only – the educational value. If people like Winer (and me) learn something constructive about politics first-hand, it’s a better lesson and it stays learned. I doubt that your own experiences (as described above) would contradict that. I also think we’ll all learn ***something*** as we go through the exercise, and if it’s that Winer is nothing more than a corporate shill looking for free pub, then so be it. We could also learn important lessons that we can apply to future activities. I don’t think anyone is hurt by that.
It’s a question of opportunity cost. The Berman-Coble Bill is bad, and it needs to be fixed now. This libertarian web candidate deal is a distraction from the constructive steps that need to be taken to fix it.
Getting involved in a viable campaign is a learning experience; getting involved with a non-viable candidate lucky to get 10% of the vote is masturbation.
Given that the bill needs to be fixed and/or stopped now. Given that the web candidate *COULD* be a distraction. I’m having a hard time figuring out where the real opportunity cost comes in, unless Winer is such a powerful guy that the wasting of his time is inexcusable.
I humbly disagree that we should *ALL* keep doing things the way we’ve been doing things, with viable this and campaign that. If Dave and Sara Lee want to fool around and be the first internet candidate, why try to stop them or even slow them down? If they explode, it will be nit-picked to pieces, and one or two of of those pieces might point something out that had not been a consideration before, and could be helpful to the next cat down the road.
My point, if I have one, is this — don’t let it distract you and the people that do know how it works today. Fry your fish, and let them fry theirs.
Anyway…Caveman must go think more…
I’ve had a variety of political blogs and web sites since 1995, so I have some experience with this crap. I would be negligent not to point out that Dave’s attempt to intimidate Coble is not going to produce a result, but I’m certainly not going to knock heads and force people not to go along with him.
Like everybody else, I’m just one guy with an opinion, and everybody is free to take it, leave it, trash it, or ignore it as they see fit.
>If they explode, it will be nit-picked to pieces, and one
>or two of of those pieces might point something out
>that had not been a consideration before, and could
>be helpful to the next cat down the road.
Problem is, if this entire episode tanks, the coverage of said tanking will be “see, weblogs are pointless in politics” — which would be a shame, because they should have a role in politics and political campaigns. Not an all-powerful role, and certainly they should not be the end-all be-all of a campaign. But the post mortem coverage won’t pitch it that way. And this will be to no small degree because of the way the entire thing has been hyped up.
The best thing that could happen to the idea of weblogs in politics would be for no one to cover this thing at all, so that we can have the time to get the idea right, without the hype.
Aux armes, citoyens!
In the next 3 months, all the representatives of the people will be in their home districts, campaigning, holding public meetings, trekking from one place to another to meet their constituents.
What if there was a ‘smart mob’ waiting for them at each one?
Local constituents concerned and informed about the CBDTPA, Coble/Berman, the DMCA and the rest.
Lets set up a tree of weblogs – a top-level campaign one, giving the overview and highlights, then state and regional ones for each election. Brainstorm and hone a set of questions to ask each representative, and publish their responses, and an endorsement/rejection. Get the meeting attendees to bring video cameras and tape recorders and post the Q&A sessions in video and audio too. Sign up flyposters and canvassers. If there isn’t an endorsable candidate, come up with a write-in candidate instead.
Instead of arguing about whether programmers or lawyers are doing more, or the details of which licence you release your software under, sign up to the broad principles we all can agree on – that the CBDTPA and Coble-Berman bills are an attempt to overturn the constitution by narrow interests.
Are we likely to win any seats? Probably not. But at the end of it, every representative will be aware of a big constituency who don’t want the entertainment industry to have veto rights over the constitution. The DMCA was passed unanimously. Coble-Berman mustn’t be.
I am a resident alien, and don’t get to vote – taxation without representation is my lot.
You citizens need to do this – they are YOUR representatives.
Go out there and remind them.
Find out who your candidates are, ask them their position on Coble-Berman and the CBDTPA, and publish it on your weblog with the BlogTheVote2002USA tag. Tell us at ProSUA about it
More details at http://prosua.blogspot.com
Kevin above is much closer to how to blend technology and old-fashioned politics than the ill-advised “weblog candidate” boomlet. I’ve been thinking about the smart mob as a precinct canvassing team for several days now and the ways that could be done, if people decided to do the things that need to be done to win elections. But will they do those things? I have my doubts, but am willing to take one more shot.