The discussion on the Berman/Coble P2P Hacking Bill and how to stop it is heating up, with posts from Doc Searls, Winer, Ed Cone, and John Adams.
Winer claims he’s not actually endorsed Grubb, but is interested in her campaign only to the extent that it might illustrate something about weblogs and politics:
I have never endorsed Tara as a candidate, and of course since I live in Calif I can’t vote for her, but so many people have inferred that I have endorsed her candidacy.
Basically, I am curious to see what she will do with the medium, and so far I am totally not disappointed.
Fair enough, but he’s tap-dancing.
Doc believes I was too cynical about the born-to-lose campaign of Tara Sue Grubb when I said:
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.
Rather than burning resources, he believes the Grubb campaign will energize the masses of Geekdom:
Howard Coble was running unopposed until Tara showed up. Sure she’ll lose, but in the process a lot more geeks will get involved in politics. At the very least they’ll fund and support what we hope will be exactly the kind of hard work Richard talks about.
Weblogs are sowing the seeds of countless grass roots movements. At least a few are bound to grow. Just watch.
John Adams has the same experience I do with losing campaigns, that they dishearten rather than energize, and he quotes from former Chicago Alderman Dick Simpson on this point (JZip):
“A final warning. Some people will encourage you, because you are an independent, to run an ‘educational campaign’. By this slogan they mean that you should find a candidate who will take strong stands on issues–one who has never been involved in politics, at least with any winning campaigns–and back him even though you know he will lose heavily. In theory, this candidate will make beautiful speeches [editor’s note: read here “write beautiful weblogs”] and slowly begin the political education process in your district. The sad thing is that education campaign enthusiasts are right about the campaign being educational, but fail to understand what it teaches. When a candidate gets only five or ten or twenty percent of the vote, the electorate concludes that it is stupid ever to back an independent candidate because it would just be throwing away votes.
“When politicians see such a result, far from being convinced to take a more courageous stand, it reconfirms their belief that they should not heed such radicals since they have no support in the community. Never run a campaign with the intent of losing. Run to win, thereby educating the electorate to the fact that good people can be elected and teaching officeholders to mend their ways. If you have a good candidate, organize well, and work hard, it should be possible to win. You won’t win every election, but you must make a creditable try. A winning campaign, to a much greater extent than any ‘educational campaign,’ will convince more people to pay attention to issues, lead more people to join in the political process, and help bring about desired policy changes.”
Voting is obviously a part of the political process, but it’s a small part, and one that doesn’t convey messages to candidates very well. Votes for a Libertarian are going to be interpreted mainly as protest votes against the Drug War, fine and dandy but not on point as far as vigilante action on the Internet and overly-broad copyright law is concerned. You make your message clear on the issues by writing it out and getting it in front of the lawmaker, either by writing directly to him, by publishing letters and op-eds in his local paper, or by writing for an audience that can relay your message to the candidate. Those seeking to change Coble’s mind would probably find they have better access and a better chance to make their case by working for the Coble campaign rather than against it. Try that one on for size.
The point is to treat Howard Coble as a human being who can be educated, and not simply as a fire-breathing monster who must be defeated at all costs; the latter position would be OK if there was a candidate with a realistic chance, but since there’s not, it’s not. Be reasonable.
Incidentally, the Ed Cone blog is trying to be reasonable, mainly. He’s a journalist writing for Howard Coble’s local paper, and he’s opened the public dialog on the P2P Hacking Bill in the district. He’s starry eyed about Grubb, and understates his own importance in all of this (isn’t that refreshing?), but he’s a journo with a blog on a mission. Cool.