Author’s Note — 2nd Edition of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
First of all I want to say that there is another book out there that I urge people to read. Markos Moulitsas Zuniga’s Taking On The System. Markos and Jerome Armstrong along with so many others were there at the beginning, and Markos’ book is a must read if you want to understand how the Digital Era is changing the rules.
I wrote this Author’s Note back in May along with a new 15,000 word afterword on the 2008 campaign. I put my heart and soul into progressive Democratic politics for over 30 years. And its a joy, even to be sitting on the sidelines today, to see people mattering in the process today in ways I could never have imagined when I was a $15 dollar a day organizer for Ted Kennedy in the snow of Iowa in 1979. I hope that comes through in this Author’s Note:
Author’s Note
It’s the spring of 2008, and I’m sitting here sick to my stomach. I’m envious and I’m exhausted and I’m in the last place a lifelong pol ever wants to find himself – on the sidelines, run out of the 2008 race for president by a campaign that took my book and read it back to me “with meaning.”
Let’s just say Barack Obama got it.
I don’t know exactly how things will play out between now and November. But in a lot of ways I don’t think it matters. Maybe politics, like history, is a story eventually told by the winners, but in the annals of campaigning, what Barack Obama and his campaign staff were able to achieve in 2008 qualifies as yet another quantum leap in campaigning, in the use of the Internet, and in our democratic history – no matter what the final numbers say.
And as the strategist who first came up with and used many of the theories and ideas and technologies that the Obama camp used to further transform American politics on the eve of the 2008 election, I am proud and thrilled and, yes, more than a little jealous, like a biplane aviator watching astronauts walking toward the launch pad. Because at this moment, in the summer of 2008, Barack Obama and his campaign look to all the world to be performing the political equivalent of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth. Theirs has been only the second bottom-up campaign in modern history, the second presidential campaign to get it. And it might just go all the way to the White House, with the American people providing the rocket fuel. There are few doubters left, this time, or maybe the next, the new way will get us there.
If Obama for America is the Apollo 11 of a new kind of politics, then what you are about to read in this book – the story of Dean for America, Howard Dean’s campaign of 2004, and those inspiring pioneers who worked with me on it – is like the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk. This is the story of the beginning of it all: of the first intrepid, seat-of-the-pants, spit-and-chewing-gum attempt to build a contraption that would eventually plug people back into their democracy, so that, sooner than any of us could have dreamed, we would fly.
Joe Trippi
Wittman, Maryland
May 2008
Dedicated to the six hundred thousand people of Dean for America who relit the flame of participatory democracy.
Buy the book on Amazon here
Here’s hoping you are right that the Obama campaign pulls this off. But here’s hoping that the real trick is not that they will use the grassroots to get elected, but more importantly to govern. For getting someone elected using grassroots seems to me, to borrow your analogy, only the rocket launch stage of the moon landing. The real difference is will it bring a change to how he governs, and thus how people are involved. Hopefully those who have worked on the Obama campaign in this way will feel differently invested, and thus continue to stage engaged throughout eight years of an Obama presidency.
Great notes Mr. Trippi. The idea that one or two people with a computer and an internet connection can change history is one of the marvels of the late 20th and early 21st century. I definitely want to read the book. I also want to comment that there is still a “digital divide” in our country, and it is not divided by age necessarily , but by class. We should truly try get everyone “plugged in” that wants to be. I hope we can get that accomplished next.
Good work,
Ed Faunce
ed_faunce@yahoo.com
@edfaunce1 on Twitter.
Ed you are so right about the digital divide. But it is closing (not fast enough). and academicdave I believe that the next President like it or not will be the first networked President. just as JFK became the first Television President. Those is government will be more connected to the people through the network — that is why Ed’s point is so important — in a networked Presidency we can’t afford a divide.
I agree with the previous comments and sincerely hope that Barack Obama wins. We’ve always been ‘a house divided” as I am a Democrat and my husband was a Republican. Note the past tense. On Friday his company laid off 500 people and he was among them. He is 60 yrs old and had a stroke 4 months ago. We lost all benefits, including health coverage. He is extraordinarily upset, and said, “Well, I’ll vote for Obama, because I don’t think McCain is going to do anything to help us”. I about fell out of my chair.
Thank you for all you’ve done.
Marti — really sorry to hear about losing your health coverage and the layoffs — thanks for your kind words.
Nice Author’s Note. And I can relate. There’s a saying in the software business that the pioneers get all the arrows, and then the settlers come in and get the territory.
The Dean campaign was pioneering. I was fully caught up in it, and it was a rocket ride.
The Obama campaign has built on that, and extended it to be sure, and it looks like it will actually secure the prize.
Because I got activated by the Dean campaign and stayed involved working in local and state politics, when this election came around I was actually more involved working with Congressional campaigns than the presidential race. And then my preferred candidate (and yours) dropped out. So I feel a bit sidelined, too… but on the other hand, I’ve been building tools to make it easier for people who get connected online to step up and volunteer in the Real World, and bring that to lower ticket races.
I hope that the folks who are excited about Obama have the same dogged persistence that the Dean supporters had – that new blood and sense of accomplishment could truly usher in a new age of American politics. I worry about complacency setting in if the big malefactors like Bush and Cheney are gone from the scene, though.
I loved the first edition of your book and I hope the second edition reaches a new audience of Obama supporters who are interested in learning about how that fuse got lit.
Best,
Malacandra (Daily Kos, Twitter, etc.)
Thanks MIles. Really appreciate everything you are doing.
Joe, I see Obama’s campaign as a synthesis of online organizing Trippi style with offline community organizing Alinsky style. His is a Trippi crossed with Alinsky campaign. I had a hunch this synthesis was a big opportunity in 2006 when I worked at Care2.com. From Care2’s client-side blog:
http://www.frogloop.com/care2blog/2006/6/14/what-do-you-get-when-you-cross-iaf-with-noi.html
Your contribution is huge and Obama is profiting from it, but Obama has brought something quite valuable of his own to the game of mobilization.
And bringing these two things together is just another example of Obama’s skill in bridge building. There’s a cultural gulf between the online and offline organizing communities.
Why? The core of community organizing philosophy is that power-building and change happens face-to-face at the neighborhood level. Online is not important to them, at least it wasn’t two years ago, because I tried to sell online campaign services to PICO, and as much as the national office saw it as valuable, I was told that it was fundamentally against their organizing philosophy. Face-to-face is fundamental to them. No sale.
The online organizing community has a similarly powerful bias – they see online as the best way to organize. As technophiles, they see technology as the answer to almost everything. They’re a little too in love with technology.
Obama has cross-pollinated these communities, or at least shown the power of combining these approaches. This is also part of a networked campaign and a networked society, the walls between disciplines come down.
Notice the comment from Michael Silberman, my client when at Care2 and your national Meetup organizer on the Dean campaign. Michael is the best.
Neal — you are absolutely correct — Obama brought Alinsky organizing and online organizing together in a powerful way. Its interesting because I was an Alinsky type organizer almost all of my career but it was really tough to pull the two together in 2004 and we never pulled in off. Part of it was that there were very few such organizers who would work for us in the Dean campaign — but Chicago is full of them! Like I said — I am jealous! Not very Alinsky like of me!
Hi Joe – Thank you for blazing the trail – we wouldn’t have landed on the moon in 1969 without the Wright brothers, and we probably wouldn’t be where we are today without you. So seriously, I don’t think I can thank you enough. Thank you.
Democracy only works well to the degree that people can make informed voting decisions. A free press used to be a corner stone of every Democracy, but it seems that nowadays the press is very much controlled using “soft” mechanisms like a white house press core, embedded reports, restricted access, etc.
The core value of the Internet for Democracy, I believe, is not the ability to reach people quickly at near-zero cost. Instead, it’s the fact that the press is being replaced by the people and that the gathering, reporting, and distribution of information is becoming completely decentralized (and therefore much less controllable). This is enormously empowering for people.
I haven’t read your book, but I will soon.
Hi Joe -
Got here from your tweet tonight.
I’m looking forward to reading the new content in this second edition. I devoured the first edition, so we’ll see if your eloquence can convince me to pry my wallet open again.
Speaking of prying my wallet open for democracy, the first time I ever donated to a presidential campaign was in response to an email from you during Dean for America’s 2Q 2003 push to raise what was a presidential campaign record at the time ($15M, IIRC). My contribution seemed small, but I knew I was one of thousands donating across the country to “break the bat.” It was an empowering and inspiring experience — the first of many transformative Dean campaign experiences that vaulted me into politics full-time.
Now, 5 years later, I’m writing the same kind of email blasts for the Courage Campaign, an organization that would not exist without the Dean movement and your people-powered approach to campaign management.
Even though the Dean campaign, as you put it in your book, “crashed and burned in an Iowa cornfield,” your mark on American democracy is indelible. Yes, the Obama campaign is version 2.0 — bigger, better, more sophisticated — but it is standing on the shoulders of revolutionaries like you.
As I’ve said to you in-person a few times, thank you for changing my life. I know I’m not the only one who feels that way.
Eden
Joe, how close is this current Obama campaign to what you envisioned before 2004? What surprises have there been? Has this internet revolution moved faster than you thought?
Congradulations, you should be very proud.
I like your new forward. The bad news is that with current events moving quickly, it is already outdated. It is impossible for the publishing world to keep up with the pace of change and pace of events.
Joe, I’ll be deliriously happy if at the end of the day I have a tenth the impact you’ve had in rebuilding our democracy. I’m jealous too, of you and Obama, but y’all inspire me to think about what contribution I can make.
Speaking of inspiration, check out this Playboy interview of Alinsky from 1972:
http://britell.com/alinsky.html
If Obama wins in November and uses his base post-election to pressure Congress for real change, he will be well on his way to fulfilling Alinsky’s dream of mobilizing the middle class. Alinsky believed that this was the key to change, to mobilize the middle class and build a working and middle class coalition to challenge the power of the corporate elite. This became his mission late in his career, but he died before he could make much progress.
After he died, rather than progressives like himself mobilizing the middle class, conservatives did it, but they organized the middle class against itself. Conservatives convinced middle class Americans to vote against their own interests. And worse, they turned the middle class against the working class and the poor. Conservatives divided and conquered.
Obama is our best hope to reverse the damage done and put Alinsky’s brilliant strategy into high gear.
I hope this plays out because America risks passing from global laughing stock to global pariah. Unnecessary wars, global warming, and a global financial crisis. We’re brewing a perfect storm of failures for the world to deal with.
If we fail to address these problems, history is not going to be kind to us.
First off, thanks for the book. I was on vacation in Santa Few New Mexico when I stumbled upon Howard Dean speaking and thought “Maybe there’s something about this guy.” And then the way much of the Dean campaign was run convinced me that it was real. There wasn’t a separation between what the candidate was saying and what the campaign did. And it was one of the first times, despite a precinct walking, interning past, that I felt I had the ability to genuinely influence and participate as more than a wallet (and a thin wallet, at that).
I just chugged through the first edition for the second time. And am looking forward to this new version, to see the lessons learned that come with some distance.
Like others, in this thread, I think the real difference will happen when these same tools that have impacted the campaign start being used to govern. There’s so much potential — so much that is already happening on the ground to augment what government has or has not done. The potential to uncover those ideas and projects — at a local level — and elevate them to national projects, to policy, use them to inform legislation seems huge. Sort of the ways that the Dean meetups brought people together locally to work for something nationally. It seems that same thing can be applied to many of the ways that people are working together.
Looking forward to seeing the ways that this kind of movement building can push beyond a campaign and into the years between election cycles and hoping, somehow, to be a part of it.
Thanks for providing the blueprint.
Saul Alinsky? Now there’s a liberal icon for you. Certainly ACORN’s model: the ends justify the means mentality. Pathetic.
Joe, I admired you during the 2004 elections and have much respect for you now. The has really been a grassroots champaign and yes, we owe it to Howard Dean for the example.
Joe- great words! I was so impressed with Dean and all that his organization represented and supported him, as well. I have been following you throughout your career and your dedication to grassroots organization and to listening to real people!
Carry on!
JHC, before you dismiss Alinsky, read his biography “Let Them Call Me Rebel.” Or Hilary Clinton’s Wellesley thesis about him here:
http://www.hillaryclintonquarterly.com/HillaryClintonThesis.pdf
Alinsky was not an idealogue. While some may see him as a liberal icon, I think it’s inaccurate label and perhaps purposely marginalizing. His analysis was about power, citizenship, and democratic participation. His legacy is thousands of local community organizations with millions of citizens working together to build better lives for themselves. PICO National Network, just one coalition of community organizations, represents 1 million families in 150 cities in the US. When a community organizer comes to town, they don’t come with a prepackaged agenda. Rather they help local leaders manage the process by which an agenda is formed and action is taken.
These organizations are nonpartisan, nondenominational, and multicultural by design. They’re built for inclusiveness. Alinsky’s big contribution is a proven model through which citizens from different races, religions, and ethnic backgrounds can work together to get positive change in their neighborhoods and cities.
Alinsky is the originator of this technique. Chicago is its birth place. And Obama was trained in the Alinsky method in Chicago. It’s precisely the spirit of community organizing which animates Obama’s campaign (plus Trippi). It’s why I’m hopeful that this time it could be different. That we could have a president who focuses on bringing more people into the political process, and that by organizing many millions of citizens, an effective counterbalance to corporate power, something Lincoln and other presidents warned us about, can emerge.
People call Alinsky radical or liberal. And he referred to himself as a radical. If giving people a real say in the democratic process is radical or liberal, so be it. But Alinsky is much less radical than our founding fathers. They committed treason and murder in order to gain political freedom. They risked their lives and property. Alinsky worked within our laws and nobody got hurt. His movement then and now is legal and nonviolent.
As far as ends justifying the means, please share if you have evidence he compromised the democratic ideals he stood for in order to win a campaign.
Better yet, Neal, read his radical left cook books.
‘Alinsky had a true genius for formulating tactical battle plans for the radical left. He wrote two books outlining his organizational principles and strategies: “Reveille for Radicals” (1946) and “Rules for Radicals” (1971).
“Rules for Radicals” begins with an unusual tribute: “From all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins – or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom – Lucifer.”
The devil challenged authority and got his own kingdom, and that goes to the heart of what left is really about. That of course is to get power any way you can, including lying, cheating and stealing. The ultimate rule is that the ends justify the means.
Alinsky’s influence on the modern Democratic Party indicates that the ends do indeed justify the means. As Alinsky states in “Rules for Radicals” it was foolish to believe that means are just as important as the ends. He states that “to believe in the immaculate conception of ends and principles … the practical revolutionary will understand … [that] in action, one does not always enjoy the luxury of a decision that is consistent both with one’s individual conscience and the good of mankind.”‘
Bill and Hillary Clinton are Alinsky acolytes. Bill Clinton used executive orders to circumvent Congress and the Constitution. He used the agencies of the federal government against his enemies. Clinton set an extremely dangerous precedent. Alinsky would have loved it. It is a perfect example of the use of the Rules for Radicals – ends justify the means.
Clinton’s attacks on Paula Jones, et al., was right out of Alinsky’s rule book.
Think of Florida in 2000 and the manipulation of military ballots. Think of Milwaukee and unattended polling places, which allowed leftist college students to take handfuls of ballots to check off. Think of a million immigrants in the 1996 election granted instant voting rights by the Clinton administration. The ends justify the means.
ACORN. The ends justify the means.
Ohio absentee voting identification requirement:
“One of the following items showing proof of your identification:
-Your Ohio driver’s license number; or
-The last four digits of your Social Security number; or
-A copy of your current and valid photo identification, military identification; or a current (within the last 12 months) utility bill (including cell phone bill), bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document that shows your name and current address (including from a public college or university).
(Note: You cannot use a notice that the board of elections mailed to you as proof of identification.”
In Ohio the only proof of ID is now stating four digits of your or anyone’s SSN. The ends justify the means.
Sorry, Neal, you were right. Calling Alinsky a “liberal icon” indeed marginalizes his essence.
Alinsky was a raging Marxist.
Before you girls get all lathered-up:
“The Senate Ethics Committee probe of the Keating Five began in November 1990, and committee Special Counsel Robert Bennett recommended that McCain and Glenn be dropped from the investigation. They were not. McCain believes Democrats on the committee blocked Bennett’s recommendation because he was the lone Keating Five Republican.
In February 1991, the Senate Ethics Committee found McCain and Glenn to be the least blameworthy of the five senators. (McCain and Glenn attended the meetings but did nothing else to influence the regulators.) McCain was guilty of nothing more than “poor judgment,” the committee said, and declared his actions were not “improper nor attended with gross negligence.” McCain considered the committee’s judgment to be “full exoneration,” and he contributed $112,000 (the amount raised for him by Keating) to the U.S. Treasury.”
Slate Magazine
Nothing, nada on Glenn and McCain. The rest were dems. C’mon, O, is that the best you got?
jhc, I appreciate the dialog here! Your argument is supported by facts and quotes. However, I have a different view. And really it’s nonpartisan. I’m not so interested in what Alinsky said, but in what he did.
And similar to you, I’m not 100% comfortable with Alinsky’s ideology.
My opinion is that his real contribution are not his books, but the fact that millions of people are meaningfully connected to public life because of the organizing method he innovated. These community organizations are not in the least Marxist. He may have been, but they’re not. They’re democratic with a small d, period. Otherwise ordinary people would not join.
You also have to take into account that Alinsky was bombastic by nature. It was his purpose to provoke. His books are dramatic by design. He knew how to get attention. In the end, this may not serve him or his methods well. He’s too easy a target. His methods get dismissed with his ideology. And his liberal ideology taints the nonpartisan method he innovated.
As far as the ends justifying the means, it’s my opinion that you take what he says too far. He’s essentially saying that change does not happen without conflict and that change is always messy. It can’t happen in an ethical clean room.
I don’t know enough about Clinton to agree or disagree, but presidents on both sides of the isle have used powerful ideas wherever they lay to help them gain and keep power. I don’t think Alinsky corrupted the Clintons. An influence yes, but I don’t think they got their will to power from Alinsky.
At the end of the day, what that powerful do has little to do with ideology. Ideology is merely an argument to acquire power, to get or explain certain decisions to ordinary people. Or a story that’s used to explain to people what happened. When great power is acquired, the agenda is simply to keep and expand it. This goes for Clinton or Bush, for liberal or conservative. Unfortunately, ideals go flying out the window when power is so concentrated and unaccountable.
For the record, I don’t identify as liberal or conservative. I admire Alinsky because the organizing method he innovated help ordinary people build and exercise their power as citizens. Not because of his words. As I said, I’m not totally comfortable with his ideology. But let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Our country needs ways to balance the power of corporations and special interests, and Alinsky has made contribution here.
And my interest in Obama goes only so far as he’s able to empower citizens, to give them a real voice, bring them into the political process in a meaningful way, and strengthen our democratic institutions. It’s no recommendation to me that he’s a Democrat. And I’m not interested in his ideology.
My comments are being censored. Sorry.
“McCain and Glenn did nothing else” exactly, he knew and did nothing.
OH Jesus. Democrats are evil and Republicans free of sin. Or vice versa. As if a party has any claim to anything, instead of the individuals that make it up.
jhc, anything you want to say about past democratic worngdoing is fine, we can all find a GOP episode for every one of yours. That’s the game.
How about Lee Atwater and of course Rove while we’re on the subject?
Or how Bush has flagrantly abused his executive power, especially with signing statements and executive orders as well.
Clinton can use executive orders however he wanted. So can Bush. It’s up for the other branches to check and balance if something’s unconstitutional. No one does it to themself.
Oh Clinton. 8 years of peace and a booming economy. What an asshole.
And Joe, I was wondering sometime what you think the chances are Howard will ever run again. ‘04 was my first election, and he meant a lot to me. Hopefully the DNC isn’t the end of the line for him.
Wasn’t that John Glenn standing next to Obama in Ohio yesterday? He knows Obama is unqualified and yet yet he’s looking the other way. You may have something, lo.
Daren, stop the censoring.
8 years of peace and prosperity under Clinton? How many times did Clinton turn his head or lob a couple of cruise missiles at al qaeda while they launched their plans to attack our homeland? Peace because he failed to act when attacked. Prosperity until the internet bubble burst. Remember all those foreclosures in 1999? Of course not. What an asswipe.
Actually Clinton did act to kill Bin Laden. After it was determined that AlQaeda was behind the Cole bombing in Feb 2001 the Bush response was to do?………nothing, Bush did nothing……. Bush was really on top of protecting the homeland jhc. You are a simple minded clown…..your a sheep parroting talking points but keep showing your ignorance and entertaining us.
Glenn disgraced himself also by being a silent bystander to Keating’s corruption. He didn’t go on trips with and paid for by Keating or invest with Keating like McCain.
Bush did nothing to go after Bin Ladin? What planet are you on, lo? Clinton not only did not go after Bin Ladin, he failed to pick him up on more than one opportunity.
Likewise, read the Keating legal brief and you will find that the only thing Glenn and McCain did was to attend a meeting. Neither participated in any Keating commercial transaction and McCain gave Keating’s campaign donations to the US Treasury.
Hey, lo, how many attacks on the US since 9/11?
Geez y’all, this partisan stuff is besides the point. And it’s more than a little boring. We should find ways to work together, no matter if we disagree, and regardless of whether we like each other or not (it’s not a requirement of civic life). George Washington warned in his farewell address of the dangers of partisanship. He said it leads to frightful despotism. Read on:
http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/milestones/farewell
So my questions to you are how can we make our nation a more democratic one? How can we better balance powers between the major stakeholder groups in our nation? How can we bring more citizens into the political process?
Widespread participation in civic life and a balance of powers leads to stability and prosperity.
Working toward these aims is the real game. Partisanship is a suckers game. If you won’t take Washington’s word for it, then I think the 20th century provides ample evidence that extreme partisanship leads to despotism – and then finally to global disaster.
I’ll just end with these questions for the partisan minded. Where is your spirit of independence? Are you not your own person? Must you have others think for you? Do you think the party which you pledge your allegiance has – in this huge and impersonal political market – your best interests in mind?
Good post Neal. I both agree and disagree with it though.
Most of us posting here probably aren’t members of Congress. We don’t have to go “across the aisle” to get anything done. If you can’t be partisan and mean spirited on the internet, where can you be?
I think a lot of people overplay the destructive nature of partisanship and negative campaigning. You’re right about what Washington said, but Washington had almost nothing to do with writing the Constitution. A lot of our system is based on disagreement. The harder it is to get something passed, the better the bill has to be and the broader the support for it.
And if anyone thinks this is a negative or partisan era, just look back at the times of Jefferson and Adams.
I don’t know anything about jhc, but I think he wants the same things all of us want. A strong, free America, etc. He may be confused how to do it, but that’s what we’re talking about. So bring on the partisanship. It makes us all better.
Mike, I see what you’re saying, and I partly agree, but I see a difference between a difference in opinion, or differences in interests, and partisanship. I agree that differences, debates, disagreement are natural and healthy. Perhaps my post overstates the case against partisanship, though I would still maintain that it ain’t a bad thing to have a healthy skepticism of partisan politics.
I think what is unhealthy is individuals or groups that close their minds and dismiss their different thinking fellow citizens and seek to disenfranchise them in one way or another on the basis of these differences – to suppress their vote, ridicule and marginalize their thinking, destroy their leaders simply out of party loyalty, out of an unthinking reflex.
What we need is dialog to seek out where our interests are common and where we don’t or can’t meet, but not let the small differences keep us from working on the larger common issues together. I guess that’s my thing is that rabid partisanship can be a distract us, can reduce our power as citizens, can divide us so we have less power as a stakeholder group unto ourselves. And what often gets sacrificed in partisan battles of identity and ideology is the finding of common ground and the fighting for common cause.
There are many important things that liberal and conservative folks value in common.
Thanks for the thoughtful response Mike. I’ll stop here while I’m not too lost in the clouds of abstraction I’ve created here
That was a great post. I think you used a key phrase. “Unthinking reflex”. I’m all for rough partisanship if you think there’s some horrific injustice at hand, but not because the tax rate is 35% and you think it should be 34%. Or worse, because someone’s a different party.
But to be realistic, this the height of campaign season, in the most interesting election since the ’60’s, and campaigns are never the time to find common bipartisan ground. This is where the ends justify the means to a certain extent, and things get dirty if they have to.
I know that last sentence has been a point of some controvery on here, but I agree with it. I’m reading a biography of RFK, and it’s talking about JFK’s run, where their father is literally going around the country handing out suitcases of cash. But what if they hadn’t? What if there was no Kennedy or LBJ, only 8 years of Nixon?
JHC, care to weigh in?
Mike,
I definitely understand you’re point of view, but think of this – 40% of Americans are swing voters or moderates, it is them that more often than not decide elections.
Politicians have to find a way to reach them, and they are not partisan.
Even more difficult is that they have to reach out to swing voters without alienating their base.
Here’s a presentation that explains my perspective on campaigning for swing voters:
http://www.slideshare.net/FAS.research/the-swingfluentials
I guess I’m one of those 40% of Americans who are not partisan. I’m just plain suspicious of the major political parties. I don’t believe they really have my interests in mind. What I’m absolutely sure of is that they want my money and my vote.
Sorry guys but I’m being censored. Talk amongst yourselves.
Obama’s new politics sounds like old Chicago politics:
4,000 dead registered to vote in Houston
Tony Romo registered to vote in Missouri
Obama and McCain are politicians. Their politics sound like American politics. I’m not impressed with either them or their parties.
Well, not only did the censors take my comments out of moderation, they deleted them.
…the ends justify the means.
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