From Valley to Beltway: New Dealer, New Deck, New Game

First, Blow Up the Beltway by Internet pioneer Dave Winer.

But back to my point. As much as I believe in the idea of Obama, if he doesn't live up to it, I'll still believe in the idea, because I always have. I don't want to be an insider, I don't want the insiders to rule, I don't want there to be insiders at all. I want to distribute opportunity and acknowledge intelligence and goodness where ever it appears. I fought against the centralized Inside The Beltway way of doing things in Silicon Valley, and we won. Of course a new aristocracy pops up but their power is as thin as the people whose power got popped in every bubble that came before.

The Internet destabilizes every hierarchy it contacts. It erases every barrier to entry. The only way to win is to point off-site, in every way you can think of. Win by offering better value, not by locking users in. People will become instant refugees to escape your clutches. Think you're immune? Think again.

In Meet the new boss, nothing like the old boss, on his weblog, Doc Searls, one of the authors of the 1999 groundbreaking Cluetrain Manifesto, elaborates.

But we're done with that. I think even the talk radio addicts who hate all Democrats by reflex know the old gig is up. The reason has nothing to do with partisan politics and everything to do with Democracy 2.0. That's the one where the threshold of participation narrows toward zero. We're not there yet, but we're headed that way. Obama is leading the way, but it's not just about him, or his candidacy, or his policies.

And it's not just about elections. It's about governance. How we do it matters more than what we do with it. And we've hardly begun to visit that one.

Micah L. Sifry on his site, TechPresident, provides perhaps the best technical analysis in
Obama's Organization, and the Future of American Politics.

But there's another big reason why Obama's victory is so important. He is riding herd on the largest and most potent new political organization anyone has seen on the American landscape in at least sixteen years. He's probably got anywhere from four to eight million email addresses on top of his 1.5 million donors and 800,000 registered users of my.barackobama.com, his social networking platform.

This isn't the first time this question has arisen in modern American politics, by the way. And usually the answer is "Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss." It's just that the internet should force us to think about the possibilities of a different answer. Not only that, I think Obama is thinking about a different answer.

Sifry details how sustainability and impact happens when a man creates and promotes a movement beyond himself, as he claims Obama has done, rather than subordinating the movement to the ego of the man, as he reflects on the potential of three candidates who preceded Obama: Jesse Jackson, Ross Perot, and Howard Dean.

Further, he outlines the formula we can expect to see more of: 1) Create the best organization; and 2) Add internet-powered transparency.

Sifry concludes:

By building the "best political organization in America," one in which millions of people are in touch with each other online, activated and inspired, and then by putting more information out there about what the government is trying to do (and who is opposing it), Obama seems to envision working with his organization, as well as internet-powered transparency, to overcome the institutional special-interest choke hold paralyzing Washington.

Personally, I find this vision pretty breathtaking, even if we don't know all the details yet. It is challenging my hard-earned cynicism about leaders and political movements. Will it work? And will Obama's activists follow him wherever he leads? (When his campaign tried to weed out some of the more independent activists in his California operation earlier this spring, that boneheaded move led to an instant web-based rebellion that caused Obama campaign manager David Plouffe to reverse the decision within 24 hours.) These could be the most important questions facing what is already the most audacious and successful insurgency to arise in American electoral politics in my lifetime. I can't wait to see what happens.

Stay Tuned, there's more here than meets the eye!

I think we may need to revisit and edit that cynical concluding line penned by The Who 37 years ago ... more like "Meet the New Boss, Not Like the Old Boss..."