Mythbusting the Obama Magic

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Esther Dyson <edyson () edventure com>
> Date: January 3, 2010 11:46:47 AM EST
> To: dave () farber net
> Cc: Micah Sifry <msifry () gmail com>
> Subject: Re: [IP] Mythbusting the Obama Magic

> Interesting stuff, but there is something to consider that is also  
> lost in the fog.   [[FWIW, I was one of those first-time voters, for  
> Obama.]
>
> Obama running for president *was* at the head of a movement, mostly  
> of volunteers, and properly so.  As for the "movement," it may need  
> better leaders now, but Obama should not be one of them.
>
> As president, Obama is president of *all* the people; half of those  
> who voted "volunteered" the other way.  It's a tough thing, being  
> president of a whole country.  (Yes, I was appalled at the partisan  
> reaction from the right when Obama wanted to engage with  
> schoolchildren.   Good grief, guys! ._ )
>
> As president you have to try to reach them all... or at least not  
> offend them by reaching out to only half of them.    That's easier  
> said than done, and there has been way too much compromise (and  
> votes in exchange for constituency favors).  I don;t think Obama  
> ever made a really effective case for health reform until it was way  
> too late.
>
> So  I'd like to see a discussion of the challenges of governing and  
> inspiring a divided country, as well as how you keep a movement  
> going now that it won one goal - electing a president - but still  
> needs to rally round others of much greater complexity.  Health  
> reform comes in many shapes, most of them suboptimal..
>
>  Winning an election does not mean winner takes all.  Thank god for  
> that.  The movement got him elected, but now he needs to lead the  
> country.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Jan 3, 2010, at 11:05 AM, Dave Farber wrote:
>
> > Begin forwarded message:
> >
> > > From: "Brock N. Meeks" <bnmeeks () verizon net>
> > > Date: January 3, 2010 10:52:16 AM EST
> > > To: dave () farber net
> > > Subject: Mythbusting the Obama Magic
> >
> > > The following excerpts from a TechPresident blog post by Micah L.  
> > > Sifry I found very interesting reading.  The title alone is enough  
> > > of a hook: The Obama Disconnect: What Happens When Myth Meets  
> > > Reality <http://techpresident.com/blog-entry/the-obama-disconnect>
> > >
> > > I found it provided a reasoned roadmap for the fog of my own  
> > > mental wandering when pondering the fact that, almost out of the  
> > > starting gate, the Obama Administration has failed to cultivate  
> > > any significant percentage of that digital alchemy the campaign  
> > > managed to conjure.  That failure alone deserves a book; this blog  
> > > post provides a jumpstart on such a book, in my opinion.
> > >
> > > =-=-=-=-=
> > >
> > > The problem for Obama and the Democrats today, as they head into  
> > > 2010, is that much of their activist base appears to have  
> > > swallowed too much of the wrong half of the myth: they thought  
> > > that Obama would be more of a change-agent, and never really  
> > > embraced their own role.
> > >
> > > [snip]
> > >
> > > But the question raised by Plouffe's book is, given the grassroots  
> > > base he helped develop in support of Obama and how powerful it  
> > > became by the fall of 2008 (raising $150 million in the month of  
> > > September alone, including more than $10 million the night of  
> > > Sarah Palin's acceptance speech), why he didn't do more to keep  
> > > that muscular organization going into Obama's presidency? To put  
> > > it another way, why did Plouffe discount his own grassroots  
> > > strategy in favor of the dusty old playbook used by White House  
> > > insiders for decades? Why wasn't more done to extend that sense of  
> > > ownership meaningfully into the life of the Administration? If you  
> > > could trust your volunteers to carry the campaign in all sorts of  
> > > important ways, why not also give them a real say in how they  
> > > could shake up Washington?
> > >
> > > The answer, ultimately, is that Plouffe and the rest of Obama's  
> > > leadership team, wasn't really interested in grassroots  
> > > empowerment. Instead, they think they've invented a 21st century  
> > > version of list-building, and to some degree they're right. (It's  
> > > for that reason that I think of the Obama campaign as the first  
> > > 21st century top-down campaign, while McCain's was the last 20th  
> > > century top-down version). For Plouffe, the gigantic Obama email  
> > > list, its millions of donors and its vibrant online social network  
> > > were essentially a new kind of top-down broadcast system, one even  
> > > better than the old TV-dominated system.
> > >
> > > [snip]
> > >
> > > When it came to planning for being in government, it turns out  
> > > that Plouffe, along with David Axelrod, was a chief advocate for  
> > > bringing in then Rep. Rahm Emanuel as Obama's chief of staff. He  
> > > writes, using a baseball analogy: "Rahm was a five-tool political  
> > > player: a strategist with deep policy expertise, considerable  
> > > experience in both the legislative and executive branches, and a  
> > > demeanor best described as relentless." (p. 372) Note that nowhere  
> > > in that vital skill-set is any sense of how to work with the  
> > > largest volunteer base any presidential campaign has developed in  
> > > history. Rahm Emanuel came up in politics the old-fashioned way;  
> > > organizing and empowering ordinary people are the least of his  
> > > skills.
> > Archives        
>
> Esther Dyson
> edyson () edventure com
>
> 632 Broadway, 10th floor
> New York, NY 10012
> USA
>
> www.edventure.com
> www.flickr.com/photos/edyson
> @edyson



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