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technoratiTechnology and the Internet are changing democracy in America. Personal Democracy Forum is a hub for the exciting conversation underway between political professionals, technologists, and anyone else invigorated by the remarkable potential of technology to engage citizens in the democratic process.
Last week, I had the opportunity to join PDF contributor Brian Reich on a panel on blogging, media, and campaigns at a conference organized by Campaigns & Elections Magazine.
I left with a lot to think about, but one thing that's stuck in my head is a raft of questions about how blogging - especially within active communities or so-called blogswarms has changed the field and demands of opposition research.
It's always been an iron law in political campaigns that not only is research on your opponent valuable - but research on your own candidate is critical. In the wake of the Dan Rather affair and the Jeff Gannon/James Guckert story - political campaigns should take notice - you cannot and will not hide anything anymore. You cannot assume that your opponent simply won't find that embarrassing picture or boneheaded quote from the bombastic column you wrote in college - and the most important part? Your opponent won't have to dig it up themselves. If they have even a semblance of a netroots community close to them, the enterprising Googler will ferret it out, just for fun.
My questions are: does this make the market for opposition research more or less competitive? Will it force oppo firms to hire bloggers, or will enterprising campaigns reach out to the netroots for this particular service?
And more important - does the amazing level of WayBackMachine scrutiny actually help or hurt all of us? Will we be left with a political system that only the perfect need apply? Or, if we're lucky, will we see candidates that are simply more open and up front with their own imperfections, instead focusing on policy?
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The truth always feels better
Or, if we're lucky, will we see candidates that are simply more open and up front with their own imperfections
This is certainly what I'm hoping for. While we're obviously going to go through some growing pains for the next few cycles, I'm optimistic that this kind of ravenous fact-checking will result in greater voluntary transparency and less focus on spin and PR. In fact, the open source style could become the ultimate scandal-proofing.
It's one of my abiding gripes that Clinton dind't take this route with the whole Lewinski mess. There was a chance there to take the whole country a step forward in terms of the kind of relationship we're prepared to have with our public figures (e.g. we don't expect them to be perfect and they aren't afraid of showing any weakness).
Getting out front would be a major shift for politics, but it's far from inconcevable. Especially if people who start doing it start winning. It's still a results-oriented game after all.