Bottom-up Campaign

daily kos
by kos

Obama:

Obama, as do other candidates, wants to use the Internet to connect people and build support. But he also hinted at the possibility of letting such "net-citizens" play a role in running the campaign.

He said that after his DNC speech, he had gone to George Mason University where "these college kids had organized a rally without any involvement by our staff. We figured there would be a couple of hundred people there, and there were 3,500 people. They had just organized it through Facebook on the Internet."

Obama said letting outsiders run some aspects of his campaign might be worth it. "That kind of grassroots efforts can be scary, in that I think it is hard for any campaign to give up any kind of control and there is a tendency to try to do things top down," he said. "But I think we are in a moment where there is a possibility, not a certainty, but a possibility of bottom-up activism that I think could reshape the political landscape."

"Could reshape the political landscape"?

Barack, it already did. It was called Dean for America, and it happened in 2003-4. Everyone else is still playing catch-up.

I don't mean to sound snippy or negative. I'm genuinely psyched that others are playing catch-up. Just don't pretend you've stumbled onto something new.

But I like that you are acting surprised at all of this. Perhaps this world isn't as "predictable" as you may have thought.