Connected Conversations

I just received this email from Chelsea Clinton:

We need your help to make a critical decision — our next official campaign t-shirt.

I couldn’t believe the incredible response to our t-shirt design contest. We got thousands of great entries. They were creative, inspirational, funny, and beautiful. It was amazing to see the devotion to my mom’s campaign come through in each t-shirt. Thank you to everyone who submitted a design!

It wasn’t easy to narrow it down, but we’ve chosen five we think are particularly great, and now we need your help in making our final decision. Please vote for your favorite design — the winning shirt will go on sale in our online campaign store.

Please click here to see the finalists and vote for your favorite.

Thanks again for everything you’re doing to help my mom!

Go Hillary!
Chelsea

Sounds a little like re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic, doesn’t it?

Uncategorized Clinton, Election 08

As an Obama supporter, I was disappointed that Barack did not seal the deal yesterday. I have been reflecting on the delegate stalemate and the PR loss, and I have a few thoughts.

1) Identity politics: Obama has made massive progress in demonstrating that equality for all is a powerful message for whites and blacks. I am surprised that he wasn’t able to carry that message to the Hispanic communities in Texas. I dislike Clinton’s direct approach at appealing to women, and I don’t think it is working well with younger women. I much prefer Obama’s President for all Americans message and policies.

2) Generational warfare: Clinton is for old people and Obama is for young people. The candidates appeals are *not* personality-based but policy-based . Clinton wants to mandate that young people pay more money into health care in order to pay for more benefits for older people. Obama wants to lower health care costs–which may very well end up in less health care services for old people. Again, I think Obama has to devise a message of equality for all and policies that support it. But the worst is this aweful “experience” debate. It’s really just a thinly veiled ageist argument that anyone born after the baby boom can’t be President. Hasn’t 8 years of Bush/Cheney proven that ‘adult’ supervision isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be?

3) Tired solutions vs Fresh Solutions: Hillary I think has a slight advantage framing the election as solutions vs. rhetoric. For awhile, I favor a direct defensive maneuver by Obama: publishing policy papers, holding smaller events, etc. But now I think that is wrong. Obama has plans that are just as detailed as Clinton. It is really a battle of “tired solutions” versus “fresh solutions.” I mean she is just re-treading past political battles, whereas Obama wants to move us forward.

Well, that’s it for now. If you want more great Obama commentary, check out Marc Andreseen’s excellent endorsement of Barack Obama.

2. politics Clinton, Election 08, lessons learned, Obama, videos

Jack Nicholson has made this short video ad for Hillary. It’s pretty good: it draws on short clips from some of his best movies to help raise Hillary’s issues:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsweXFpfa28[/youtube]

But Hillary’s video still doesn’t hold a candle to Huckabee’s classic spot from a month or so ago. I think the difference: Huckabee demonstrates a sense of humor by describing Chuck Norris, whereas Clinton’s own messages are purely serious. To be fair, I suppose they had different goals with their videos. Huckabee’s video is a tour de force and a truly funny 30 seconds of entertainment. Enjoy:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDUQW8LUMs8[/youtube]

I suppose Obama could counter Hillary’s ad with a clip from the Shining: “All work and no play makes Hillary a dull girl. Red rum! Red rum!”

Uncategorized Clinton, Election 08, society, videos

This report by the Washington Post is disturbing. About 100 contributers have started a 527 PAC called “American Leadership Project” to air attack ads on Obama. At the moment that the Obama campaign has crossed 1 million contributors, 100 ultra-wealthy people are attempting to hijack the primary with $10mm of cynical attack ads.

Here is how the Obama campaign describes the group:

“Here we have a committee that springs up on the eve of an election, promotes a specific candidate, and has no history or apparent purpose of lobbying specific issues outside the benefit to the candidate of these communications,” the memo states. “Its ‘major purpose’ is no mystery.”

And here’s how the spokesperson for the American Leadership Project responds:

“We want to communicate to people where they’re paying the most attention right now. Right now, that’s Ohio and Texas,” he said. “Senator Clinton is a recognized champion of these issues, and we support her positions on health care, the mortgage crisis, the economy, and we say so in the spots. These are positive ads that serve to raise awareness about the issues.”

You can decide which explanation is more plausible for yourself. In my opinion, this proves beyond any doubt that team Clinton (1) is entrenched in money politics and (2) will do anything to get elected. I really hope this backfires.

Here’s a Swift Boat ad to remind you how shameless this tactic really is:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngjUkPbGwAg[/youtube]

2. politics Clinton, democracy, Election 08, Obama

Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford Law Professor, is considering a run for Congress in a special election in my neighboring Silicon Valley district. He has an interesting ten-minute video on his reasons for consider such a run on his new campaign web site, Lessig08.org. In a nutshell, his campaign platform involves three principles:

1. Accept no lobbyists/PAC money
2. Banning earmarks
3. Support public finance

He asserts that money in politics is the *cause* of the problems with our government, and that without these fundamental systematic changes we are doomed to fail at solving the political issues that most people care about (social security, health care, etc.) He wants to start a bipartisan movement to reform Congress.

His likely opponent for the Democratic nomination is a career politician who is good but trapped in the current system. For example, she has received $250,000 in contributions from insurance companies–and she is the state senator in charge of regulating insurance companies.

Lessig’s message appeals to me. However, I think that he’s going to have to quickly translate his overarching principles into something pragmatic. He’ll get trounced unless he can turn his high ideals into policy solutions to the real political problems we face.

In this way, I think it is instructive to compare Lessig to Obama. In a previous video, Lessig makes a compelling case to support Obama over Clinton for nearly the same reasons that Lessig himself is considering a Congressional run for office. Clinton, like Lessig’s opponent, is a good career politician who is too invested in the corrupt system to make fundamental change.

But now Obama is facing new choices: will he abandon the public financing system? It seems that he likely will, given his amazing fundraising prowess. To wit: he has 900,000 individual contributors and is shooting to reach 1 million by March 4. Should Obama risk losing the Presidency to support our current public financing scheme?

I imagine that Lessig would recommend staying within the public financing guidelines. But aren’t the current guidelines hopelessly out of date? And what about McCain-Finegold campaign legislation - doesn’t that well-intentioned law have more harmful unintended consequences than benefits? I worry that Lessig’s prescription is naive, because the details of the reform matter a lot.

So, to answer my original question: how do lessig and obama differ? I think Lessig is more idealistic than Obama, perhaps to a fault. And Lessig is less detailed about translating his ideals in pragmatic policy solutions than Obama. But Lessig is really smart, and he is running in a Congressional election not a Presidential one.

I am rooting for him. I will applaud him if he has the guts to test whether his high-minded principles can really work in practice. Go Lessig!

2. politics democracy, Election 08, Obama

I had a minor voting problem on Super Tuesday in California. Unbeknownst to me, my precinct was turned into a “mail-only” precinct. According to the San Mateo County election department, our precinct was too small (less than 200 people) so we were giving the “opportunity to vote by mail.” I replied, “actually, everyone in California has the opportunity to vote by mail. My precinct is denied the opportunity to vote at a local polling place on election day that almost every other CA resident enjoys.” Two additional points: isn’t the silly election board that draws the precincts in the first place? And if we are so small, wouldn’t it be easy to accommodate the small number of us at our usual polling place, which by the way, is still open?

So, there was no information of what to do on the board of elections web site. I got conflicting advice from the poll workers. One said, go get your mail-in ballot. When I pointed out that it was non-partisan, and did not have the democratic presidential candidates, another worker helpfully suggested that I vote provisionally. I was annoyed at that decision, because it means that my vote will take up to 28 days to be counted.

But then I heard the poll worker say: hey, we are running out of provisional ballots. Steer people away from using them so that we don’t run out! I made the hasty decision to take one of the few remaining ballots (11am!!) so I could vote.

These problems are a BIG deal. More than 1 in 5 voters in the democratic primary in CA are like me as ‘Decline-to-state’ voters, and these voters split better than 2 to 1 in favor of Obama over Clinton. That’s hundreds of thousands of votes. Read this story about the “double bubble trouble” in LA county.

But here’s the worst story so far: Chicago voters were told that broken voting pens were actually ‘invisible ink.’ Wow. We’ve really taken to heart the lessons of the 2000 election, haven’t we?

2. politics Clinton, democracy, Election 08, Obama

Obama had a great win in South Carolina yesterday. Unfortunately, it was expected and seems not to have moved the prediction markets much. Yet, I think our country and the world would be much better off if he wins. With our help, he can win.

Sadly, Obama’s chances only rose slightly from 31% before his victory to 35% after his victory. See the chart from Intrade:

Why isn’t the market impressed with Obama’s success in campaigning? I think the markets are skeptical that Obama can translate his state-by-state success into what amounts to a national primary.

But our country would be much better off with Obama as President. There are many reasons, but I think that Caroline Kennedy strikes just the right note in her powerful editorial today in the NY Times:

I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.

How can you help? You can donate or volunteer to phone voters. Never before has it been so clear to me that a deserving candidate could benefit from a pure increase in awareness. He has proven that his message resonates; he hasn’t yet proven he can spread it nationally. With our help, I believe he pass that final test.

Win? Yes, we can!

2. politics Election 08, Obama

My friend Richard sent me this interesting link and email in response to my post yesterday:

[Intrade.com is] moving beyond prediction markets that try to determine who will win
the election, towards markets that predict the effect of someone
winning the election. In other words, markets that attempt to predict
the price of oil, interest rates, # troops in Iraq, etc. conditional
on the person or party that wins the election.

The design of these markets is theoretically interesting as are
questions as to whether you can get enough liquidity in these more
complex markets to get good results.

But beyond that, there is the potential, mentioned in the blog post,
of using these markets to help people decide how to vote. On one
hand, this seems ridiculous – and maybe even open to abuse or
manipulation. On the other, it’s eminently reasonable. I really want
to vote for the candidate that will be the best president and have the
best outcomes for the country. To the extent that I feel that the
markets are better predictors of these things than I am alone (or in
conjunction with the spouting of pundits or even deliberation),
shouldn’t I base my vote on them?

In my opinion, the most important questions facing voters are: what is the consequence of your voting decision? How will the world be different if one candidate wins rather than the other? Using prediction markets to understand these consequences seems entirely reasonable to me.

1. technology, 2. politics academia, democracy, Election 08, follow up, polling, society

I am a little late to the game here because I was traveling yesterday, but I have some thoughts to share about Obama’s historic victory. I disagree that Thursday’s Iowa caucuses were a victory for extremism, something proposed on e-thepeople.org today. I also disagree with Kent Wicker’s highly rated comment that Hillary Clinton is the same as Obama only more experienced. Nothing could be farther from the truth, in my opinion.

I like both Obama and Huckabee because I think that they are listening to people from all political stripes. They have very different core values, but they are not fixing for a fight. Rather than the combative style of politics that we have seen under George W Bush, and would almost certainly see under Hillary Clinton, they want to build bridges. I know more about Obama than Huckabee, so I will give three examples from Obama’s policy positions:

• the goal of abortion policy should be to reduce the number of abortions in the country
• faith and religion are important to public policy, but any policy derived from religious sources must be justified by reasons not religious authority
• issues facing black voters, like education, health care and poverty, are best addressed as universal not racial terms

I think each of these positions constructively takes valid conservative criticisms of knee-jerk progressive/liberal policy to generate pragmatic solutions to real problems in our country. I really believe that a large majority (e.g., 55-60%) can support these positions, and that adopting these positions would improve many people’s lives.

Of course, Obama and Huckabee have very different values and political philosophies. Obama’s positions are similar to my own preferences whereas Huckabee’s positions are almost diametrically opposed to mine. At this point, I’d rather have Huckabee as President than any other Republican. And in what would almost certainly be a losing campaign, I think he would sharpen the policies of the eventual Democratic winner.

But more importantly: GObama!!! And if you doubt me, please watch Barack’s victory speech here:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB-sNaaaJRU[/youtube]

2. politics Election 08, Obama

Sunday’s Public Editor had a great column talking about what voters want in campaign coverage. A few choice quotes:

“The public wants to know more about candidates’ records, their backgrounds and where they stand on issues — and more about lesser-known candidates.”

and later:

“the fundamental point about the 2008 presidential election [is] the degree to which coverage has moved to the Internet, where many new organizations, especially The Times, are providing information of a breadth and depth that cannot be equaled in the printed newspaper.”

So how about it New York Times: want to expand your coverage of local races with the Voter Guide Toolkit?

1. technology democracy, Election 08

I’ve put together two short screencasts about a neat election resource that I help run called “Voter Guide Toolkit.” We’re recruiting a campaign leader, so I created two short screencasts to help inform the great applicants that we’ve received so far. I think they came out pretty well, so I thought that some of my readers would also be interested in how we plan to collect and present voting information to 10 million voters. You’ need to flash to view these files, and you’ll have to click twice to start the videos.

Presenting candidate information	Collecting candidate information
(length: 2 mins)	(length: 4 mins)

1. technology, 2. politics democracy, Election 08, videos

I found this short video interesting for two reasons: one, it is a good example of viral campaign ads and two, it expresses a concern that I have about Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. But viral videos are primarily only sent and viewed by those who already are disposed to agree with the sentiment. So, will this genre promote what Cass Sunstein calls “cyber-cascades” and fragmentation? In terms of the substance, is this a fair critique or could you plausibly make this kind of video about any serious politician? Here’s the video for your enjoyment:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qggO5yY7RAo[/youtube]

2. politics Clinton, Election 08, videos

It’s an exciting time for technology+politics in general, and for me in particular. I am a volunteer manager of e-thePeople.org, and I am in charge of hiring a Campaign Leader for our Voter Guide Toolkit project. It’s an exciting project, and the job is quite well-compensated as non-profits go. We’re hitting stride for the project: we already have $175k in repeat customers ready to sign up and a major site redesign underway. Here’s a short (e.g., 50 sec) video and a brief excerpt from the entire job description

What if every voter had the tools to cast an informed vote?
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=HFosKG7mupg[/youtube]

The Job: Leading a nonpartisan initiative to educate millions of voters for the 2008 election, working in collaboration with leading media and advocacy organizations.
…
The Right Candidate: You are entrepreneurial and not afraid to take a chance on an unconventional but high-impact idea. You are politically aware and engaged, and are as committed to improving the way the whole system works as you are to any one particular cause or point of view. You have approximately 2-5 years of sales, marketing, political campaign, political organizing, or project management experience. You are friendly and comfortable working with clients, but also capable of managing expectations and saying “no” when necessary; you are organized and good at handling the occasional crisis. You are interested in the way technology is changing business, society and the government.

If I have your email address, you should expect to get an email about this too. Please help distribute the job opportunity widely!

1. technology, 2. politics democracy, Election 08, videos

My brother forwarded two valuable political resources: politifact.com and www.factcheck.org. The first is especially engaging in my opinion. With a truth-o-meter, they verify that “Obama girl’s” is correct to say ‘At least Obama didn’t marry his cousin,” as Giuliani did.’ However, Guiliani is completely wrong to accuse the democrats of socializing medicine and mostly wrong in asserting that they are “tripping over themselves” to raise taxes between “20 and 30 percent.”

I find three aspects make these resources valuable: (1) they can develop a track record of credibility; (2) people are quite good at discerning the truth when given all the facts (in contrast to a one-sided political statement) and (3) they can hold politicians accountable for what they say. Unfortunately, that third point is undermined by the fact that these sites primarily reach highly educated and engaged voters. They can do little to put fire to feet of mass campaigns of slander like “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.”

By the way, my mom sent me a link to the email discovery issue yesterday and my friend Nathaniel has been the source of several posts. If you find something interesting, send it to me! (mike [at] weiksner [dot] com). Also, until I figure out a better system I’m going to cross-post relevant articles on e-thepeople (like this current one) and on my obama blog. I consider weiksner.com the main place for me to post my ideas, but e-thepeople is a better place for public discussion. Still working out the obama blog thing.

2. politics democracy, Election 08, meta