CivicActions

From Al Giordano (via BB):

Texas Republicans have worked overtime to make it harder for key Democratic voting groups to vote and be represented fairly. The redistricting games they’ve played are infamous. And for the Prairie View A&M University precincts, they put the early-polling place more than seven miles from the school. So what did the students in this video do? They shut down the highway as they marched seven miles to cast their votes on the first day of early voting.

The scene reminds me of another famous motorway Reclaim the Streets party from 'back in the day' (1996 to be precise)...

Zephyr Teachout has a great op-ed in the Washington Post today about the future of campaigning.

She talks about some interesting ideas like mobile political affinity software, political accountability software and political placement as ways of reaching voters in '08.

Thanks to the Berkman Center newsletter for pointing this one out.

Just saw this article on Personal Democracy Forum:
American Idol Cell Phone Voting Comes To Political Debates.

From the article:

Many of you may have already heard that Pat Lamarche (Green Independent Gubernatorial Candidate in Maine) has launched a major cell phone campaign around the issue of getting out the vote... At last night's debate at the University of Maine, Pat asked the audience in her closing statement to use their cell phones to vote for who they think won the debate. "Using your mobile phone" she stated, "text 'pat' to 30644." Those that did received a text message ballot back asking them to reply with the corresponding number of the candidate they thought won the debate. This is the first time an instantaneous poll has been taken using "American Idol" style voting techniques in a political campaign.

Evolve Strategies has developed a Web-based “widget� to collect and report election incidents that may require voter protection intervention.

VoterStory.org is an open-source utility that can be placed on any website to feed data into a central database, which in turn alerts voter protection groups each time a new incident is reported in their district.

Today MAPLight.org unveiled a pioneering database that lays bare the connection between money and votes in California politics.

http://www.maplight.org

The MAPLight.org website combines information from the Official California Legislative Information website, which contains the official text of each bill and how each legislator voted, and the Institute on Money in State Politics, a national nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to accurate, comprehensive and unbiased documentation and research on campaign finance.

MAPLight.org allows journalists and citizens to answer questions such as:

Politicians are discovering the new political maxim in the Web 2.0 age: "The next stupid thing you say may be on YouTube." This great NYTimes article examines the new political landscape in which millions of grassroots cameras and instant video publishing are shining new light into the banal and risk-averse world of modern politics.

Some political analysts say that YouTube could force candidates to stop being so artificial, since they know their true personalities will come out anyway. “It will favor a kind of authenticity and directness and honesty that is frankly going to be good,� said Carter Eskew, a media consultant who worked for Senator Lieberman’s primary campaign. “People will say what they really think rather than what they think people want to hear.�

Sunlight Foundation has released Popup Politicians "an AJAX-based widget that adds mini-profiles with links of Members of Congress to your page that appear when you mouseover the link."

Mobile Voter has just launched TxtVoter.

The new free system allows individuals and organizations to use texting (SMS) to conduct their own voter registration campaigns. Users can define their own text-in keywords, print out customized postcards, track respondents, and win prizes.

For example using your phone, you can text "civicactions" (no quotes) to 75444 and register to vote!

Sweet!

George Lakoff writes, "The mantra of incompetence has been an unfortunate one. The incompetence frame assumes that there was a sound plan, and that the trouble has been in the execution. It turns public debate into a referendum on Bush’s management capabilities, and deflects a critique of the impact of his guiding philosophy. It also leaves open the possibility that voters will opt for another radically conservative president in 2008, so long as he or she can manage better. Bush will not be running again

William Greider argues in The Nation this week that the reigning political ideology has died, that the sea change is already upon us for a complete shift of the political landscape -- a chance that will be squandered if Democrats revert to giving in to corporatist expediencies. Progressives need a solid plan now, or else.

See The Future is Now

Some tidbits:

"The economy exists to support society and people, not the other way around. Only government can liberate them from the harsh rule of the marketplace, the demands imposed by capital and corporations that stunt or stymie the full pursuit of life and liberty in this complex industrial society. This very wealthy country has the capacity to insure that all citizens, regardless of status or skills, have the essential needs to pursue secure, self-directed lives. This starts with the right to health, work, livable incomes and open-ended education, and to participate meaningfully in the decisions that govern their lives. The marketplace has no interest in providing these. It is actively destroying them.