How to Win: install community plumbing, not ATM machines
The Netroots came under the microscope last weekend as the Vertical Media descended upon Vegas to observe YearlyKos (Whose website Advomatic hosted flawlessly BTW, y'all are welcome).
Even Big Russ II, the political junkies favorite pusher, wanted to know what the netroots meant for mid-terms '06 and '08, so he gathered his peeps and round-tabled YKos on Meet The Press. Tim Russert even had Kos, who was awesome, via satellite from Sin City.
From having been part of the political blogosphere since before deancalltoaction.blogspot.com (anybody else remember that one?), I knew that netroots player hating on MTP would be inevitable. And I was right.
Shorter MTP Netroots hatin': While the blogosphere is great at raising money for individual candidates, like Congressional Candidate Paul Hackett in 2005, the Netroots lacks the resources to scale.
Two responses:
1. You think we can't raise money?!?! Did you see how much money we raised for Dean in the POTUS primaries , we smashed every record; The website Advomatic built for Air America is a profit center; And Paul Hackett did not just raise money, Hackett raised so much money he had to tell the netroots to stop giving him money! The ability to leverage the Internet to raise money is never a netroots deficiency.
2. Stop disrespecting the medium, your nonstop money-talk is vulgar. Money is only one factor in a myriad of campaign needs. Think list building, phone banking, events coordination, advance, field, district mapping, voterfile, messaging, voter identification, paid media, earned media, schwag, accounting, staff adminstration, policy formation, amongst others. Civicspace/Drupal transforms an organizations ability to do ALL these needs. By providing an unparalleled content management system, Civicspace/Drupal networks organizations completely so that ANY staff or volunteered can be empowered to get it done. This is not about hitting up an ATM, Drupal is about using a virtually unlimited toolbox to harness people power.
Conclusion: The netroots not only scales, with Drupal, we can scale the most powerful idea, democracy itself. In 2003, Zephyr Teachout told the New York Times that Drupal is the revolution; In 2006, Advomatic will train your revolutionaries.
