(r)evolution

Brother Can You Paradigm?

Walter Isaacson's cover story arguing that micropayments could save journalism is just plain embarrassing. That tends to happen when journalists try to figure out new ways to keep doing what they've always done, rather than looking at how people actually use the Internet and figuring out where the opportunities are to do something new. Don't get me wrong -- I was a longtime practicioner  of hardcore journalism -- but NYT.com is not the iTunes store, as Eric Etheridge and Michael Kinsley so deftly explain.

Obama Back to Campaign Mode to Sell Stimulus

Organizing for America pumped this video out to the former Obama campaign list as the president prepared to head for townhall meetings to pitch the stimulus. He has a two-fold challenge: mobilizing public opinion, and mobilizing it effectively in the complicated, muddy battle over ammendments to the stimulus bill.

Reality Check

 The Obama message machine is blowing tires and leaking oil as it tries to race the stimulus bill through Congress, where Republicans are seizing on anything that smells like pork and cooking up a time-proven narrative of Democratic waste, the Politico reports. Part of the problem is that the Chicago crowd needs to adapt at lightning speed to its more skillful Washington adversaries. But the other is that Obama has been separated from his powerful list, which resides outside the White House at the Democratic National Committee, and the commmunications team inside is still struggling with technology and staffing. Stay tuned.

No Need for New Ideas? Think Again

Sometimes you need to step outside of your own box to really see what's in it. The Social Democratic Party in Sweden feels a lot like the Democratic Party in the U.S. right after Clinton; convinced that they have figured out the formula for governing and interested only in new tactics to get back in power. The problem is, while it may once have been true, new ideas for tackling new problems are critical to keep a movement fresh and give voters something to vote for, rather than simply something to vote against. That's part of the explanation for the stunning ascendancy of the Center for American Progress, my employer, while the leading centrist think tank of the Clinton years has stagnated around its philosophy of "it's the Third Way or the highway."  

Content Morphs But It's Still King

What's a think tank or policy research shop to do when a friendly president takes office, vows to let people speak directly with the White House, and commands a 13-person email list outside? What they do best -- publish the content that advocacy organizations don't have the infrastructure to create, the government is too hamstrung to produce, and that they think matters most. Nor just policy ideas, but policy ideas polished, packaged and repurposed in ways that make them accessible to diverse audiences, especially as multimedia.

Introducing the Tech President

The seminars I conducted with the Prime Group in Europe last week focused on what it really means to have a president who embraces technology and science -- for campaigns, e-government, policy, and advocacy (hint: policy already matters; steps toward transparency and participation are mostly window-dressing but may start to change management culture and more in the long run). Most takeaways are published in this blog; the PowerPoint outline can be downloaded here.

Brussels blogger Gerald Loftus did a nice summary of the European response, presented by the thoughtful and charismatic Vice President of the European Commission, former Swedish minister Margot Wallström. While she spelled out the differences between Europe and the U.S., she clearly welcomes the trend toward more public engagement, something that feels far removed from the halls of the European Parliament.

Whether online or face to face, whether in the old media or the new, both in the EU and the US, what democracy needs is a real conversation, in plain language, between the people and the politicians. A conversation that shapes policy. Politics from the bottom up rather than top down. That's the kind of democracy I believe in. And so does Barack Obama.

Now back to America, where the battle over the stimulus bill makes it feel like politics as usual, at least for now.