June 20, 2007

Politics 2.0: Fight Different

Fight Different: Politics 2.0

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Politics 2.0

Editors’ Note

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Politics 2.0

Fight Different

justice scale

The neutrality of this story is disputed.

Open-Source Politics

Open-source politics is the idea that social networking and participatory
technologies will revolutionize our ability to follow, support, and influence
political campaigns. Forget party bosses in smoky backrooms—netroots
evangelists and web consultants predict a wave of popular democracy as
fundraisers meet on MySpace, YouTubers crank out attack ads, bloggers do oppo
research, and cell-phone-activated flash mobs hold miniconventions in Second
Life. The halls of power will belong to whoever can tap the passion of the
online masses. That kid with a laptop has Karl Rove quaking in his boots. And if
you believe that, we’ve got some leftover Pets.com stock to sell you.


Table of Contents


Crashing the System
Are we entering a new era of digital democracy—or just being conned by a bunch of smooth-talking geeks?

bullet point Politics 2.0: What we’re ready for, what we’re not

bullet point Who’s Plugged In? A snapshot of the online political elite


Meet the New Bosses
By Daniel Schulman
After crashing the gate of the political establishment, bloggers are looking more like the next gatekeepers.

bullet point MoveOn Keeps Moving On

bullet point www.president.com: How the candidates’ sites stack up

bullet point What’s Hype? Is MySpace for politicos or pedophiles?

bullet point 10,000 Deaniacs: Where are they now?

PLUS: Daily Kos’ lead site designer on the search for the ultimate digital community.


Masters of Their Domain
By Josh Harkinson
Silicon Valley conservatives are trying to build the right-wing MoveOn from the top down.

bullet point A Vast YouTube Conspiracy: Conservatives take their videos and go home.

bullet point Dick Morris’ Footage Fetish: Going after Hillary online

bullet point The Digerati Code: Know your netroots from your socnets


The Attack Ad’s Second Life
By Leslie Savan and Dave Gilson
Despite “macaca” and “Hillary 1984,” the 30-second TV campaign spot ain’t going anywhere—yet.

bullet point TXT MSGS 2 D RESQ?: Cell-phone activism is still on hold

bullet point Stupid Tech Tricks: As politics moves online, so have the dirty tricks.


Bloggers, Politicos, and Netizens Weigh In

Interviews With:


And many more…


This package was reported by Josh Harkinson, Daniel Schulman, and Leslie Savan, with additional reporting by Leigh Ferrara, Dave Gilson, Neha Inamdar, Gary Moskowitz, April Rabkin, Cameron Scott, and Jonathan Stein.


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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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