Kim Gandy, President of the National Organization for Women has been involved in feminist and electoral politics at just about every level you can imagine. We really have to in this next election. It will be women's votes that determine the outcome.
Growing up in the women's movement, she heard often that personal is political. But she also heard that sometimes the personal is just personal. When you talk about what affects you, it's affecting other people too. How many in the room feel on their blogs, the personal is poltical? The vast majority raised their hands. In 2006 there weren't enough of us with a broad enough reach. This time there are.
How many in 2006 blogged about the election? How many put a "register to vote" button on their blogs? Only five or six did. They are looking at womens' circles of influence. How can we educate women, get them politically connected and have them reach out in their own circles: co-workers, day care, beauty shop, reading group, and then expand. Blogs give a whole new opportunity to do that. We're moving from a reward-based model to engaging women and getting women to engage their peers.
She's looking for thoughts, ideas and engagement from us on how to do this successfully - engaging women in turning personal into the political. Sex Without Love is like electoral politics without democracy. We've gotten to a point in our country where we're fighting for a right to vote but lost a sense of what it means to have democracy. We all have to take responsibility, in local elections, school board votes, and see this country and this world as part of our responsibility.
Zephyr Teachout is no longer working for anyone. Write her if she's interested in engaging in a particular campaign. She has a lot of expderience with nonprofits and growing networks. One you can try to grow a huge amount of attention around it. Start an online petitions. All families should get a home visit within three weeks of birth? Start a petition. Don't worry about what politicians think is a reasonable thing to care about. Politics is so flexible and change happens so quickly. Start where you are. Get your local press list and blog list. Write a short email about the things you care about. Use the Internet to get offline. The most powerful networks are offline networks that meet repeatedly. We can find out each others' competence. SOme research shows that twelve people is the optimum - gives the different competencies needed to support a movement.
Liza Sabater started as a mommy blogger, started writing more about politics and culture. 2004 happened. As an independent blogger, her writing about politics didn't fit so well. She created the Daily Gotham, largest independent blog in NYC, where she writes about NY politics. She's heard politicians refer to the site as the 800-pound gorilla. She doesn't feel that way. She wanted to know the people who were responsible for her potholes. So she started this blog. It's a community blog. it's a kind of blog that has a calendar. It has forums, and a blogging area as well. It has a way of bringing in people at different levels of authority. It's what she likes to call a community management system. But she had started blogging on Movable Type. She wanted to write her site so that anyone who came there would feel as though they had something to do, depending on their interests. It's important to have a mailing list.
Meet-up is one of your first points of entry into your local political sphere. It's absolutely important that you know who the people are in your organizations. I go to so many meetings in a month. She is not normal in online politics because she respects her Republican politics. She supports her GOP counterpart at Urban Elephants. She has Republicans on her blogroll. This is a point of massive debate within progressive, liberal bloggers. Tough. She doesn't feel that way.
Christian home schoolers form blog swarms. Before that there were e-mail swarms.
We have to go to where people are now - Facebook and MySpace.
Morra: What did immigration people do right on the grassroots level?
Liza: They made sure they dealt with the communication reality of their base. They had cell-phone chains where people were text messaging each others. For those who had computers and blogs, they did massive blog swarms. People can tack onto that and create a massive wave of attention.They had different clusters of people in case the police came when they were protesting. She was impressed how they had really worked out logistics, both preliminary communication and on the ground with very simple technology.
Sarah: A blogger says something, a mainstream media reporter reads it, does more research, and writes a story. All of the radio hosts in California were on non-stop talking about rallies. In the middle of a campaign, supporting legal immigration and what it does for the state and still appealing to Republican base media. was difficult.
Liza: There was this huge summit afterwards of ethnic media where they got into a room this big and shook each others' hands. All these ethnic media were doing their own thing to support the marches but most had never met each other.
In California, they started putting registration cards for voting into their newspapers. It was a simple act that moved people to get out on the street. At least half of the readers might not have been able to vote, but they see the card and it encourages you.
Sarah: It freaked out people on the other side. What is this going to do to Latino turnout? Is it going to increase? Will it impact our ability to win? The media was very fair in the context of the Schwarzenegger campaign. They released all ads in Spanish that mirrored their English-language stuff. The minute they started polarizing messages based on what ethnic groups they're talking to, it looks like polarizing.
Kim: They did a great job of getting on the streets. Women bloggers got bodies out in Washington, D.C. to make an impact. Established organizations are worried about bloggers: they're going to sit at home on the computer and not get out and help. You need to use your online presence to motivate and get offline.
Liza: Political bloggers need to get involved. It expands your reach on the local level.
Sarah: It's not that hard to reach people. And ten people agitating so Sarah has to go to her boss and say they have an issue is important. A lot of campaigns are run by young men, most without families, they don't get it, so you have to let them know what's going on.
Beth Corbin has a blog called Yikes. Because of her day job she travels a lot. In the 2004 election season, she was in Pennsylvania and met people who are doing organizing there. Brought home to her the local impact of politics. They have a list of 1,000 names and e-mail about who they support. Some of their elections are won or lost by ten votes. Anyone who wants to win has to meet with these women because if they don't get approved by them, they won't get elected. This needs to be duplicated. When we do this, we will have the power.
Sarah: RNC learned that even though they'd won the war, they'd lost many battles. They needed more personal, individual contact. Phone or in-person contacts are best. They
I'm so glad that you're going to be writing about politics as the election picks up heat.
Posted by: joanna | July 29, 2007 at 08:53 AM