We had a bit of discussion earlier in the Cafe about how it’s nice to see politicians on the recommended list at Daily Kos, but that it’s frustrating that they basically come over, post their piece, and leave, never interacting in any meaningful way with the rank and file.
Well, that got me to thinking, and I may have an idea. Read on and see if you agree.
I can see two ways in which BT might be able to drive better contact between us bloggers and the representatives we are trying to influence, or who want our support but we don’t see them as supporting us in return.
I’ll use Nancy Pelosi as an example, pretty much at random because she’s in a position of some power (hobbled by House Slitherin as she might be). There are two ways I think we might be able to get Ms. Pelosi to become part of the group instead of doing drive-bys. Now I should state at the outset that the thought of her, or any other representative or senator, hitting the blogs as much as I do frightens me. I want them fighting for my interests in Congress, not hanging out over here.
That being said, here are two possibilities. Both involve making arrangements with a member of her staff.
The first would be to arrange a date and time at which Ms. Pelosi’s aide would be online, logged in here at BT with a user account, and ready to chat. At that point the staffer would post a message introducing him/herself, and then the questions and comments would start flying. They could give us an idea of what Ms. Pelosi’s stand on various issues is (or get back to us if s/he doesn’t know), answer questions about the day-to-day operation of the House, stuff like that. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be something rather than “Here, I’ve called for a bipartisan investigation into the popularity of sauerkraut, and oh by the way contribute to my re-election campaign” thrown over the wall from her office.
This would work best as a regular feature, having different guests each time rather than just relying on contact with a single congresscritter.
The second possibility is to conduct Slashdot-style interviews. Back when I was reading regularly, they would contact a guest to arrange for an interview. Then they would solicit questions from the audience, and the top ten highest-rated questions would be sent on to the interviewee for their response. The questions and their responses would be published in a follow-up article, with the responses debated and discussed. Occasionally, when the interviewee was a Slashdot participant like actor Wil Wheaton, they would participate in the post-interview debate as well.
I’m not sure exactly how this would be adapted for BT. Slashdot’s rating system is a bit more complicated than the one over here, and they would be more likely to have a varied and interesting pool of questions, given that they probably get about 50 times the user traffic of BT. And it would mean work for someone in starting up the process and setting up the contact.
So, what do you think? Is something like this viable? Is it workable here in the frog pond? I don’t know for sure, but it would sure be a feather in BooMan’s cap to have the people making the news over here actually interacting with us froggies, instead of hitting and running.
See, if we can convert some of the power elite to thinking that they are one of Us instead of We are the great unwashed Them who only matter as a source of money and votes, maybe we can get something done in this country.
There’s a section of the Peter Principle (the book) that states that you can rise faster in an hierarchy faster if you have Push (determination to rise) and Pull (assistance from Patrons at higher levels than yours) than if you just use Push alone. Maybe by letting some of our elected representatives know that we aren’t that radical, we have reasons to be angry (lots of reasons, actually), we are asking for common-sense things that will benefit all Americans rather than concentrating our votes in the hands of a few special interests . . . well maybe we can attain some Push and finally get something done around here.
It would be an online community meeting. It could happen at regularly scheduled times. I’ll bet some really good things could come out of it. It would be a win-win situation. There might even be a specially designated offshoot blog for it.
I like that.
I’m a member of a group called the Shift in Action that is part of the Institute of Noetic Sciences. As a member, every weekend I get an email about a telephone conference call they set up on Wednesday at 7:00 pm. On the phone, they have a guest and an interviewer. After the interview is over, they open up the lines and people can ask questions and join in the dialogue. Finally, they archive all of the teleconferences on their web site so you can go back and listen to those you missed.
Seems like something like that would be even easier to organize on a blog than it is on the phone. I think its a great way of using technology to create a powerful community that is seperated by distance.
This would require some logistical acrobatics, I think, but I wholeheartedly agree with your idea, Omir. I’d like to think through some of those before going off half-cocked, so to speak.
But it seems to me, that with our geographically diverse population here, if some of us folks went regional and contacted our congress critters with requests to participate (even if it’s just a staffer), enough scattershots around the country might just produce a modicum of results.
If, however, we were to take that tactic, one thing that appears very important to me is that we specifically discourage the sort of “drive by press droppings,” (Thanks, SN, I stole your term!) that we all seem to find rather annoying, if not condescending.
Thanks for throwing this out there, Omir. I’d like to think it through a bit more and maybe we can all continue this dialogue and see if it is indeed a feasible proposition.
Well, we would need to be up front about it. If a congresscritter agrees to this, they have to stick around for at least the alloted time if it’s a live interaction, or agree to answer questions put to them if it’s an interview. I will admit that the interview gives us a much better chance of seeing drive-bys peppered with cuts from press clippings, but we might also get some honest answers.
I mean, even a non pre-canned answer to “If you were a car, what kind of car would you be?” would be something.
Great idea, Omir, but I want credit for starting the discussion!!! No really. Just KIDDING! LOL.
I’m with you on this and think it is time to take this to the next level so we can interface with politicians who want to be involved in the blogs but not have the blogs become a place for them to get free campaign coverage and hog the recommended diary list as I noticed the ywere doing on DKos earlier.
that you can get an awful lot done as long as you don’t care who gets credit for it. 🙂
There’s a great deal of misinformation out there about blogs, what they are, who frequents them, and how they work. I’m thinking this might be one way for us to really kick the electoral process in the pants.
Maybe we can gang up on some of our favorite potential Presidential candidates and have them tell us, in their own words, why we should vote for them. Wouldn’t it be amazing to get Wes Clark, Russ Feingold or Al Gore on here to actually talk to us like regular human beings and stuff?
I cvan’t help but think that at least a few of the people on Our Side got into politics for that very reason — to get to know and interact with their neighbors. I can’t imagine that they all said, “Well, I’ll just go get myself elected and then have myself hermetically sealed inside the Beltway Bubble and only come out once every couple of years.”
“you can get an awful lot done as long as you don’t care who gets credit for it”
Who’s team are you on?
The one that gets things done, I hope.
Well, I’m on the team that is happy to acknowledge the contribution of it’s teammates!
That’s great. I firmly believe in giving credit where credit is due. Like I said though, if I come up with the idea that saves America from the Goon Squad, and Al Gore picks it up and runs with it and gets elected President and puts the idea into action, he can claim it’s his idea all he wants for all I care. Just as long as the job gets done.
Fabulous Idea!!!!! Or Nancy herself could set aside two hours one night to answer questions and miss a cocktail party.
Direct access to the people who make the laws.
It would be nice to have some of them come on so we can regale them with our, uh, pet projects. Like have Street Kid do a presentation on why Medicare D(isaster) needs to be repealed, or I could lay out my case against why the broadcast flag and analog hole flag that keep coming up like some undead B movie monster need to be put down once and for all. Stuff like that where you could think that even if they didn’t agree with you, at least they heard you.
once upon a time in the early days of the site, there were a couple of (PA?) congressional candidates that we were given advance warning for their arrival.
I think that type of interaction is better than the press release-type diaries that I’ve seen at other sites. Sen. Feingold posted one here recently too, iirc. I wonder if any of the community sites around blogtopia (yes, skippy coined that phrase!) have actively reached out to the staffers to set something up a session like you’re proposing?
I know here in Az, the State Democratic Party has a position specifically devoted to “non-traditional media outreach”, that type of person seems like a good start to begin a dialogue.
Looking forward to seeing where this goes!
will be enough to break my out-of-control blog addiction.
Well, then you can be Senator Ben Masel (D-Blogtopia)*
* Hey, did you know Skippy coined that phrase? I didn’t!
No Congress business on the weekends — they should be able to squeeze out a few minutes/hours to connect with The Public they purport to serve…