RootsCampDC

This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending RootsCampDC (put on by the New Organizing Institute) along with Mike and a few hundred of our friends/colleagues, and I thought I'd offer a few of my thoughts and experiences from, what I thought to be, a really great conference.

Mike and I drove down to DC from Philly on Saturday morning along with our friends Fred Dereau, from Living Liberally and Advomatic, and Franz Hartl, from outerspace (as well as Music for America and Advomatic). We arrived a little late--around 11am-- which meant no mimosas for us, though we did catch the first session- a huge introduction led by Zack Exley, where everyone in the room said their name, what they did during the campaign season, and something interesting they wanted to talk about. Zack also explained the ground rules of the conference--it was an Open Space Technology event, modeled after BarCamp, where anyone could host a short session (between 30 minutes and one hour), and where everybody was expected to participate. This had the potential, in my mind, to devolve quickly into a "feel good" event, where little of substance would emerge. But, this cynicism was short lived; given that most of the 400 or so people in attendance were organizers and leaders, almost all of the sessions I went to were interesting and informative.

At the end of the intro session Zack directed us to the large boards where everyone posted the sessions that they wanted to lead, and took note of the sessions that they wanted to join. Mike and I posted a session titled "Making Politics Relevant", which eventually was combined with the session "Fun Politics," which included people from Drinking/Living Liberally, The Bus Project, Campus Progress, Traction, and, of course, Music for America/Philly Against Santorum (there were other groups represented there as well, though I cannot recall who they were at the moment). The session, as with all of the sessions, was too short, but it was still amazing to hear all of the new and inventive ways that organizations across the country are trying to make politics more interesting and who are lowering the bar for people to become involved. We didn't get a chance to discuss the ways in which we can get people who do fun events to help out with the more grueling work of politics, which is one of the big subjects that many of us are grappling with. The other thing that I would have liked to have discussed is funding these sorts of efforts, but again the time was too short to go into this within the session itself.

Two of the best sessions were, unsurprisingly, led by the New Politics Institute's Peter Leyden and the New Democratic Network's Simon Rosenberg (NPI is part of NDN). The first session I attended at the conference was a presentation by Simon, whose work I have admired for a few years now and whom I wanted to become DNC chair, and Pete, whom I had heard of but never heard speak before, and dealt with the future of the party. The main part of the session dealt with some of the demographic shifts that are changing the political landscape in the nation, most notably the huge increases in American Latino populations, and the enormous Millenial Generation that is the subject of Future Majority. I had no idea, as sad as that is given my interests and line of work, that the Milennials are as big of a group as the baby boomers. As Pete noted, the fact that this large population is leaning so heavily progressive (by a 2-1 margin) means that we have the opportunity to secure a majority that could dominate the American political scene for years, if Progressives/Liberals/Dems choose to engage this group (which I do not believe they have chosen to do... yet). If you're interested, check out this short video where Pete explains How the Millennial Generation Will Impact Politics, or this web version of Simon's presentation on how America's changing demographics will alter the political landscape.

The second Leyden led session that I attended was a 30 minute presentation on Sunday that dealt broadly with technological changes and how it should effect campaigns (co-led by Julie Bergman Sender who was behind ACT's hilarious Will Ferrill as George W Bush video). The basic message was that while the media landscape has changed and made it easier for campaigns to do outreach, most Democratic campaigns rely upon the failed methods of the past (mainly network television ad buys). The message was about the same that NPI pushes on their website: campaigns should buy cable ads, engage bloggers, use search ads, and speak in Spanish. Pete also briefly looked at the other emerging technologies that may effect politics: social networking sites, viral and bottom-up video, mobile media, games, and TiVO.

Other than the "Fun Politics" session, I participated most heavily in two other sessions. First, at the end of the first day, I went to the PA Debrief session, which unfortunately meant that I had to skip the Youth Voting session. But, I wasn't disappointed by the session- it was great to hear from a large number of campaigns, in a relatively BS free environment (the only time my BS detectors were activated was when a woman from the Lois Murphy campaign argues against my contention that Lois' loss was due, in large part, to the bland, network-TV, DCCC campaign that she ran). It was especially nice to learn that not a single campaign had a good experience with the Rendell/Casey/"Coordinated" camps, which seemed to be staffed like the government of a banana republic and who were just as efficient and effective as a third-world bureaucracy. My only regret from the session was that we all didn't exchange contact info, because I think that it could have been a great opportunity to make real connections for the next election and beyond (not that we cannot still make the connections, but we did miss an easier chance).

The second session that I heavily participated in was a session on Music and Politics that I helped lead with Franz and Scott Goodstein of, amongst other really cool endeavors, helped create Punk Voter and the amazing and popular Rock Against Bush cds. Within the session we were able to look at the many ways to look at the connection between politics and music. We discussed bands who put explicitly political messages within their songs, managers/promoters who use their influence to push a political agenda, as well as those of us who attempt to politicize music scenes. Again I had to skip some sessions that I would have really liked to attend, most notably one on mobilizing high-school students and another dealing with social networking tools.

I also attended a session where I swore (and most of my friends assumed) I was going to get into a fight. The session was led by MoveOn and people from the most horrendous "progressive" political institution-- Grassroots Campaigns, Inc. The session dealt with MoveOn's phone banking operations, much of which was done by people in the comfort of their own homes, which is, in my opinion, the future of phone banking. This operation was led primarily by sworn enemies of openness and accountability in progressive institutions--GCI--and as the session started I received a couple of texts and yells from friends who alerted me that the for-profit parasites were leading a session. In the end I ignored the fact that MoveOn works against the emerging progressive movement by partnering with such a rancid POS org (filled, unfortunately, with really nice and I'm sure well-meaning people) as GCI, and got the 411 on their operations, which were, honestly, pretty interesting. The idea of distributed phone banking speaks to the power of net-enabled politics, and it sounded as though they were fairly successful at what they did (though I have no way to independently confirm their successes). Anyway, it's not like I think that MoveOn gives a rats ass about the rank and file of the progressive movement, and while I think that they should, I didn't think that me speaking up would have any impact whatsoever. With rumors floating around that MoveOn will once again roll out their "No Voter Left Behind" program (which will surely squeeze out efforts like Philly Against Santorum), and assuming that they will use the parasitic cult--GCI-- for their field operations, I kept my powder dry for the real fight that is sure to ensue if and when MoveOn makes this move, which will pit them squarely against many of the activists whom they claim to speak for.)

All in all, I thought that the conference was one of the best that I have attended, and it was truly inspiring to meet so many of my fellow net-enabled activists and writers. As with most conferences, much of the benefit was to be had outside of the conference rooms where people mingled and networked, but unlike most other conferences the sessions themselves were really good. Kudos to the New Organizing Institute and Emerging Progressives for bringing us all together under such amazing circumstances, and helping us create the bonds that will carry this emerging movement forward for the foreseeable future.