Putting Those "Friends" To Work

The 1 Million Strong for Barack Obama FaceBook group just launched a new project - Endorse Barack. The site aggregates state and local petitions requesting that Senators, Congressmen, Mayors and Governors endorse Senator Obama's candidacy.

It's a really good idea. Right now, the Barack FaceBook group has upwards of 300,000 "friends." Whether or not those folks have actually done anything for the campaign is questionable at best. Endorse Barack provides a simple ask that can move those potential, or "soft" supporters up the ladder of participation in a relatively painless manner. It's not too big a leap from signing up for a FaceBook group to signing an electronic petition, but the potential payoff for the Obama campaign and for the FaceBook supporters is pretty big. The campaign stands to increase the buy-in among a vast source of potential supporters, and translate some of the youthful grassroots energy around the campaign into tangible political capital in the form of increased establishment support and all the donor and media love that support entails. Obama's young FaceBook group supporters stand to legitimize their organizing practices.

Right now the site is still in beta and only 2,000 or so people have signed upwards of 90 separate petitions. I'll be checking in periodically to see if this takes off.