Democratic agenda

Cross posted at: The 41st Vote.

I am degreed in Computer Information Systems.  I do not make my living in the field and am not a "coder".  I have always been more focused on the Business Process side of it and how  do you use technology to solve a problem and improve processes.  That being said, I have become active in my local party and as, you can see from this blog, activist on the web.  I am determined to help bridge the gap between the GOP and the Democrat party when it comes to the use of technology.  To that end I fully support the goals of Rebuild The Party, one of which is to "Recruit 5 million new Republican online activists".

Wordpress has developed into a powerful tool for activists. It is simple to setup and administer for those less technically inclined, . As a result it is ubiquitous within cyberspace. While Drupal, and to some extent, Joomla have extremely powerful widgets that can be utilized for political activism (CiviRM, Write A Newspaper etc.). Tthe added administrative overhead of those extrememly powerful platforms make them less so.  I have an idea for a plug-in that could greatly empower the  grassroots t impact the behavior of our elected Representatives.

In developing this blog, I have scoured the Wordpress site and the Internet looking for plug-ins that can leverage the power of my blog by making it simple for day to day people to impact a specific piece of legislation or political opinion.  I am most focused on enabling people to contact their Congressman or Senator.  As many of you know, the Congress has gone to great lengths to filter and make it more difficult for people to contact them.  Mail suffers from delay resulting from the need to process it for biological terrorism and spam drove most of them to secrete their e-mail addresses When we capture the eyes and imagination of a member of the grassroots, we need to capitalize on that by making it simple for them to express their will immediately and in the broadest form.

To that end, I thought of a need for a plug-in that would have the following Charter:

"Empower the user to immediately respond, through all available means,  to the party that can impact the desired outcome."

1. The specific requirements:
   1. Provide an interface to a predefined template with wording that will form the basis of the communication for a specific purpose.
   2. Provide a method of searching for the most effective targets of that communication, specifically that constituents elected Congresman for his District and surrounding Districts within a specific radius and the Elected Senators that represent him.
   3. Provide for the ability to send the communication by all the following methods of transit, both individually and in concert:
      1. E-mail
      2. Fax
      3. Snail Mail
   4. Provide access through an API, to a database, to be maintained by a sponsoring organization that will contain the e-mail contact, FAX number, telephone number and the Washington mail address for each and every member of Congress and for all of this information for each and every elected State House Member and Senator of the 50 states and the territories.
   5. Function as a plug-in to the Wordpress platform.
   6. Provide the ability to insert the title of the blog post from within which that individual was stirred to react.
   7. Insert the permalink of that post into the e-mail body.
   8. Ability to color the background of the subject line with a color determined by the blog author for visual targeting.
   9. Insert the e-mail of the letter submitter, simultaneously capturing that information to the blogs subscriber list.

It may be that we need to scale back the scope.  That is for the coders to determine.  My purpose is to place the idea into the activist community to try to stir someone to undertake the development of the plug-in.  I intend to cross post this at Rebuild the Party and the attendant community sites.  The database will require the largest effort I am sure, but among all of the activist out there we can reduce the manhours per individuals to collect that data.  I know that the data is available for purchase, however I am unsure that it would be feasable to utilize that data within the scope of this requirment due to licensing terms. I anyone woudl like to discuss this, find me at these links Facebook or through the Action Network of the Rebuild the Party website.

This is the first of a two-day discussion between TheNextRight.com (Soren Dayton and Jon Henke) and Culture11.com (James Poulos and Conor Friedersdorf) about the Best Case and Worst Case scenario for the Right in 2008.  Conor Friedersdorf's contribution is here.  James Poulos contribution is here.  Jon Henke's is here.  Soren Dayton continues.

I have felt for a long time that the GOP's electoral collapse in 2008 is a disaster for America. While the GOP has demonstrated itself to the incompetent at both politics and governing, our country is facing serious issues. While the GOP's answers and the answers of conservatives are not completely adequate for the questions of the day, the Democrats and the left are much, much worse. Whether it is the future of international institutions, labor relations, electoral reform, immigration, welfare, taxes, trade, the nationalization of our banking system, among others, it is likely that the right will not have a seat at the table while these issues are resolved.

So let's take a deep breath and be adult for a moment. Without really disputing the points about conservatism benefitting from a sooner moment to reset and without disputing the real reasons that conservatives find John McCain wanting, the guy has to win for the sake of our country and our party.

The biggest dilemma that I see for us as conservatives or people of the right is the power of the left to enact policies that have long-term feedback loops. Let's look at some examples:

• The Democrats are proposing the "Employee Free Choice Act" or card-check which would strip an employee of the freedom to choose -- or even debate -- the structure of their employment contract. Aside from the essential loss of freedom, this will flood the coffers of union PACs and divert union pension programs from their path towards self-destruction. A President McCain can simply veto this and fight this from the bully pulpit.
• The Democrats are already drafting electoral "reforms" that will validate the essentially criminal behavior of Ohio Democratic Secretary of State who (seemingly) willfully refuses to implement the checks of the Help America Vote Act. The Democrats will talk about expanding the franchise, but they will really strip out the checks on fraud that are such a compelling story right now with ACORN. This probably wouldn't even come to a vote without a President Barack Obama to sign it.
• The Democrats are salivating at the possibility of delivering an immigration reform proposal that delivers a contrast with Republicans that will help solidify Latino votes for the Democrats. Republicans will be struck with a brand in the Latino community as hateful while giving the Democrats the image of compassionate problem solvers. McCain is a compassionate figure in the Latino community who can take credit for the passage of this legislation, regardless of what conservatives think.
• Obama's tax proposals create incentives for the same kind of dependency that conservatives dismantled 12 years ago. Again, not even conceivable with a McCain presidency.
• Finally, Obama's proposal to expanding the service corps is going end up looking like dropping 300,000 new ACORN-style organizers paid by the government. McCain has a service program, but is there any doubt that his would look quite different recruiting different kinds and people and deploying them differently?

Let's be clear. If you thought that George W. Bush and Karl Rove were rigging the American political system against the left--a not unreasonable position--, Barack Obama and his allies are going to teach with you what patsies the Republicans are at this.

The Democrats have an agenda that has nothing to do with helping America. Barack Obama's whole political career has been about paying off his constituencies. And he could end up paying them off by delivering 3-5% of a national vote in a structural and long-term sense. The best case for the GOP this year is to be able to stop this with a President McCain in the bully pulpit, regardless of all of his many failings.

Open Left's Chris Bowers provides some insight into the progressive's perception of the likely Democratic agenda for 2009...

In our attempts to build a large Democratic trifecta in Washington, D.C., what, exactly, are we fighting for? To answer that question, here is a comprehensive list of legislation that is certain to pass if Obama wins the White House, we pick up 20 more seats in the House, and 8 more seats in the Senate...

You can find the full list at his post.  Suffice it to say, from legislation that puts a thumb on the scale for Labor Unions to government price controls for health care to massive regulatory expansion, there's something there to worry everybody.....including elements of the Democratic coalition. 

But this point from Bowers should raise the most concern.

The most exciting bits are the positive, progressive feedback loops around increasing unionization (the employee free choice act) and election reform (D.C. voting rights, verified paper trails). These are laws that will make the country itself more progressive, thus building a progressive majority down the road. If we can get more of these, including sweeping media reform (about which we should be optimistic), real immigration reform, (about which I am not optimistic) and the progressive budget (which might just happen by 2011, if all goes well), then we will be on our way to a progressive majority in America that will last for an entire generation.

Policies that redistribute the media to liberal interests, make the public more dependent on liberal institutions and give the government more largesse to distribute to the public.  Policies that entrench Democratic power.

That's the agenda.