I was a state and then national campaign staffer in the 1960s, and I can report that present White House community activism is very 1960s. As Howard Rheingold has been pointing out in recent posts, in 21st century smart mobbing new stuff is happening (as another bit describes in this article Howard quotes by Clay Spinuzzi):
The initial response of Congress and the White House was to portray these people as dupes, liars, and worse. Now, the White House is now urging Congresspeople to pack town halls with their own supporters, a tactic that will probably result in charges that Congress is astroturfing. The problem is that such tactics assume centralized control. If I’m right in applying Castells, Robb, Arquilla and Ronfeldt, and others, that assumption is incorrect and such counterprotest measures will backfire. In fact, they will likely give protestors more common ground - protestors who are undoubtedly exchanging phone numbers and email addresses at these meetups.
For what an old pol’s insight is worth, this is my take on what is happening with the crowds who are overflowing townhalls this month:
The White House is operating by the 1960sish top down, spread the noise and muscle principles.
The crowds opposing Obamacare tend to be doing what is natural in a networked activity, as Spinuzzi notes: exchanging phone numbers and email addresses at meetups. Thus the mob grows, and grows smarter.
Comments
@ 21:56
From what I’ve read, the anti-Obama forces have been mobilized by professional PR groups with funding from the Right and the health insurance industry, drawing from the ranks of loosely organized discontented groups. The object has always been to shut down any debate and few are adding anything to the discussion.
Only now are the pro-Obama forces coming into the fray. This is happening out of Change for America, the continuation of Obama’s campaign but it is even more loosely organized. For instance, the Boston group chartered buses for the recent Obama town hall in NH. Those folks are probably exchanging information as much as the Tea Party folks.
The PR disinformation campaign is likely to be extended to climate change and the Waxman-Markey bill as recent oil patch communiques indicate. The tactic is now becoming SOP. Look for carbon trading to be branded as “death trading” sometime soon.
As for the mob growing smarter, they will grow smarter in terms of disruption and disinformation but not smarter in terms of the issues. They don’t need to or want to. Their object, as Rick Pearlstein editorializes in the Wash Post, is to stop any action on health care today, on climate change tomorrow, on taxes the day after tomorrow.
Obama is making the same mistake Deval Patrick made: running a grassroots/netroots campaign and governing from the corner office. Patrick is irrelevant in MA now, having vitiated all the good will and people power his campaign generated. Obama is following the same path, although his recent town hall appearances have shown a glimpse of imagination and a different direction through speaking facts and figures straight to counter the lies and exaggerations.