Why We Should Care About an Open-Source Convention

I've been offline most of the day.  This morning, I got the Obama campaign e-mail announcing that ordinary citizens will have direct input into the Democratic Party platform.  I got back online expecting to see the blogosphere buzzing about this radical proposal.

August 2008 will be the first open-source party convention.  The Convention has always been an insider's game, with credential requirements, rules committees and professionals running the show.  Not anymore.  

Surely the netroots would be excited about this.  Surely we would see front page stories on all the major Democratic blogs, and one, maybe two Recommended diaries on the topic.  Apparently, that isn't what happened.  A few diarists, it appears, posted the news, but generated little discussion.  No front page stories on DKos, MyDD or Open Left.  

Barack Obama just threw open the doors of the Democratic Party Convention and the people who should care the most collectively shrugged their shoulders.  That's too bad, because it tells us something really important about what kind of President he plans to be.

Writing in The Nation soon after the 2004 election, Micah Sifry correctly identified the new political movement that would rise out of the ashes of Kerry's loss and transform the electoral prospects of the Democratic Party - The Rise of Open-Source Politics

Whether you're a Democrat in mourning or a Republican in glee, the results from election day should not obscure an important shift in America's civic life. New tools and practices born on the Internet have reached critical mass, enabling ordinary people to participate in processes that used to be closed to them. It may seem like cold comfort for Kerry supporters now, but the truth is that voters don't have to rely on elected or self-appointed leaders to chart the way forward anymore. The era of top-down politics--where campaigns, institutions and journalism were cloistered communities powered by hard-to-amass capital--is over. Something wilder, more engaging and infinitely more satisfying to individual participants is arising alongside the old order.

Drawing on the concept of open-source software development, where end users can directly participate in creation, modification and distribution of the product, Sifry analogized the rising use of Web 2.0 tools to create an interactive political campaign.  The closed model involved passive voters receiving a message, controlled by party insiders and frequently disseminated by intermediaries or through constituency groups.  The new open model means a direct relationship between a candidate and the voters, a cooperative and interactive arrangement and as open and transparent an operation as possible.   If you are here, you know what I am talking about.

I've written before about Barack Obama's commitment to openness as a means of shifting power away from elites:

Many of Obama's best-known accomplishments involve maximizing citizen engagement in politics.  From the new Obama-Coburn Watchdog Database, to campaign finance reform, to his proposal to essentially put the federal government's business on the web in real time, he has always placed a premium on reforms that increase citizen involvement and engagement.  Even some of his critics recognize his leadership and innovation on this score.

Citizen participation is the check and balance on keeping big powerful economic interests from running the show.  Obama isn't afraid of having them at the table as long as all of us are watching over his shoulder.  It is the ability to manipulate policy in secret that gives them so much power.  As he frequently says on the campaign trail:

"When it comes to what is wrong with America, the American people are not the problem.  They are the answer."

Indeed, Obama's approach draws heavily on the theory of social entrepreneurship, as I discussed back in December in my take on Obama for America as a governance strategy:

Perhaps the best-known social entreprenuer organization is Ashoka, which describes the movement this way:

We are in the midst of a rare, fundamental structural change in society: citizens and citizen groups are beginning to operate with the same entrepreneurial and competitive skill that has driven business ahead over the last three centuries. People all around the world are no longer sitting passively idle; they are beginning to see that change can happen and that they can make it happen.  The result of this transformation will ultimately be a world where all individuals will be able to spot challenges, address them, and improve their lives. Rather than a tiny percentage of the world controlling the wealth and making the decisions that effect our lives, every individual will be empowered to determine his or her own future.

Indeed, Obama's widely praised new National Service Plan has an explicit social entepreneurship function.

What's the core of the model?  Participation.  Sounds an awful lot like the approach of a candidate who has blown the roof off of small donor fundraising and volunteeer-based campaigning strategies.  Sounds a lot like a candidate who will "ask us to be involved in our government again." For Obama, we are not passive beneficiaries of policy.  He will make the Washington policymaking space more open to our involvement than it has every been, but it will be up to us to come in and fight for the change we want.  If we don't step up to the plate, he won't impose something on our behalf.  Because he knows that kind of top-down approach is doomed to failure.  

When Barack Obama talks about "change we can believe in" he means this active engagement with the world.  He means that we can make it happen.

Today's e-mail missive represents yet another groundbreaking use of the open-source model, this time to break down the barriers to the last party-insider structure:  the Convention.  Obama plans to solicitordinary citizen input to the Democratic Party platform.  He plans to deliver his acceptance speech not to a hall full of delegates wearing credential badges, but in a free and open to the public event.   The message he wants us to take from this critical speech is that he will have the most open, public and transparent administration ever.

And that is worth a lot.  Because most of the worst abuses of the past eight years have involved too much secrecy.  From Cheney's energy task force to secret rendition flights, the pattern is clear.

I am disappointed that this big news is not being cheered by the very people who helped create open-source politics through direct engagement and participation.   Because we all know the revolution will not be televised - it will be You Tubed.

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Disclaimer:I am a volunteer for the Barack Obama campaign in California.  When I write hear I speak only for myself and not the campaign.  The campaign does not have any input on my diaries - the ideas and all the words in them are my own.