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I understand where they're coming from, but I think they're off the mark.
Understand, that these are people who put in a great deal of time and effort into the progressive netroots. They blog on the most widely read blogs in the country, reaching tens or hundreds of thousands of readers each day, and barely make a living at it. Can you imagine Keith Olberman taking time out of his show to ask for money from his viewers so he has enough to pay his rent? The folks at MyDD each put well over 40 hours a week into blogging, do outstanding reporting and analysis, and recently they had to plead with their readers to scrape together 10,000 so they could afford to continue blogging full time.
Conservatives don't treat their advocates in the media this way. Bloggers have done a valuable service for the progressive movement, being a watchdog on the mainstream media and energizing and organizing the grassroots, yet it is almost impossible to earn a living blogging. MyDD has been on a bit of a crusade over the The One-Way Flow Of Progressive Movement Money, and it is understandable why they would take this incident as another example of what they see as a systematic problem.
But, its not quite like that.
They are buried a bit in the world of the blogs. Anthony's MySpace page, while significant and valuable to the Barack Obama campaign, was by no means 160,000 `opted in and engaged activists' as they are portraying it to be. Sure, a blog 160,000 daily readers could generally argue that those readers were `opted in and engaged', and that they had a great deal of activists reading.
But MySpace isn't a blog.
Social networking sites, while a new and growing field for online campaigning, are nothing like blogs. These sites aren't primarily used for political purposes, but for socializing by describing yourself in your profile or listing your interests. People may post pictures of their friends doing things they enjoy, share their favorite music, and sometimes they may add their favorite politicians as friends.
On Facebook (another social networking site) I am friends with Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Wes Clark, Bill Richardson, and Denis Kucinich. Every Democratic Presidential candidate I could add as a friend, I did, because I wanted to be able to see all of the updates and notes they added to their profile. Obviously, I'm not going to be an `opted in and engaged activist' for all of them. Once one becomes a friend they are unlikely to ever visit their profile page again, let alone donate money or hours of time to the candidate.
I don't want to downplay the important role this kind of voter outreach can play, however. Sure these may not be the most engaged supporters, but they are supporters nonetheless. By using social networking sites, candidates can reach out to different groups of voters they may not reach otherwise. It's a valuable tool into increasing participation and interest in the political process.
But, is it $49,000 valuable?
Barack Obama's campaign should not have done what they did. They should have found some way to compensate Joe Anthony for the work he had already done for them. If $49,000 was too much, (how are they spending their $25 million, by the way?)they could have negotiated with him to find a solution that was mutually acceptable.
But to simply use their influence to claim a legal right to the page, and strong arm this truly 'opted in and engaged activist' out of what had been his labor of love for the past two years does not bode well for Obama. If he's trying to present himself as the people powered candidate, this incident seems to stand in contrast to that image. On top of that, it dis-empowers others who have been supporting Obama in similar ways.
So, in this relatively new world of online campaigning there will be a sharp learning curve for everyone. Hopefully every candidate will use this incident as an example of what not to do, and will treat us lowly online activists a bit better in the future.
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