Ah, Cunégonde!

To get a closer look at netizen political strategizing In These Times asked me to drop in on training sessions offered by the New Organizing Institute, a "unique grassroots program that trains young, technology-enabled political organizers to work for progressive campaigns and organizations." Translation: young(er) people who tapped the net for Kerry, for Blair, for Dean, and others, are replicating.

Progressive, maybe, or maybe not: little in the three day program indicated any policy positions. How would one know?

Tom Matzzie, a session presenter and Washington Director of MoveOn.org was fairly candid when I asked him about MoveOn's progressive orientation. MoveOn is "what it is," according to him, and "not necessarily the left." In his view its principal mission is not to help progressives but "to get involved" through its email list of over 3.3 million members, one of the largest lists out there. Tom argues that MoveOn, for now, is limited to mobilizing members on issues they already care about, but can't educate them, or cast a wider net to mobilize voters. Members set the goals. MoveOn's job is to stay focused on what members want.

But in Tom's account of MoveOn's massive mobilization for Cindy Sheehan, the decision to engage was made with no input whatsoever from members. This is, to say the least, contradictory. And MoveOn's highly proprietary organizing model—"important to preserve," he says, because it allows scaling "to large numbers"—follows a cookie-cutter approach with zero lateral input, which implies a certain level of mistrust.

Back in the late 1960s and early 70s Richard Viguerie practically single-handedly pioneered the right's direct-mail fundraising strategy. Partly he succeeded due to his technical acumen; more importantly, because he could locate his enemy's political jugular. Abortion. Taxes. Regulation. A few others in a short list. Like every successful religion Viguerie's fundraising works its magic out of its standard catechism. And that's the essence of the problem for Democratic technician dopplegangers: in politics the medium is not the message—there must be something more. But the New Organizing Institute sessions delivered considerably less: a vague, absurdly technological definition of political activism, e.g., "there's a gap between what people want and what politicians offer, so we'll close it using the internet." This is just triangulation, saddled, as always, by cowardice and indecision.

To be fair, most of the NIO principals come out of the tech shops of campaigns where they had no policy input, even when they'd wanted it. It's understandable that they'd tend to see their role mainly in tech-related terms. Moreover, as Zack Exley, the President of the NIO put it to me, it's "really important that progressives who don't feel represented by the democratic establishment should work within the establishment." He sees the NIO "creating a way for really pessimistic young people to start getting into senior positions." He sounds sincere. On the Kerry campaign (where he was director of online organizing and communications), most people were not working for ideas, Zack told me, but for their own self-interest—a big factor in the loss because nobody wanted to take the risk of making difficult decisions. And a mistake, it seems, he would as soon avoid repeating.

Another presenter, Tim Tagaris, internet communications director for Ned Lamont, disdains policy. A backward baseball cap wearing chain-smoker and former Marine, Tim believes policy details don't motivate voters; instead, his strategy is to blog furiously to create a 'sense of community.' For him, the Democratic Party is there to win elections. I suggested the Dems hadn't done too well on that score, actually, what with the 2004 election being stolen. But Tim had "never seen any evidence to suggest that there was electronic vote tampering." One wonders how tech-savvy these folks are, or how naive?

The immediate problem for those who insist on fitting out a progressive campaign with specific policy proposals is that the technicians' mandatorily vague priorities will, by and large, marginalize authentic voices. But it's very early days yet for internet politics—the NIO's agnostic methodological approach is by no means written in stone.