09Jan / 2012

Truth vs. Power: Buddy Roemer, SOPA, money in politics and liberation technology

Buddy Roemer is a former Governor and Congressman of Louisiana who is running for president as a Republican. He has so far not been allowed to take part in any televised debates, and so is relatively unknown. The television stations say that he is not eligible to debate because he has not raised sufficient campaign contributions. This is a problem for Buddy, because he has refused to accept Super PAC money and caps individual donations at $100.

Whatever else one may say about Roemer as a candidate, there is something wrong with this picture. Putting aside the other tools of the modern campaign (advertising, for example), the debate is the cornerstone of rational politics. In these events, we pretend for a moment that we are lead by those who are able to persuade us to follow them. This is only a fantasy when reasonable candidates are barred from entry.

Of course, politics is not a fair fight for our approval as citizens. Citizens are pawns. Or, perhaps more appropriately, ants ready to swarm to any greasy slick of propaganda spewed from the orifices of power. So must we be viewed by the billionaire Super PAC donors who have been investing in the Romney campaign, shareholders ready to instate their loyal CEO.

Is it going too far to say that these Romney shareholders aim to turn a profit on the presidency? We could consider the alternative: that these are philosopher-king oligarchs, who have spent their lives earning their billions through honest business only to turn their attention to national politics and endorse Mitt Romney. Out of selfless benevolence, they seek a consistent champion of middle and lower classes. Some of them think Gingrich would be a better one.

No, that seems unlikely.

If there is any iron law of politics, it is that those in power aim to keep themselves in power. Companies that succeed will try to maintain their market power, even when their products face obsolescence. Unions that triumph will shift demands from workers rights to the excluding the unorganized. Non-profits that form out of genuine selfless action contort themselves to chase funding and become whatever will justify their existence. Prison systems will fight to incarcerate more people. Political parties will try to maintain control of political messaging to keep out political diversity. And so on.

Truth erodes the grip of power. By recognizing these patterns as what they are, we can choose to deny them. We can liberate ourselves by holding institutions of power to account.

However, truth is something we transmit to one another. Truth travels as information. In our era, that means the spread of truth is controlled by mass media and information technology. But media and IT are themselves part of our economy and politics. Herein lies the problem.

SOPA is a good example of this. Media companies that want to use the power of the state to enforce monopolies on their works (Hollywood, the RIAA, etc.) are battling with Internet companies that profit from easy sharing of information across networked users (Google, Facebook, Twitter) over control of the Web. The media companies have been playing politics for much longer than the internet companies. One friend of mine explains to me that the Hollywood lobbyists are physically older than Google’s. They have been on K Street longer. They have better connections with legislators and other lobbyists. So they are winning.

Buddy Roemer is trying to expose this truth about how politics works–that policies are determined not by citizens but by lobbyists paid for by the rich and powerful. He has other politics but he has ripped this plank from his platform and sharpened it into a spear fit for the head of Mitt Romney.

But the media companies by and large control the spread of truth. These media companies are in their tangle of alliances with powerful political parties and corporations, they have no incentive to let in a candidate who is so eager to blow the lid off the whole complex. So they raise the requirements of debate eligibility to exclude anyone who isn’t playing their power games.

So Roemer has turned to non-mass media to launch his campaign. Roemer has been working hard on his Web campaign, using social media (especially Twitter) to get his message out.

Perhaps Roemer’s faith in this alternative structure is due in part to his witnessing of the Occupy movement. I believe it can be uncontroversially said at this point that social media was necessary (though not sufficient) for the successes of the Occupy movement, whether in organizing, gaining publicity, and in responding tactically to suppression. Its success in raising the issue of inequality in national politics has been due largely to its independence from centralized media. It continues to use the Internet to organize itself over the winter in order to plan its next moves for 2012. Perhaps Roemer can raise awareness about political inequality through similar channels.

It is worth watching and studying these events because the question of whether and under what conditions information technology can be liberation technology will determine our future. Is it possible for a message that is true but unpopular with power to spread? Under what conditions? This is not just a question of theoretical interest. It is a strategic question for those concerned with their own freedom.

We have many clues to this question already. We have the efficacy of the open Web, as opposed to centralized media channels, in assisting politics of truth. In SOPA, we see how the centralized hub of the Internet, its DNS system, is where it is most vulnerable to attack by powers that are threatened by it.

On the other hand, open data programs by governments show that there is also a politics of mutual empowerment through sharing information with citizens. Government transparency initiatives allow the kinds of analysis and awareness of money in politics that show us who is supporting SOPA and help us verify the claims of Buddy Roemer and the like. And SOPA has shown examples of industries that are able to gain power by benefiting openness and wage political battles to defend it.

What technologies are needed to further embolden truth? What strategies will get these technologies into the hands of those that can use them? How can truth be sifted from fiction, anyway? Can we find out before a growing concentration of power stamps out our ability to search and disseminate our answers?

I am eager to discuss these topics with anyone interested and collaborate on solutions.

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03Jan / 2012

A vote for Roemer is a vote for Obama

I’ve spent the New Years with friends from DC who I think of as “Washington Insiders” because they work in or with various parts of the government. Unlike the people I normally talk shop with, they have never even heard of Richard Stallman. They are dismissive of the Occupy movement or just don’t want to talk about it. They are pessimistic about the next election, because they see it as a sure victory for Mitt Romney. Many of them were active in the Obama campaign, and will likely be involved in the campaign in some capacity this coming year. The are grim.

When I brought him up, one of them told me that “Buddy Roemer is a joke”–as if there was nothing at all sensible about a former Congressman running as a government reform protest candidate after two years of Tea Party and Occupy press. I have to remind them that Buddy was once Louisiana’s Governor, not just a Congressman. One friend jokes, “Good people don’t become Governor of Louisiana.” I don’t really know what he’s talking about, but Buddy seems like good people to me.

I ask if he could be a third party spoiler. “No, that’s unrealistic. I mean the last time there was a third party spoiler was…” It gets him thinking. “Well, there was a minor spoiler effect with Nader in 200, but the last real spoiler was Perot in 1992.” That sounds like once a decade to me. We’re due.

Let’s play it out. Roemer is running as a Republican currently. He has a slim to nothing chance of winning the primary. Suppose he continues to run as an independent. Suppose he is allowed to debate nationally and get public attention.

Buddy is an old Southern white man who will spend his time at the debate telling Mitt Romney that he is fake and bought, which is the elephant in the room around Romney and the root of the flip-flopping that so pisses of his base. No wonder the GOP won’t let Buddy debate with them. But in a national debate, Buddy could easily steal elements of the Romney’s base in addition to swing voters.

If things are as dismal for Obama as some say (though at the moment he’s InTrading at 51%…) then Roemer on that ballot could be the spoiler he needs to pull things through. Obama, after all, ran on “Change” originally, and could have plenty to agree with Roemer about, but with the spin that it’s only the Republican party that is as influenced by money in politics.

At this point, I don’t see a stronger move for the center-left than backing Roemer and helping him get on the ballot.

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27Dec / 2011

Connecting the dots

SOPA is backed by a large industry coalition led presumably by the industries that on-line piracy hurts most, including Hollywood and the RIAA. These industries have tremendous influence over Congress because of their campaign contributions, despite the fact that the education sector and human rights organizations oppose the bill.

Campaign finance reform is a hot political topic right now, but mostly only among the netroots and those that get their political news through the Internet. The Internet has allowed grassroots activists to get national attention despite the lack of coverage by traditional media through, for example, viral video. And the Internet has offered an alternative means of nominating a presidential candidate and allowing them to appear on the ballot.

If SOPA passes, the value of the Internet as a platform for political organizing will be greatly diminished. And the political influence of those industries who are fighting for SOPA will be secure.

Is it possible that SOPA is being pushed through Congress to deliberately destroy the Internet, in order to break the one platform that has potential to truly change politics?

Would Congress rather destroy the Internet than adapt to a new technology that makes a united and informed citizenry, politically represented by those that honor its rights and values, possible?

Would it smash the greatest engine of innovation the United States has ever seen in order to enshrine powers whose time has come and past?

Perhaps, SOPA is more than an assault on the Internet. Maybe it’s an assault on what’s left of democracy in our once great nation.

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02Aug / 2008

Public vs. grassroots campaign financing (part 3)

Earlier, I argued that grassroots campaign funding doesn’t really make campaigns more democratic. Public campaign financing is better, but only if it is designed to actually level the playing field. The U.S. federal campaign finance system is not well-designed for this.

One of the often cited problems with public campaign finance in the United States is its susceptibility to ‘loopholes.’ While most campaign finance systems will attempt to impose some constraints on private contributions, it appears that the politically motivated always find a way around the restrictions. 527 organizations are the most notable examples of this, but there are others. For example, a thorough study of the donors to local campaigns will reveal that in many cases all the employees of a particular company will individually make donations to one candidate up to the local limits. If it is possible for the leadership of the company to pressure employees to contribute in this way, then company has effectively gotten around the legal restrictions its own ability to donate as a company.

The typical response to this sort of news is the http://digifesto.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=57&message=4call for stronger restrictions and better enforcement of them. But this generates a backlash. Many argue that we have a right to make private campaign contributions, a right derived from our right to free speech. Whether or not this moral argument is correct, it has been enforced by the Supreme Court in Randall v. Sorrell. In addition, many see private ‘grassroots’ campaign contributions as a revitalization of political participation.

So removing the influence of money from politics completely appears hopeless. Thankfully, one fact means that despite ‘loopholes’, public campaign financing still can mitigate the problem of unequal representation based on wealth.

That fact is the diminishing returns of campaign funding. A candidate with a $15,000 budget has an enormous advantage over a candidate with a $5,000 budget. But if candidates’ budgets are $30,000 and $20,000, then the advantage is much smaller even though the dollar difference is the same. At some point the campaign message saturates its audience. Empirical research into the effects of campaign finance consistently report that the effect on elections of differences in funding between major candidates is surprisingly small

What public campaign financing can have a big effect on, though, is who gets to be a major candidate in the first place. Third party candidates don’t get a break in our system. And in states where the major party PAC’s have a lot of funding and power, representatives from low income districts can be held hostage to the interests of their state PAC without whose support they would not be able to run for office. A strong and fair system of public campaign financing solves these problems.

So ultimately, grassroots funding and public campaign financing are compatible–we can have a system that allows for both. But public financing is absolutely necessary to reduce the effects of money on politics, even if it can’t eliminate them entirely.

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19Jul / 2008

Web class campaign finance

Sean Tevis, journalist-turned-information-architect, is running for Kansas State Representative for District 15. Brilliantly, he posted this webcomic about his campaign in the style of XKCD, asking for donations to reach his goal of raising $26,000. Last Wednesday, it hit Boing Boing. Shortly thereafter, the web site was down due to mass traffic. By two days later, the donations far exceeded his target, and people across the country are following his progress.

Guys like Paul Newell should learn from this guy about how to run an intern et campaign! So what’s his secret?

A simplistic answer would just be that Tevis “understands the internet.” He understands the power of an honest, witty, conversational blog. He knows that people on the internet will self-organize around a good cause if it appeals to them. This explanation totally ignores the mechanism of his success though.

Tevis’ campaign funding is ‘grassroots,’ but grassroots campaign financing works by harnessing class or identity interests. Obama’s grassroots funding comes largely from the disposable income of his wine-track supporters. Tevis’ funding comes from a narrower base. It comes from readers of Boing Boing. It comes from people who are turned on by an homage to XKCD.

Sociologist Manuel Castells has argued that as governments lose the ability to provide for the needs of their citizens, people will organize around other, non-national identities that give their lives meaning. Somtimes these identities are tied to a particular region, like the Basque ethnic identity. But other identities, like the global feminist movement, and radical Islam, are indifferent to regional and state boundaries.

Tevis’ campaign funding illustrates the mobilization of the bearers of a new identity like these others–the identity shared by lots of the people who are active in the most forward-point parts of the web. There is a strong culture there, with its own communicative style, aesthetic sensibility, and core politics. I will call the bearers of this culture the ‘web class’ (although I don’t love the term and welcome alternative suggestions).

Don’t believe me? Perhaps you think that the majority of the donors were rallying around a general progressive agenda, accessible to all? I think the title of Cory Doctorow’s explosive shout out says it all:

Progressive geek looking for 3,000 people to help him win Kansas election against dinosauric anti-science/pro-surveillance dude

Yes, progressivism gets a mention. But the clinching trifecta is:

Tevis is pro-science. The web class loves science, because they know the internet owes everything to science and see the improvements science can make in their lives each day.
Tevis is anti-surveillance. The web class is sensative to issues of surveillance and privacy because their day-to-day life is both highly exposed and at risk of digital attack. The web class is constantly renegotiating what is public or private, and is loathe to lose control over that aspect of their lives.
Tevis is a geek. “Geek” is entirely an identity label, that denotes a shared outlook of creative practicality, as well as an independence from/rejection by “the mainstream.” The web class is largely constituted by geeks, and in this context the label is an honorific: “He is one of us.”

Like Obama’s supporters, the web class is made up largely of young professionals and students who can spend their parents’ money. I’m pretty sure a subset of them were what kept Ron Paul’s campaign alive for so long. In addition, because geography is comparatively irrelvant to the web, it is just as irrelevant to web class politics. (Several potential donors to Tevis’ campaign–for a Kansas state government position–were legally unable to because they weren’t U.S. citizens.) This makes them an excellent base for remotely financing elections. And if this sort of thing keeps up, then the web class will have some serious political clout across U.S. for the years to come.

Is this a good thing?

I’m ambivalent. On principle, I object to the heavy role of money in politics, even if that money is ‘grassroots.’ In this case, the fact that most of Tevis’ donors are likely from out of state gives me additional worry. On the other hand, I appreciate Tevis’ politics, and believe that, for example, the project of science and scientific education is one that transcends and supercedes the project of democratic legitimacy. Part of me feels strongly that the web class should not hesitate to take politics into its own hands. I will likely donate to his campaign anyway. What do you think? Comments are very welcome.

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23Jun / 2008

Public vs. grassroots campaign financing (part 2)

If grassroots funding does not really solve the problem of campaign finance, then what other option is there?

Public campaign financing–where the state provides money for candidates to run–is the more traditional solution. If the state provides funding to qualified candidates irrespective of their political positions, then that means that only voter preferences will determine who will win office.

That’s how it works in theory, at least. In practice, there are several problems with the current public campaign financing systems, and especially our current presidential system.

One of those problems is qualification. Obviously, you can’t just give public campaign funding to everybody. But if the conditions of qualification reiterate the conditions for financing a private campaign, then public funding doesn’t help anybody. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happens with the current presidential funding laws:

At the federal level, public funding is limited to subsidies for presidential candidates. To receive subsidies in the primary, candidates must qualify by privately raising $5000 each in at least 20 states. For qualified candidates, the government provides a dollar for dollar “match” from the government for each contribution to the campaign, up to a limit of $250 per contribution. In return, the candidate agrees to limit his or her spending according to a statutory formula.

This is lame. Contrast it with the Clean Elections financing system used in Maine, Arizona, and elsewhere. In this system, candidates qualify by getting some number of seed donations (commonly limited to $5) that demonstrate popular support. In systems like these, qualification correlates to voters, not dollars.

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21Jun / 2008

Public vs. grassroots campaign financing (part 1)

John McCain has long been seen as a congressional crusader for campaign finance reform. It now looks like Obama will fund his general election campaign largely through small, ‘grassroots’ donations from supporters. Each candidate is trying to take the moral high ground regarding his funding choices. That raises the question: which is better, public campaign financing from the state or grassroots funding from small donors?

When looking into this question, it’s important that we keep our eyes on the prize. Ideally, sources of campaign funding would have no influence on who can run and get elected. The argument for this is simple. Money is not evenly distributed; access to political representation should be.

In this light, ‘grassroots’ funding is a step forward, but problematic. On the one hand, it does diminish the influence of lobbyists and special interest PACs. But on the other, the fact remains that most ‘grassroots’ contributions are not from average citizens after all, but from the wealthier-than-average. See Jay Mandle’s Washington Post article for the numbers on this. Although certainly admirable, the success of Obama’s ‘grassroots’ fund raising relative to, say, Clinton’s, when one considers that Obama was more popular among wealthier Democrats. His base was better able to afford to make $200 contributions.

So to some extent, grassroots funding devolves the problem of money in politics from a problem of special interests to a problem of class interests. This shift looks even more dramatic when one considers that special interests are often indirectly representing working class interests (for example, in the form of unions).

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20Jun / 2008

Obamanet

Anil Makhijani pointed me to a New York Times article on Obama’s announcement to forgo the federal public campaign financing system and the spending limits it entails. It’s an important story that’s worth a read. But speaking of e-campaigning, there;s one detail in particular that caught my eye:

Mr. Obama announced his campaign finance decision in a video message sent to supporters and posted on the Internet.

Click here to see the video.

I am far from the first to bring this up, but Obama’s use of the internet in his campaign is amazing. I’ve heard the analogy has been made between FDR and radio, Reagan and television, and now Obama and the internet; each mastered a new communications medium and used it to great effect to rally and expand their base.

What seems special about Obama’s use of the internet is that it allows him to eschew mainstream media outlets entirely when he needs to. Rather, he is using tools communication that are available to all of us: videos posted on the Internet. There is something compelling about this use of popular tools to reach the populace. It places him not just in living rooms, but in social networks; however distantly he may be from you or I, he is present in the same space.

This ties directly back to his fund raising efforts, of course. By existing, virtually, among his supporters instead of transcending them, he can ask for the millions of small donations for which his campaign is famous. Institutions–even the institution of the Democratic party itself–are made obsolete as an intermediary.

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10Jun / 2008

DNC reject lobbyist money

This is week-old news by now, but I just saw this New York Times article.

The Democratic National Committee, now operating under Barack Obama’s fundraising rules, on Friday returned about $100,000 in money from lobbyists and political action committees.

The donations were already ”in the pipeline” when Obama, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, instituted the standards for the committee, a party official said.

Generally speaking, I am deeply suspicious of party politics in the US. As the upcoming Newell/Silver election in AD-64 shows, party allegiance indicates almost nothing about whether a politician stands for real reforms. One of the appealing things about Obama, to me, was his apparent rejection of the party machine.

Perhaps this is a sign that Obama’s reform principles are politically infectious.

Thanks to Kailin Clarke for the tip.

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Digifesto

Category Archives: campaign finance

A vote for Roemer is a vote for Obama

Connecting the dots

Public vs. grassroots campaign financing (part 3)

Web class campaign finance

Public vs. grassroots campaign financing (part 2)

Public vs. grassroots campaign financing (part 1)

Obamanet

DNC reject lobbyist money

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