Barack Obama's campaign wasn't a campaign to get elected. Yes, that was front and center in most of our minds and, I'm sure, his for the last year plus. But he said from the beginning that the end goal of this campaign was to create a movement for change. That means the campaign isn't over.
More interesting, it isn't over in the minds of millions of people across America who helped in one way or another to put Obama in office. People are waiting for the next big ask. In a recent meeting with Senator Patty Murray, in a gathering of progressive donors, even in my dentist's office, I've heard people saying: What's next? They are saying it with their sleeves rolled up. What do you want me personally to do about the economy? What do you want me personally to do about the future?
Obama gets one big ask.
Some have said that the ask is being made already. Valuable data files are now accessible to progressive organizations across the country. Campaign workers recently were urged to get together and decide what they want to do on a more local level. Star volunteers and staff have been recruited into state level efforts. And we all got emails about house parties to support the stimulus package.
But none of these match the depth of the question itself. People are wanting to be a part of something bigger than policy change and harder than a house party. This is about Change with a capital C in the middle of a capital C Crisis. We want guidance -- sharp, focused, smart leadership -- for not only DC policy making but for the broader campaign that we signed on to:
Dreaming Big
Our current crisis and the highly sophisticated Obama campaign structure together create a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build lasting community infrastructure for the common good -- not government based, not faith-based, not politically based. Community based.
What might this look like? Here's mine:
The ask: "I'm asking you to take care of each other through this financial crisis in some very specific ways."
Active ingredients: elevates communal barn raising archetype over cowboy archetype (see The True Patriot); commitment is time limited; leverages crisis urgency; has middle class relevance
Active ingredients: taps Obama organizing model, is place based, scale fits size of traditional social networks, if Dem branded then Dems get credit as in DemocratsWork.
Active ingredients: people asked to do what they do best vs stuffing envelopes, builds relationships and thus other kinds of social support, mildly offsets decline in monetized exchanges, increases personal relevance for unemployed or underemployed, turns idle time productive, decreases isolation (all of which decrease mental health costs). Skill banking is reciprocity-based vs the one way flow down advocated by D's or one way flow up advocated by R's.
Active Ingredients: builds relationships, decreases CO2, decreases need for transport infrastructure.
Active Ingredients: broadens & deepens social bonds; taps the Applebee's America phenomenon, taps instinctive recession-related desire to retreat into a better past, decreases "stuff", increases community safety, increases Gross National Happiness.
Active Ingredients: Taps new technologies, creates community role for tech savvy young people.
Those of us who value the common good often have been frighteningly narrow in our attempts to engage people. Not only are we bound to the election cycle, but we reach out specifically in a political role for a political conversation -- often in the absence of any deeper relationship.
Trends among young people suggest increasingly that they solicit information through trusted social networks. If we really care about the common good, our best hope -- perhaps our only hope -- is to nurture social networks that embody these values and for whom political priorities and civic engagement are simply one manifestation of these broader values.
What do you think the ask should be?
Obama is a politician, not a moral leader. It is very difficult for a politician to venture out into the morality arena without sounding awfully hypocritical. Bush's post 9/11 "go out and shop" admonition, however distasteful it may have seemed, articulated clearly the limits of political speech within the system. Even now we hear most economists explain that lack of demand and consumption is the current problem. We are not spending enough, we are told. If everyone saves instead of spending, it will be a disaster.. and on and on.
If Obama seems tongue-tied, it may be because he is trapped between trying to revive a system that may no longer be viable and the need for an alternative that can only come about through a moral revolution.
FOR the American People
(DNC)
and not
AGAINST the American People
(DLC)
WE (the Progressives)
will be sitting along that side wall watching the sausage as it's made.
HE has to decide which side he his going to land on.
WE can only hope he knows that such a decision needs to be made soon and with complete resolve.
(PS: President Obama - THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS 'CLEAN COAL' TECHNOLOGY)