A Backstage Pass to Democracy

Rock Star gets off stage after pouring heart and soul out to a collection of thousands of followers...proceeds to tour bus and sits down at the computer. Rock Star blogs about what happened that night, uploads a video clip from the evening that was just imported in, and clicks "Publish." Instantly, not only can those followers who were there re-live that night and pass it around...but the entire globe can be there, too. The entire population of the planet now has a chance to see what occurred on stage in New Hampshire...via text from the performer and video of it happening...via a link to a Flickr profile with accompanying photos...via a friend request on Myspace or Facebook. Instantly. The life of a musician? Of course. But I was actually talking about Bill Richardson, the Governor of New Mexico who is running for President. Bill's got some hilarious campaign ads up on Youtube. And a Myspace profile. And a Flickr photo pool. And a blog. Welcome to Campaign 2008, Web 2.0 Style. This is true democracy, people. Sure, America has always been a republic. We elect our leaders. (Well, some of us do). But there's always a been a bit of a wall between us -- the voters -- and them...those who do the actual decision-making. Sure, we give input. We write our letters to our Congresspeople and we get a form letter back from an aide and we hope that our opinion was tallied in a memo that the representative maybe read before going to vote on some issue. And if they vote against our views on an issue? We write another letter, or maybe an email...and maybe our dissent gets tallied again in the next memo. But what about this internet thing? Could it be that all of these crazy tools musicians use -- and lots of other people in lots of other fields -- are finally breaking into that stodgy, long-curtained-off backroom of politics? The inner workings of our nation...up on Youtube? The guy who might be in the Oval Office...in a Flickr pool? This is your backstage pass, America. And guess what? We control our VIP status. The more feed subscriptions Bill gets? The more he'll blog! The more Facebook friend requests he has, the more interactive his campaign will be. That translates into...the more input you have on your Presidential candidate...in real, immediate time. Remember that news story last week about how Digg almost collapsed under a revolt brought on by its own users, doing the very thing Digg is designed to do? (When people like an article/think it is informative/whatever...they can Digg it...and the articles with the most Diggs rank higher. Very democratic). That's an example of the population being able to actually sway the usually behind-closed-doors-type company into changing policy...in MERE HOURS. It did not take a board meeting, a bylaws re-write, a vote, an addendum, another vote, ad nauseum to get Digg to change its policy. It knew what its constituents wanted immediately, and reacted in kind. Apply this to our politicians...put them in the light, shine the warm glow of Web 2.0 on them...and see how they operate when they can actually see all of the voter's faces looking right at them and paying attention.