The Power of On-Line Democracy

Getting out the vote on-line is becoming more and more important, as evidenced by recently announced efforts on two well-known websites: www.moveon.org and www.myspace.com

The liberal Move On group is kicking off a short series of virtual town hall meetings with most of the candidates focusing on one topic at a time. First up is Iraq and it's scheduled for Tuesday, April 10th. It will feature all the candidates except Brownback, Gravel, Hunter, Paul, and Tancredo. In preparation, Move On contacted all its members, inviting them to submit audio recorded questions dealing with Iraq (and Iran), and then asked its members to vote on the best questions, tossing out those deemed off-topic or too impolite. Though I haven't done much with Move On lately, I was contacted and submitted 2 questions myself. It will be interesting to see if either of them made it to the final selection. Future topics include Global Warming and Health Care.

The organizers are also encouraging Move On members to host house parties for the April 10th on-line meeting, with 802 already organized across the country. I'll provide more details as they become available, or feel free to simply go to their website to learn more.

My Space is going straight for the vote and succeeding where other mere states have failed: they have scheduled their own Primary in advance of either Iowa or New Hampshire on January 1st and 2nd in 2008. Supposedly, 85% of My Space users are 18 or older, so all the candidates are taking this website very seriously and each has their own "space" on the site. By far, Barack Obama has the most "friends" currently and would likely win this Primary if it were held today. It will be interesting to see if his popularity holds up over the next eight months and whether this on-line Primary in any way foreshadows the others. (My guess is that it won't.)

I wouldn't be surprised, however, to see Move On do the same kind of thing and ask their members to vote in an on-line Primary early next year. Whatever happens, it's clear that on-line democracy is here to stay!