Annoying Rumination About a Free Ticket # 2

Before I go too deep into the various events of last night – which provided material for a week’s worth of posts at least – the issue of the comps should be addressed.

I took and appreciate the ticket from Obama. What it does for me is free up $150 for either my local party, SCPD, a particular candidate or some combination. That’s what I’d rather do with my money, though something will be heading to ODP from the House of Pho at some point.

I felt fairly confident that Obama wasn’t trying to buy bloglove – as if he needs to. I certainly wouldn’t have taken if I felt differently. I’ve refused an offer of coffee at MTB events just because it felt uncomfortable. This didn’t feel that way. Obama believes in the online community and apparently hoped to help build it in Ohio.

On the other hand, in legal professional responsibility they drill into lawyers: avoid the appearance of impropriety. Admittedly, taking the comp ticket runs afoul of that high standard.

After the press conferences I introduced myself to Chris Redfern. He said something like “You’ve cuffed me around haven’t you?” The truth is, not much but it has happened. That’s a conversation that would have felt much more awkward if I was there on ODP’s dime. Not that it’s my mission to bash my party. I love the Democratic Party. Sometimes I just need to poke it with a sharp stick. It’s how I show my love*.

I had a very good conversation with John Kohlstrand – Communications Director for the House Minority Caucus and former blogger at High and Broad. The upshot was: new medium, I made mistakes. Same here. I’m still feeling my way around what this blogging is – activism? citizen journalism? activist citizen journalism? Mistake may be too strong a word; more like something I did once that felt off and won’t be repeated.

The most significant development in this process was ODP initiating a credentialing process for bloggers. There was, apparently, a press gallery where reporters could watch the speeches and presumably meet folks for interviews but not get fed. Had ODP responded to the initial inquiry with the offer of blogger credentials, it would have satisfied me, though I won’t speak for the other bloggers.

What’s most important to me as a blogger is access, plus independence. I don’t ever want to give someone the opportunity to say “How could you say X when I gave you Y?” Granted, in a world where professional sports writers can lose access for asking tough questions,maintaining access and independence is not without challenge.

Ultimately the effect of comps on a blog’s credibility is for the reader and the subject to decide. Personally, I feel pretty free to give a warts-and-all appraisal of the night, though happily it was a fairly low-wart-count event.

Finally, I wish we could have had the discussion of what all this means without the vituperation. We are all – everyone – exploring what this new medium is. I think we can do with a little slack. At the same time, while I believe the world needs blogs, what nobody needs is a yet another field of endeavor whose practitioners believe they are above reproach.

(*The source from which that’s paraphrased is worth 30 PhoPoints.)

Obama in Ohio

I’m in the hall of the Veteran’s Memorial in Columbus, I forgot my camera and the wifi doesn’t work. But I just spent fifteen minutes sitting next to Barack Obama, so it’s all good.

After that thumbsucker about having accepted the free ticket from Obama, it would really have been a drag if he sucked. I needn’t have worried. Yes, dude is a rock star.

As we peppered him with questions, he answered while signing autographs, smiling for pictures and greeting the cloud of admirers that apparently follows him at events like this. Sitting at the table are Redhorse, Chris Baker, YellowDogSammy, Cindy Zawadski, Eric Vessels, Angela Stuber, Jill Miller Zimon and [eventually] Staff from BSB. I’m not much of a notetaker, but here’s my attempt at the Q&A.

Q (Me) what do you see as the role of blogs in politics going forward generally, and specifically, why did you do this (buy the tickets for the table of bloggers)

A: My background is community organizing. Blogs have a potential of tapping into grassroots energy. In his race he saw the ability of the internet to spread the word on a candidate quickly. It gave people the confidence and reinforced the possibility he could win.

The danger is that we only talk to each other and those who agree with us. We need to think about how to get bloggers with different points of view to l;ink together.

Chris: The Paul Hackett race was the best and the worst of what blogs can do. How do we repair the damage?

A: I’m also a writer. The world is perfectible when you write. There’s a tendency for us to get frustrated if a candidate ore party doesn’t subscribe to the ideas you’ve laid out. Bloggers are useful as the conscience of the party.

At this point much confusion ensues but the gist is “get over it.”
[and as I write this, Hackett just walked by in a seersucker jacket, rep tie, and faded jeans]

Chris: It would be great if someone could get B---n and Hackett to sit down.

B: That would be great. I’ll talk to S-----d.

Jill: How do we as bloggers maintain our individuality and avoid groupthink?

A: I’m concerned that groupthink is more likely to happen if ideas are not tested on the ground. For example, I wrote a long missive of Daily Kos after Russ Feingold voted for Judge Roberts [and got ripped on DKos]

We need to be more flexible when judging candidates. Blogs need an infusion of people who are on the ground in “red” areas.

Angela asks question about net neutrality.

A: “I’m a big net neutrality guy. [will vote against the bill to kill the amendment.]

Staff: How do you feel about Dean’s 50 state strategy?

A: As Woody Allen says, 90% of success is showing up. If we don’t campaign in [red states] we can’t build something better. Rahm Emmanuel’s point isn’t that Dean is wrong, it’s that if we take the House, we are in a better position to do that.

In addition to the Obama sitdown, we took in press conferences with Obama, Joe Biden, Chris Redfern and a bigwig from DNC. I'll right that up, along with the general scene, highlights (and a couple of lowlights) from the speeches and the general scene in seperate posts after something approximating a night's sleep.

UPDATE: For those of you finding this 20 months later by Googling "Obama in Ohio," click the "O Yeah" topic for current updates about the Obama campaign in Ohio.

Over on GABB

I'm posting most of my Old Media/New Media/Future Media pieces over on GABB for now. Such pieces fit with the Leave Politics at the Door vibe I'm trying to create there and frankly, we need the content, cred and readership. So I wrote up some thoughts on yesterday's speech at the Akron Roundtable by a Merrill Lynch media analyst on the future of newspapers.

The Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment, Annotated

As I was writing the earlier post about an ABJ slant piece on the anti-gay marriage amendment it struck me that the paper didn’t reprint the actual language of the proposed amendment in the piece. Among the journalistic flaws in the article was the author’s willingness to let the two sides yammer at each other rather than seek some more objective information such as a constitutional law expert. Or – and this would be simpler – just reprinting the amendment.

So I went off in search of. Oddly, finding the actual text proved harder than one might think. I couldn’t find it on any of the usual suspect activist organizations on either side. Weird. It’s on the Congress website, but you have to know where to look. It's S. J. Res. 1 if you're into that sort of thing.

So here’s the amendment, with some rudimentary analysis. To facilitate my thoughts, I’ve flagged the sections that merit comment with numbers corresponding to the discussion below. If I really had html chops, I’d embed links so you could toggle back and forth from the text to the comments, but I don’t so I didn’t.

SECTION 1. This article may be cited as the “Marriage Protection Amendment”[1].

SECTION 2. Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union
of a man and a woman.[2] Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any
State[3], shall be construed to require that marriage[4] or the legal incidents
thereof[5] be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a
woman[6].

[1] If you had any doubt that this proposal is anything but a craven pander to the conservative base, look no further. No other Constitutional amendment tells us what to call it. As Orwellian – or perhaps Rovian – as the appellation “Marriage Protection Amendment” is, the idea of enshrining it into the Constitution is just perverse.

I find myself particularly offended by this. Partly it’s because I hate spin as much as Bill O’Reilly pretends to. This Constitutionalization of spin absolutely rankles me.

What’s more, as a married hetero I object to being made party to all this. “Marriage Protection Amendment” conjures images James Dobson sputtering about nasty gays trying to lure good married people away from each other with all their . . . their . . . their gayness. My marriage doesn’t need that protection, thank you very much. The “Marriage Protection Amendment” protects nothing, except perhaps some delicate traditionalist sensibilities.

[2] This is the motor of the thing, though it isn’t clear how far it runs. The Constitution doesn’t as a rule outlaw conduct among American citizens. Instead it generally grants and/or limits governmental powers. So, for example does it only prevent states from calling same-sex unions “marriage?” If a state allows a same-sex unions and calls it “schmarriage” are we OK? Not clear.
Meanwhile, I’m intrigued by the parallel between this amendment and prohibition. Both limit individual freedom without commensurately granting more freedom elsewhere (in contrast to abolition of slavery.) Both tread heavily on areas of traditional state concern. So the only real precedent for doing this sort of thing in the Constitution was an abject failure. In searching for something to call this other than the Marriage Protection Amendment, opponents of the measure could do worse than “Gay Marriage Prohibition.”

[3] I’m surprised this isn’t raising more of a hue and cry from the law professoriat. Never has the US Constitution prescribed how a state constitution would be interpreted. Indeed the assault on State’s rights is an underreported objection to the amendment. It has also caused some fractions in the Libertarian/Republican alliance as this Reason piece demonstrates.

But then, Republicans haven’t really cared about State’s rights since the civil rights era. From No Child Left Behind to proposals for tort reform and limiting States’ authority to regulate firearms, Federalism is pretty much dead as a matter of real concern for conservatives, except when it works as an makeweight objection to something they don’t like already.

[4] If the proponents of the amendment were serious about their fear of “activist judges” imposing gay marriage on the populace, this is all they would need. Simply saying “this Constitution shall not be construed . . .” takes care of any possibility that a court might construe otherwise. As noted above, the real guts of the thing is a ban – er, prohibition – on same-sex unions. But all that assumes that the talk of activist judges is a real concern as opposed to cynical political gamesmanship. (Aside: How surreal was it to read Bishop Josephus Johnson thumbsucking about activist judges. Has my man never heard of Brown v. Board of Ed – decried for years after as the worst sort of judicial activism?)

[5] So what are the legal incidents of marriage? Does this cabin the ability of state courts to find a right to same-sex unions? Probably, but unclear.

Meanwhile, I’m happy to report that while the Amendment prohibits same-sex marriage, it doesn’t appear to prohibit civil unions. It just prohibits a state court from finding a constitutional right to same-sex civil unions. Not a great thing, but nice to know this could have been worse. I guess.

[6] It looks like the proponents of Prohibition have learned from the experience in Ohio and elsewhere with overbroad amendments that limit rights of unmarried hetero couples. This actually is a bit of artful drafting, limiting the reach to defining marriage and preventing courts from finding a right to “the incidents of marriage.”

I regret ending this on a happy (for the amendment) note, but that’s how the thing plays out. Aside from the question of whether gay marriage is something to be protected from, this amendment is a clunky, precedent-busting way to do it. Of course, none of this is any more than kabuki for wingnutonia anyway. But as long as we are going to pretend this is a serious proposal, let’s pay attention to what it actually says.

The Blog Police, They Are Inside of My Head

Am I in? I’m In.

I’ve been asked, and the answer it yes. If you saw the blog posts or the Dispatch column or the blog posts about the article, you know that Barack Obama (sp fixed on edit) bought a number of tickets to the ODP Annual Dinner where he is headlining. Yes, I was invited and will be there.

Ohio lefty Bloggers are a fiercely independent lot, so a perk like this is unlikely to blunt their criticisms of the ODP, candidates or pretty much anything else. And that’s the way it should be, right? We should all say what we mean, right? So if I have some misgivings about this whole thing, you guys aren’t going to call me hypocritical for going.

Right?

Right?

Right?

Well, I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I worry about on the one hand bloggers losing that vaunted independence and on the other hand and anti-blogosphere backlash if we’re perceived as biting the hand. I worry how other Dem grassroots activists will feel if they perceive bloggers getting favorable treatment. I feel good about being selected, but I feel bad about friends as worthy as I who weren’t. I worry about the raft of crap coming from my mom when she finds out I won’t be there for k-pho’s birthday dinner tomorrow night.

Mostly I have problems with how the whole thing was handled by the bloggers. When the idea was first floated in emails, my initial response was to remember what Jill’s mom says – if you ask, the worst they can do is say no. But I also recognized that this is a fundraiser. Every comp ODP gives to a blogger is $150 less they make from getting Obama to Ohio. As a shear numbers decision, comping bloggers makes no sense.

For some reason, my friends in the ‘sphere don’t see it that way. The Dispatch article has unleashed a swarm of criticism rehashing the initial controversy and dumping on ODP Communications Guy Brian Rothenberg. I was away from my computer when the first round went down, so this is the first time I’ve expressed this: the initial decision not to comp bloggers made sense to me and the ire it raised did not.

I could come up with a long list of things ODP should be doing to reach out the blogosphere. To begin with, they could reach out. Campaigns do it; ODP does not. They could share that policy stuff they think is too complicated for mass circulation. They could recommend candidates Meet the Bloggers. They could just give the occasional shout-out. As of now, the only acknowledgement we get is a fairly new blogroll on the new ODP blog. Can you feel the love?

To me, comps for the dinner would almost be the worst of all worlds. It would be as if ODP was saying “We won’t help you actually blog, but here’s a shiny trinket for all your trouble. Now run along an play nice.”

Why should ODP to reach out to bloggers? For the same reason they should reach out to grassroots activists. For the same reason county parties need to communicate with voters as human beings rather than blips on a ward canvass. For too long ODP has been a top-heavy hierarchical bureaucracy and it’s Republican counterpart has been grassroots friendly.

One reason I get pissed about Stolen Election Guy is that he distracts attention from a more fundamental truth – Republicans won in ’04 because they turned out more voters, including more voters that didn’t show up in likely voter polls. That has to change and ODP has to do the changing. Or they will be changed.

Which brings me to my other mixed reaction – Rothenberg’s ill-advised quote about blog policing. Why any American would talk about any sort of communications medium being policed for content is beyond me. Clearly, someone needs to police his own communication better.

On the other hand, I agree with the first part of the quote: that the blogosphere needs to police itself better. Blogs in Ohio are moving from pure opinion to publishing original content. As we do so, we need to be rigorous – certainly more rigorous than we are – about getting it right. For example, this still sticks in my craw. I believe RussellPounderStaff got it wrong and wouldn’t admit it.

Problem is blogs are unlikely to suffer dire consequences if they don’t police themselves. You would like to think that the Marketplace of Ideas will sift the careful blogs from the reckless ones, but it’s not the case. Blogs more incendiary and loose with facts do much better than, say, this one. And it's frankly more hazardous to one's blogging life to criticize a fellow blogger than to go after a candidate or party.

I’d like to see an open discussion of blogger ethics and best practices, but they are unlikely to lead to anything bloggers actually follow. I suppose a blogger association could come up with a set of ethical standards and allow anyone who subscribes to them to post a bug on the blog -- a sort of Good Blogkeeping Seal of Approval. I fear even suggesting such a thing will earn me nothing but hoots and derision, but if anyone has suggestions, I for one would like to hear them.

Random Ten

1. "All That Heaven Will Allow," The Mavericks
2. "Uncovered," Soundgarden
3. "As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls," Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays
4. "Red Sunset," Kelly Willis
5. "Gone, Gone, Gone," Miles Davis
6. "Everything Breaks," The Woodentops
7. "Mr. Blues," Moby Grape
8. "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing," Stevie Wonder
9. "Crepuscule with Nellie," T.S. Monk
10. "Stop Leading Me On," B.B. King

I had gotten out of the habit -- a run of busy Fridays. As it happens a reader emailed me on a different subject and mentioned liking the R10's so we'll make sure to keep them going.

I'm sufficiently intrigued by the title of the Metheny/Mays piece to have Googled it, to no effect. No backstory turns up. Apparently it's just the sort of random play on words favored by modern jazz musicians.

"Hypo" Speaks!

Way back in the blog pleistoscene era -- like maybe 15 months ago -- I told a guy at an anti-TABOR coalition meeting that I was looking for Ohio blogs. He told me his favorite was some anonymous but apparently well-connected blogger working under the handle Hypothetically Speaking. A Google search later and I was hooked. I can't say he's a guy who inspired me to get into this -- more like a guy who set the bar so intimidatingly high it probably delayed my entry by at least a month.

In December he started disappearing for extended stretches and coming back to apologetically blog briefly about the health problems that kept him quiet, then start back up again. Then in late January he announce he had cancer and would park the blog while undergoing treatment.

Now he's back and, from the looks of his first post, in fighting form. Surf over and welcome him back.