Political Technology

Specter Party Switch Inevitable? History Holds the Answer

While Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter's announcement that he was switching from the Republicans to the Democrats may have gratified the latter and upset the former, no one should have been surprised by it. Historically, party switching is common, indeed inevitable, at times of party realignment.

Spurred by the rise of a new large dynamic generation and the emergence of a new communication technology, realignments occur about every four decades in U.S. politics.

The most recent one began with the election of Barack Obama last November. These large political makeovers normally enthrone a new dominant national party. Beneath the surface, realignments are characterized by major shifts in the voting coalitions that support the two parties. Demographic groups and regions move to and fro between the parties. These demographic shifts, and the attendant ideological solidification of the two parties, leave some politicians, like Senator Specter, who no longer represent their party's mainstream thinking, as outliers and essentially marooned.

Faced with the prospect of almost certain defeat by a reduced and much more conservative base in next year's Pennsylvania GOP Senate primary, the politically moderate Specter made the only rational choice he could and left the Republican Party.

The last previous realignment, which began with election of Richard Nixon in 1968, saw the movement of numerous Democrats, primarily Southerners, to the Republican Party. Starting with Strom Thurmond and continuing through Richard Shelby, these conservative Democrats, along with many of their constituents, saw the GOP as a more comfortable political home. But the movement between the parties wasn't only Southern, nor was it only in one direction. Conservative Colorado Democratic Senator, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, became a Republican and liberal Republicans like New York's John Lindsay and Don Riegle of Michigan went the other way.

If history is any guide, Arlen Specter's move from the Republican to the Democratic column will not be the last during the next several years. Other moderate Republicans, most likely from New England, the Northeast, and the upper Midwest, will almost certainly join him. At some point, it is also probable that a smaller number of conservative Democrats, who feel uncomfortable or politically threatened by President Obama's activist agenda, will find the GOP more compatible with their beliefs and fortunes. Just as the baseball offseason is a time for trading players, a political realignment leads to changes in the rosters of the two parties. Let the switching begin.

Thursday New Tools Feature: SWM Seeking Service

As our fellows Morley Winograd and Mike Hais wrote about earlier this week, President Obama signed into law on Tuesday the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act. Here's an excerpt from their take on the act; they wrote that it

...represents a major redemption of candidate Obama’s promise to offer his most loyal and largest constituency, Millennials, born between 1982 and 2003, a chance to serve their country at the community level and in return earn assistance with the cost of their college education.

Not everyone is ready to join hands and sing the praises of the concept, however. While [the bill] enjoyed bipartisan sponsorship in both the Senate and the House, that didn’t prevent a majority of Republicans from voting against the bill on final passage. They complained that the bill was “too expensive” and would crowd out pure volunteer work with program participants receiving a modicum of financial support for their efforts from the federal government. In the House, 149 of 175 Republicans voted “no,” joined by 19 of their colleagues in the Senate, including the party's two top leaders. With all Democrats voting in favor of [the bill], the core of the Republican’s “Just say no” caucus demonstrated how out of touch with the Millennial Generation they are.

Of those Republicans expressing their opposition in the Senate, only one, John Ensign of Nevada, was from a state that Obama carried. Even though both Republican Senators from such bright red states as Utah, Georgia and Mississippi could see the potential value of increasing the number of volunteers and college students in the country’s civic life, both GOP Senators from South Carolina, Kansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Idaho made it clear that there were no circumstances under which their hostility to government could be softened by the merits of a patriotic cause.

As Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina put it on his Web site, "We need to recognize that this bill does represent a lot of what's wrong with our federal government today.... civil society works, because it is everything that government is not. It's small, it's personal, it's responsible, it's accountable.” And Louisiana Senator David Vitter spuriously argued, “This new federal bureaucracy would, in effect, politicize charitable activity around the country." Echoing Governor Sarah Palin’s horribly off key comment at her party’s convention last August that “the world isn’t a community and it doesn’t need an organizer,” these Republicans demonstrated just how out of touch they are with Millennial thinking.

I wholeheartedly agree with Morley and Mike that members of my generation are lookings for ways to do good for our country (and others) - in fact, many are frustrated with how difficult it is to find something worthwhile to do after graduating, particularly since monetary compensation is often a secondary or tertiary concern. Lucikly, President Obama understands the way that we millennials operate - if we want to go get a drink after work, for example, we might be more inclined to check out dchappyhours.com for specials first. So the Obama administration has launched a new Web site, Serve.gov, to help unite people with service opportunities that match their interests and passions.

Serve.gov is wonderful in its simplicity. It asks you what you're interested in, and where you want to be working, and that's it - the engine searches all posted entries that match your critera. It searches entries posted on Serve.gov itself, as well as on all of these partner sites:

1-800-Volunteer.org America's Promise Alliance AmeriCorps Citizen Corps
Corporation for National and Community Service U.S. Department of Homeland Security HandsOn Network Idealist.org
Learn and Serve America Mentor Martin Luther King Jr., Day of Service Network for Good
Peace Corps President's Council on Service and Civic Participation Senior Corps Youth Service America
United Way - Volunteer Solutions Volunteer.gov/gov VolunteerMatch Register Your Event or Project

Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist (and a supporter of NDN) was on hand at the signing. Here's what he had to say about the act, and the new site (courtesy of TechPresident):

Many people want to fully dedicate themselves to service, they're troops, teachers, social workers, cops, and all manner of public servants. We should remember the nobility of the public service they perform.

Me, I spend a lot of every day performing customer service and see real human behavior. I see, every day, that Americans are eager to help out, particularly the millennial youth, maybe the new "civic generation."

Serve America provides means for those who want to fully engage, like by seriously increasing support for Americorps, increasing the number of participants from 75,000 positions annually to 250,000...

...Serve America also provides for Serve.gov, a new Web 2.0-style government site that brings together service opportunities from a number of sources. It's genuinely innovative, especially in allowing any organization to create its listing on the site, building on top of the Network for Good platform.

Coming from Mr. Newmark, that is high praise - and it seems like this will have a much higher chance of success than "missed connections."

Looking at Cuba: Using New Tools in Our Foreign Policy

There is much to celebrate in the President's new Cuba policy this morning.  NDN was among the first organizations in the nation to argue that the right first step towards a new day with our Cuban neighbors would be to relax the Bush era travel and remittance policy, which had done so much to tear Cuban and their American relatives apart in recent years.   So we are pleased with this announcement, and believe deeply that these first steps will initiate a process over the next five to ten years - or perhaps longer - which helps Cuba modernize, and transition to a more open and democratic society. 

But the announcement also contained provisions about telecommunications which deserve a little more consideration this morning.  Note this exchange between Dan Restrepo and a reporter at yesterday's announcement: 

Q If you guys could just explain a little bit more about the part of today's announcement that deals with telecommunications firms being allowed to - I mean, what

MR. RESTREPO: Certainly. We want to increase the flow of information among Cubans, and between Cubans and the outside world. And one of the ways we can do that under U.S. -- existing United States law, back to the Cuban Democracy Act, is to allow U.S. telecommunications companies to seek to provide services on the island. The licensing process has never -- never really went forward. We're allowing that process -- the President is directing that that licensing process go forward, and directing that the regulations system be put into place to allow U.S. persons to pay for cell coverage that already exists on the island -- again, so Cubans can talk to Cubans, and Cubans can talk to the outside world without having to go through the filter that is the Cuban government.

Q So just cell phones is what this is talking about?

MR. RESTREPO: This is cell phones, satellite television, satellite radio. This is forms of -- modern forms of telecommunication to increase the flow of information to the Cuban people so that if anyone is standing in the way of the Cuban people getting information it is the Cuban government, and it is not some outside technical problem that can be pointed to.

Taking away those excuses and putting -- and trying to create the conditions where greater information flows among the Cuban people, and to and from the Cuban people.

Q To follow up on that, if I may. So if this happens as it's intended to happen, is the idea that a U.S. company would be providing sort of U.S. television programming on -- beaming it in -- onto the island, is that the idea?

MR. RESTREPO: The idea is to increase the flow of information, be it what we see here in the United States -- the global marketplace of television and radio, to make that a possibility for the Cuban people and to ensure that the United States government is not standing in the way of that; to make clear that more -- we stand on the side of having more information rather than less information reach the Cuban people, and for them to be able to communicate among themselves.

This is an early articulation of what could become an important part of any future Obama Doctrine - the idea that connectivity and access to modern media and technology tools have become indespensible elements of free and open societies in the 21st century.   This idea has also been a central part of NDN's arguments these past few years, whether it has been in the reporting and papers we've produced in our affiliate, the New Politics Institute, or in our more traditional policy work.  From a paper I co-authored in 2007 with Alec Ross, A Laptop in Every Backpack

A single global communications network, composed of Internet, mobile, SMS, cable and satellite technology, is rapidly tying the world's people together as never before. The core premise of this paper is that the emergence of this network is one of the seminal events of the early 21st century. Increasingly, the world's commerce, finance, communications,media and information are flowing through this network. Half of the world's 6 billion people are now connected to this network, many through powerful and inexpensive mobile phones. Each year more of the world's people become connected to the network, its bandwidth increases, and its use becomes more integrated into all that we do.

Connectivity to this network, and the ability to master it once on, has become an essential part of life in the 21st century, and a key to opportunity, success and fulfillment for the people of the world.

We believe it should be a core priority of the United States to ensure that all the world's people have access to this global network and have the tools to use it for their own life success. There is no way any longer to imagine free societies without the freedom of commerce, expression, and community, which this global network can bring. Bringing this network to all, keeping it free and open and helping people master its use must be one of the highest priorities of those in power in the coming years.

And we took an ever deeper look at how mobile devices are becoming core to development work across the world in this recent paper by Tom Kalil, Harnessing the Mobile Revolution.

This new high-tech foreign policy is a logical extension of the deep understanding of the power of these tools the President took away from his own wildly successful Presidential campaign, and is one more example of how the politics of the bottom up is going increasingly global.  Very exciting indeed. 

Congratulations to the President and his whole team for taking these smart and important first steps towards a new day for our relations with our Cuban neighbors. 

New Tools Update: America Votes for Ning

As our readers are well aware, we at NDN and the New Politics Institute are big believers in the power of social networks for politics. One of the most exciting rececnt developments in the social media realm is Ning, a service that allows organizations to create their own individual social networks, similar to MyBarackObama. Back in February, Jason Rosenthal of Ning came to NDN to demonstrate the many applications of this new tool - you can check out the video below:

This week, America Votes launched its new Ning site, americavotes.ning.com. We are pleased to see America Votes, which bills itself as "the largest grassroots voter mobilization effort in the country today," embracing this dynamic platform. We feel that Ning is extremely well suited to America Votes' needs, and look forward to seeing this effort progress.

The Politics of the Bottom Up Go Global

I caught some of his townhall from Strasbourg this morning - carried live on CNN and MSNBC but not Fox of course - and our President was simply amazing.  He was good as I've ever seen him, connecting with the audience, offering complex thoughtful answers to tough challenges.   And Barack seemed to be happy to be in front of people rather than as he said stuck in hotel rooms.  The crowd was wildly excited, applauding him in ways few politicians ever hear.  In many ways this event is how our President best demonstrates his power, and the power of the American ideal.  For any European watching and wondering whether it is a new day, they can only have concluded that is a new day indeed. 

It was an inspiring way to start the day, and I was, for the entire time I watched, as deeply proud of being an American as I have been in many many years.

And it feels like on this trip our young, new President has begun the transformation from President of the United States to the paramount leader of the world's peoples.   His ability to find common ground, to talk of our common aspirations, to make it clear that we are all in this together, is a message, delivered by this particular messenger, which the people of the world are very ready to hear.

If as Fareed Zakaria has argued, the defining geopolitical event of this era is the "rise of the rest," and as Brzezinski has argued rising standards of living throughout the world are creating a "global political awakening," what we may have seen today is the first global leader of this new rising era to emerge; one who can speak in universal themes; one who can through modern media speak directly to these aspiring people - more numerous and in more nations than any time in all of human history - of the world, transcending faction, race and nation, speaking of our universal common aspirations as people no matter where they live.  The ability for this particular man, at this particular moment in history, to lay out such a convincing case for the universal dignity and common aspiration of all men and women across the world is allowing to speak directly to this global political awakening, and emerge as the leader not of the nations of the world, but much more importantly, its people. 

The politics of the bottom-up go global. 

Thursday New Tools Feature: The Cable Show '09

Today, Simon and I took a brief break from the usual D.C. grind and headed over to the The Cable Show 2009 to check out the state of cable technology. Beyond the requisite scantily-clad spokeswomen, gigantic TVs, and vapor projector screens that accompany such gatherings, there was a lot of exciting tech on display. Here are my quick impresions:

Perhaps the biggest theme of the whole show was convergence, and the many ways that entertainment, information, and communication are merging. Streaming and downloadable movies and shows, IPTV, advanced DVR and Network PVR technology, 3-D home theater (available this year), networked video sharing, online video syndication, a huge variety of set-top boxes, mobile VoIP, fully integrated household systems, and many other technologies were being combined in myriad ways. 

Without getting bogged down in the details, the key takeaway of the show was that cable is no longer a broadcast technology; it has become flexible, customizable, and interactive to a striking degree in just a few years time, and with ever-increasing bandwidth (one provider boasted "wideband" download speeds reaching 50 mbps), this trend is sure to accelerate. 

Another trend that is likely to continue is the increase in the number of digital cable subscribers. As more and more people gain access to digital cable in some form, it will also become even more important for those of us in the political world to recognize and address these trends. NDN and the New Politics Institute have long been advocates of buying cable, especially now that it is beginning to offer individually targeted advertising (see my recent post on this subject). Read our NPI paper Buy Cable Smart to learn more about why buying cable advertising is an especially smart investment. 

Thursday New Tools Feature: "Open for Questions" Comes to WhiteHouse.gov

The big news this week on the New Tools front was, of course, President Obama's virtual town hall earlier today, in which he answered some of the most popular questions submitted and voted on at WhiteHouse.gov. The event, which took place in front of a live audience but was centered around questions submitted online, was streamed live to about 65,000 viewers. Here's what Simon and NDN fellow Morley Winograd had to say about the event in an internationally syndicated Associated Press article today by Philip Elliot, a smart and tech-savvy reporter on the White House beat:

"In the new world of online media, formal press conferences are just one element or program to get the message out — to those, usually older, who watch such things on TV. The online version he is doing is an alternative way to get out the same message, in this case on the budget, targeted toward a different audience, usually younger," said Morley Winograd, a former adviser to Vice President Al Gore who now runs the Institute for Communication Technology Management at the University of Southern California.

"In both cases the questioners are just props — or, in some cases, foils — for the star, Obama, to deliver his message. But in the latter case, they get to self-nominate instead of be selected by elites," Winograd said.

In a way, it's part campaign-style politics and part "American Idol," said political strategist Simon Rosenberg.

"Barack Obama is going to reinvent the presidency the way he reinvented electoral politics," said Rosenberg, president of the New Democrat Network and a veteran of presidential campaigns. "He is allowing everyday people to participate in a way that would've been impossible in the old media world."

Obama's campaign allowed supporters to organize themselves to go door-to-door and raise money. Because of that, many felt an ownership of the campaign and devoted countless hours to giving Obama the Democratic Party's nomination and then the presidency.

Obama's aides are taking that step forward, incorporating tools that let visitors to the White House Web site pick the questions Obama will answer, turning the president's Thursday event into a democratic press conference.

"Average people get to shape the outcome, like 'American Idol,'" Rosenberg said. "This is not a couch-potato age. Average people are expecting to be part of the process."

This virtual town hall was a great gesture on the President's part. Obama owed much of his campaign success to his ability to make ordinary Americans feel tangibly involved in the campaign, and he's making strides to make them feel the same way about government. I agree with Simon that participation is absolutely critical in this new political era, and it's great to see that the President understands that.

That being said, there are certain dangers to this approach. Back in January, in reference to Obama's "Citizen's Briefing Book" experiment, I wrote that it would be interesting to see how the

Obama administration handles [unexpected or uncomfortable questions or suggestions that arise through this process] - are they merely attempting to create the appearance and feel of accessibility and openness, or do they really believe deeply in the intrinsic value of this enterprise? How far will they be willing to push this experiment? How far should they? These are questions that undoubtedly will come increasingly to the fore as we enter headlong into a new era of American politics.

We saw similar issues arise today. The New York Times wrote that "at the outset, at least, the forum had a canned feel." In the town hall today, President Obama laughed off one of the most popular submitted questions, which asked if he would consider taxing and regulating marijuana to create a multi-billion dollar industry in the United States. Here are just a few of the comments on the Politico post about the President's response:

"Because a 50 billion dollar/year untaxed industry is something to be laughed about..."

"Same old goverment ...they ask what we are concerned about and then ignore it. Im sure the Mexican Cartels are happy!!! We dont need the billion in tax money from mj, we have own printing press to make money!!"

"It is a shame that he did what he did. There were quite a few respectful, well articulated questions regarding marijuana and legalization. Obama tried to play them off as silly questions from a bunch of stoners. Meanwhile, people are dying in Mexico thanks to the 'War on Drugs.'"

"The way it was handled makes me believe that he is completely ignorant about this issue or else he could have provided a much more thoughtful response then just to laugh at it. I would have accepted some old talking points but to laugh it off as a joke should be insulting to those of us that take this issue seriously."

"The pot question was #1 under jobs, green economy & energy, budget, and financial stability. this is a big issue and i'm disappointed that it was dismissed so casually given the fact the white house is the one who initiated this forum in the first place. what a let down."

Of course, in the midst of a battle to pass his budget, it was unlikely that President Obama would spend political capital on this issue. But the most fundamental issue here is this: When the President asks people for their input, they will naturally want and expect that input to be taken seriously. The American people know the difference between genuine participation and the mere appearance of it; Obama's campaign made it easy for people to actually become directly involved, and people appreciated the authenticity of the experience. If, as Morley says in the article, it becomes too clear that "the questioners are just props — or, in some cases, foils — for the star, Obama, to deliver his message," the President's gesture of openness could potentially backfire on him.

Thursday New Tools Feature: New Toolbox

NDN affiliate The New Politics Institute has become one of the nation's leading experts and advisors on how the rise of a whole new set of media and technology tools is changing the practice of politics. The New Politics Institute has produced one of the most influential and dynamic series of papers in politics, the New Tools series. These papers, along with hundreds of major events and great videos about an array of new tools, have helped many progressives manage the transition to a 21st century media and technology environment.

I'd like to use today's New Tools column to highlight some of this body of work:

  • Go Mobile Now by Jed Alpert and Chris Muscarella, Co-founders of Mobile Commons, October 2007
  • Engage the Blogs by Jerome Armstrong, Founder of MyDD and Internet Strategist, September 2007
  • Advertise Online by Henry Copeland and Megan Mitzel of Blogads.com, October 2007
  • Leverage Social Networks by Chris Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer and Head of Global Public
    Policy for Facebook, November 2007
  • Microtargeting by Mark Steitz and Laura Quinn, Catalist, October 2007
  • Speak in Spanish by Simon Rosenberg, President and Founder of NDN, October 2006

Each one of these must-read papers can teach you how to message, organize, and advertise more effectively using the tools of this new political era.

If you're still hungry for more, or if you can't take the time to read through everything right now, you can also learn more about these new tools by watching top experts explain them here:

Co-Founder of Dewey Digital and Media 50 Group Tim Chambers speaking on Going Mobile:


Chief Technology Officer for Catalist Vijay Ravindran on Microtargeting:


Google’s Director of Elections and Issue Advocacy Peter Greenberg on Advertising Online:


CEO and Executive Producer of PoliticsTV Dan Manatt on Reimagining Video:

For more New Tools videos, click here.

Monday Buzz: MoJo, Meltdown and Migrants, Moderates, Moynihan, and More

NDN had major appearances in a great group of publications this week. First off, Simon was featured in Roll Call in a story about Al From stepping down from the DLC. Here's an excerpt from the piece:

Another group trading on its centrist ties is the NDN, a group previously known as the New Democrat Network that was started and is still run by former DLC field director Simon Rosenberg.

His organization, now a think tank focusing on demography, technology and the media, was once a political action committee engaged in trying to elect moderate Democratic candidates.

NDN has since retooled, Rosenberg said, although not entirely.

"There is no question our origins come out of the New Democrat movement and NDN has been long affiliated with the New Democrats," Rosenberg said.

"But we’ve also charted our own course. We've really tried to make sure that we've tried to understand the changes in America and build ideas and strategies and arguments around what is a very dynamic and fast-changing time."

For NDN, a "fast-changing time" in 2003 meant engaging with the net roots, the activist wing of the Democratic Party that raises money and interacts primarily on the Internet — and became a thorn in the side of more established players such as From.

Rosenberg said a fissure within his party cropped up in recent years over how moderates should align themselves on the issues with Republicans, whose centrist ranks in recent elections have been gutted. Rosenberg said that once Republicans "became unreasonable, the whole construct of the third way started to weaken.

"There were elements of the New Democrat movement that became leaders in the opposition to [President George W.] Bush and there were others who were slow to recognize how much damage they were doing to the country," he continued. "That became a huge dividing line in the family."

Finding common ground with people "whose ideas are wrong and bad for the country," Rosenberg said, "is not a virtuous act."

Rosenberg wrote the forward to Jerome Armstrong and Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas’ best-selling 2006 book "Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics."

As evidence of the rift that still exists between From and others perceived as the party's establishment — a divide originating with moderate Democrats' support for the Iraq War — Moulitsas dismissed the idea of compromise.

"The notion that splitting the difference makes an issue moderate is patently absurd," he said.

Simon was also quoted in an excellent Alternet article about the prospects for immigration reform in the midst of an economic crisis:

But those with whom I spoke are optimistic that a slightly different coalition will hold together. Simon Rosenberg, director of the New Democrat Network, a centrist group that's been in the thick of the immigration debate, told me, "if people want to resolve these issues, they can." He believes a modest guest-worker program is key to winning broad support, including the support of a number of Republicans.

"Getting 5 percent of the workforce out of the shadows, giving them the opportunity to unionize, getting them minimum wage protections -- this is such an important goal for progressives that they need to be willing to accept some compromise," he said.

The original 2007 bill included a guest-worker program that would have allowed as many as 400,000 migrant workers, but an amendment halved that number, capping the number at 200,000 per year for two years. The guest-worker program was a key part of the bargain hammered out between McCain and Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., in 2006.

Rosenberg fears that a bill without a guest-worker program may not earn the support of key members of the GOP, including McCain, who rightly feels a sense of ownership over the legislation. "It's going to be hard without McCain, because no Republicans want to be seen running to his left on immigration," Rosenberg said.

Kos also posted on DailyKos today about this same topic, quoting Simon and linking to NDN's report Hispanics Rising II:

There's no doubt that the system is in serious need of reform, as NDN's Simon Rosenberg summed up a month ago:

"Our broken immigration system is a national disgrace, yet another terrible vexing governing challenge left over from the disastrous Bush era. Legitimate workers have a hard time getting legal visas. Employers knowingly hire and exploit undocumented workers. Our immigrant justice system is a moral outrage. And of course, the scapegoating of the undocumented migrant has become the staple for right-wing politicians and media, giving them something to rail against as the rest of their agenda has collapsed all around them. It is long past time to fix this broken system and replace it with a 21st century immigration system consistent with traditional American values and the needs of our modern ideas-based economy."

Few would disagree with that assessment, the real contention is over the solutions. Nativists advocate a hardline against immigrants, but their loud and aggressive efforts have proven to be an electoral bust. On the other hand, Democrats have benefitted from an increasingly engaged, and increasingly Democratic Latino electorate. They're growing (PDF), they voted Democratic, and they expect action on this key issue. You see, for Latinos, immigration reform isn't an ideological issue, it's a family one. And you don't mess with family.

Next, Mother Jones had a write-up of our event last week with Joe Rospars, the Obama campaign's New Media Director and founder of Blue State Digital. From the piece:

On Tuesday, Rospars took part in a question-and-answer session about the impact of technology on politics hosted by the left-leaning think tank NDN. Rospars dinged the Republicans' much-criticized request for a proposal (PDF) to redesign its website, laughing that his company, Blue State Digital, certainly won't be competing for the business. (Lefty BSD probably wouldn't respond to the RFP anyway, of course, but Rospars brought it up out of the blue—he was obviously referring to the widespread mockery it had already received.) He criticized the GOP's email list, boasting that the Obama campaign's 13-million-strong list was developed in an "organic" way. "We didn't purchase lists and just add people to our email list," he said. "The point of having a big email list isn't just to say you have a big email list. The RNC says they have a however big email list, but the point is to actually have relationships with people so they open the message, they listen to what you're saying, and they're willing to do something," he said.

Finally, Michael had a piece in Grist about creating a sustainable system for infrastructure funding - it's very important stuff, so be sure to check it out! 

Thursday New Tools Feature: You Have 1.1 Billion New Friend Requests...

Nielsen this week released a study demonstrating just how popular and widespread social networking has become. From the Reuters story on the study:

Networking and blogging sites account for almost ten percent of time spent on the internet -- more than on email.

"While two-thirds of the global online population already accesses member community sites, their vigorous adoption and the migration of time show no signs of slowing," said John Burbank, the CEO of Nielsen Online.

One in every 11 minutes spent online globally is on networking sites. Between December 2007 and December 2008, the time spent on the sites climbed 63 percent to 45 billion minutes.

To put that growth in perspective, the growth in "member communities" online this year was "more than twice that of any of the other four largest sectors," and more than three times the growth rate of overall internet usage. To those that think of Facebook and similar sites as optional, largely peripheral entities, this study should come as a serious wake-up call. Social networking sites are changing the game the same way that email did when it was introduced. Facebook is no longer just an excuse for college students to avoid writing papers; in fact, social networking use has grown the most among 35-49 year olds (see chart).

More and more people are using social networking sites to communicate, socialize, and organize online - the overall amount of time spent on Facebook increased a whopping 566% this year. This is a very interesting and powerful phenomenon, which will have wide-spread implications for the political sphere - for instance, back in November, right after the election, I wrote about what an incredibly effective GOTV tool Facebook was, in part due to of the sociological effects of "seeing" all of your friends vote.

Another phenomenon that promises to further shake things up is the confluence of mobile technology and social networking. The Nielsen study found that  

...the increasing popularity of social networks has resulted in increasing demand to access them on the move. Mobile is a natural fit for social networks, as consumers are used to connecting with friends via mobile calls and text. UK mobile web users have the greatest propensity to visit a social network through their handset with 23% of them (2 million people) doing so, compared to 19% in the US (10.6 million people). The numbers of people doing so are a big increase on last year - 249% in the UK and 156% in the US.

To learn more about how to use social networks effectively, check out our New Politics Institute paper, "Leverage Social Networks," which was written by Facebook's Chris Kelly. You can also watch him and others explain how to harness the power of social networks at our New Politics Institute event, Social Networking in Politics.

Finally, check out this video of Ning's Jason Rosenthal at our recent event, New Tools for a New Era:

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