WP: Grass-Roots Politics With Click of a Mouse

Grass-Roots Politics With Click of a Mouse
In Silicon Valley, Tech-Driven Support Groups

By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 25, 2004; Page A03


....The event (in a converted San Francisco warehouse) is a fundraiser/pep rally of sorts for MoveOn.org, the Internet-based grass-roots group that has become famous for its harsh anti-Bush TV advertisements, the millions of dollars it has taken from Democratic billionaire George Soros and for being able to mobilize tens of thousands with a click of the keyboard.

As the election season reaches its peak, Silicon Valley is using its technical know-how and money to try to change politics in the same way it reinvented commerce -- by harnessing the Internet's ability to take advantage of and grow social networks from the bottom up....

***

Political consultants have spent countless hours pondering, dissecting and analyzing strategies to capture younger voters but for these organizations the secret is obvious. It's about making politics cool. The 2000 election marked one of the most dismal turnouts by young voters ages 18 to 29, but studies released over the past few months by the Harvard Institute of Politics, the Pew Research Center and MTV suggest a different trend this year. The young are projected to come out in unusually large numbers -- enough to swing a close election, though that's no certainty. In the last election, polls show that young voters were split down the middle in their support of Republicans and Democrats.

In many parts of the country, house parties, rock concerts and other social events sponsored by techie political groups are becoming the place for the young and hip to mix and mingle and -- oh yes -- support their political causes. Besides, as the MoveOn invitation noted, the party was a "fine way to meet cute guys and girls of your political persuasion."...


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59750-2004Oct24.html?sub=AR

Sure, it has nothing to do with the rotten state the country is in,
the coming draft, the mess in the Middle East. It's because some
blowhard PR technocrat figured out how to make politics "cool.
:puke: