See What’s Out There

Nice post today from Ari Mebler in the Nation about Obama’s email list.

First of all, it’s big. Very big.

…In 2004, John Kerry’s list hit three million, and some estimated Obama’s list could top five million. That would make it double the size of the largest email lists in U.S. politics, including older web groups like MoveOn. It turns out those estimates weren’t even close.

Obama’s list now tops a whopping ten million people, according to today’s Washington Post.
The article does not directly attribute that figure to anyone. The same paragraph cites “senior aides,” however, to report that the list is so financially valuable that it was “briefly offered” as loan “collateral during a cash-flow crunch.” A source in a position to know also told me that the email list has reached eleven million people.

Obama has DIRECT CONTACT with 16% of the people who voted for him. This is new, and it’s powerful:

So even after the gauzy honeymoon talk fades, when people start second-guessing how much “political capital” Obama really has, there will be this resilient network of people committed to enacting the Obama agenda. In a policy fight with Congress — or a message battle with the press — these are the people that will take action to get Obama’s back. They will call their neighbors, or their members of Congress. They’ll knock on doors, or storm local meetings. They’ll write letters to the editor or, naturally, email and prod their networks.

Link: [The Nation]

I think competence will be the biggest change with an Obama administration. Today they launched Change.gov the online “Office of the President-Elect.”

President-Elect Obama (wow!) is transitioning from campaign mode to governing mode and the millions of supporters become the first connected group of constituents. This community can become a hammer against Congress as he pursues his agenda.

This effort is about transparency, community and communication — everything you need to be doing in your nonprofit. Stay tuned.

So, the election is over. What now? Stay away from the Obama-Zombies. From our friends at The Onion.

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

I read a note on Daily Kos this morning about how popular the Obama campaign logo is among advertising people.

The campaign designed the logo that shows hope and optimism but what interested me was how versatile it is. I was thinking about this a lot because we believe in using sub-sites (microsites) and additional URLs for specific campaigns and we always face the issue of branding — how close does our campaign branding have to connect to our main brand? I don’t think there is one right answer to that question, but the nice thing about the Obama logo is how versatile it is for sub-brands. Here’s the example:

Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders

African Americans

Americans Abroad

Americans with Disabilities

Arab Americans

European & Mediterranean Americans for Obama

Environmentalists

First Americans

Generation Obama

Jewish Americans

Kids

Latinos

Labor

LGBT

People of Faith

Republicans

Rural Americans

Seniors

Small Business

Students

Sportsmen

Veterans & Military Families

Women

[via barackobama.com/people/]

Mik Moore, the editor of Jspot, a Jewish social action blog, the Director of Communications and Public Policy at Jewish Funds for Justice and the co-executive director of Jewish Council for Education and Research (JCER), a political action committee supporting Obama, created The Great Schlep, a project to get Jews to travel to Florida to convince their grandparents to vote for Obama.

The idea is that Jews in Florida can determine the outcome of the election and that the best way to get Jews to vote for Obama is for their grandchildren to come down and convince them. (Most observers say the Democrats win Florida and they win the election, and we know from 2000 that even a few hundred votes the other way make the difference.)

They got the best spokesperson ever for this, Sarah Silverman, who I not-so-secretly love to death.

Here’s Sarah explaining The Great Schlep (if you are offended by bad words, don’t watch it.)

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

Link [The Great Schlep]

One of the small stories in the election is the role of Jewish voters, particularly in swing state areas, South Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Most of us are familiar with the general slanders against Obama, there has been particular focus on his supposedly being a Muslim (he’s not), the strangeness of his name, etc. This misinformation is being used particularly with religious and older Jewish voters for whom Israel’s safety and the support of the US for Israel are paramount. Even a small move of Jews away from the Democratic party in Florida, for example, can change the outcome of the election.

The Jews in the Obama camp just launched a counterattack - Israelis for Obama. [And of course the counterattack takes the form of video produced primarily for the web.] Have a look:

Link: [Jewish Alliance for Change]

The Republican strategy is to make the Barack Obama out to be un-American. Foreign. Strange. Exotic. And they have tried to paint Michelle Obama as angry, and use that to feed into fears about African-Americans.

The Internet can be a game changer in this election. While the Net can be used to smear and spread lies, it can also be used to undermine smear strategies. The reason is that if you missed Michelle Obama speak last night you can watch it on YouTube. Or on the Obama campaign website or RIGHT HERE! Portability of online video means people can get unfiltered messages directly in the places they frequent. So while you might have heard Michelle Obama is a hate-filled angry Black woman, you will actually see her speak and then, poof, those ideas will be out the window.

You can deploy this same tactic for your organization. Make those unfiltered views of your work on the ground available and see people begin to connect in ways that weren’t possible before. There is a gap between what you do on the ground every day and what donors can see. Use online video to close the gap.

After watching this speech, I think the Republicans will need to come up with a different strategy to get Michelle. Angry? Not at all. A smart, beautiful, loving mom? Totally.

The amazing thing about this video is that the statement McCain made — not remembering how many houses he owns! — was yesterday. And here’s the ad. Sleep, for now, is out of the question.

If you don’t think “somethin’ is happening here” have a look at this. (By the way, can your organization turn an event into an inspiring event video in 24 hours? Make it relevant and people will pay attention.)

The MoveOn.org Obama in 30 Seconds video contest has a winner. To refresh your memory, MoveOn asked it’s 3 million+ members to make a 30-second campaign commercial for Obama. It had to be positive.

They received over 1,000 entries. Their members and the general public voted on the finalists, more than 5 million votes. And a panel of judges picked the overall winner.

Here’s the winner:

You can see other category winners here.