Blue Collar Muse

One of the biggest criticisms of Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign was he was long on empty rhetoric and short on specific plans.

That shortcoming seemed to be addressed when Obama included an “Agenda” section on hiis transition website Change.gov. It initially looked to be a great resource for determining Obama’s priorities and emphases would be. Indeed, the furor around his announced “civilian national security force” grew when this very “Agenda” page began to explain what it would mean.

The first change to Change.gov was to that “Youth Service” plan.  Obama altered his originally published intentions with a serious rewrite for America’s students. Now, Patrick Ruffini notes via Twitter that the entire Change.gov “Agenda” section is simply gone, replaced by meaningless drivel.

This probably doesn’t mean Obama has suspended plans to drive the country into the ground. More likely it simply means he has gone back to his original behavior of refusing to comment on the specifics of what his intentions are and how he will accomplish them. But we can hope, if only in our hearts, the changes signal a retreat from plans already laid out which thinking people realize are destructive. That would be change we could believe in.

Blue Collar Muse

Popularity: 52% [?]

What does it take for random people associating with like minded others around an idea they jointly support to coalesce into a group that moves beyond approving of the idea to actively promoting the idea? In short, how does one go from harmless to honed? How does one progress from a mob to a movement? Right of Center activists are getting a crash course in answering that question via the object lesson of a new website, #Don’t Go Movement. The brainchild of Eric Odom at Fresh Vision Media, #Don’t Go Movement has traveled really far, really fast!

Just 5 days ago, House Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi, left Washington, DC for a 5 week break. They left mountains of unfinished, important and urgent People’s business behind. High on the list was a failure to address, in any way, the energy crisis gripping our nation from decades of flawed Democratic policy. Despite poll numbers showing 74% of Americans favor expanding supply via drilling, Democrats went home after doing nothing. Despite increasing numbers of House Democrats supporting expanded drilling, Pelosi didn’t even bother to go home. She left on a book tour promoting herself and her pocketbook; content to support only drilling in the People’s pocketbooks.

Democrats voted to adjourn and left. The GOP did not. They stayed in the People’s House and began to call for Pelosi and Democrats to return to complete important business before leaving. The Left is branding this as mere political posturing but a look at the adjournment vote says otherwise. It was 213-212 in favor of leaving.

House GOP members who stayed behind began giving impromptu speeches, spectators in the gallery were invited down onto the floor and the few MSM reporters on hand interviewed members. Pelosi responded by having the C-Span cameras turned off, the lights turned off and the microphones turned off leaving the GOP in the dark. The GOP finally left the House chambers late Friday night but promised to return this week to renew their call to the Democrats to come back to DC and do what the People expect of them.

So what does this have to do with a movement? It’s just a bunch of middle aged Republicans speechifying in the dark! It only started that way. Less than an hour after the Dems departed and the GOP got going, Eric Odom and Allen Fuller from Flat Creek put up a Twitter site, ‘Don’t Go!’, so GOP members could get their message out along with any citizen or Social Media savvy activist. That site hit the blogs and it was off to the races. They had multiple Tweets per minute beginning mid session Friday evening and it has continued unabated to this very moment!

Some feared the issue would die across the weekend. After all, the news broke late on Friday, the worst possible time for a story to break. Further, there was practically zero MSM coverage of the story. It tends to be difficult to report when there’s no lights and no sound available. But Odom and Fuller kept doing what they knew was working, keeping the issue alive in the blogosphere and via online Social Media such as Facebook as they added to their Twitter efforts. They were joined by other well known Right of Center online activists like Patrick Ruffini.

When Monday rolled around, the GOP was true to their word and returned to a darkened House chamber to continue to ask Democrats “Don’t Go!”. The Twitter tweets continued unabated. But by now the concept was picking up steam. There were a LOT more people involved and a way had been found to conduct interviews with participants so video and audio clips were emerging. The Twitter site alone was not enough to keep up with the information flow. So Odom added a full website that went live Tuesday afternoon. Named ‘#Don’t Go Movement’, the site features videos, blog posts from around the country, links to the original Twitter and Facebook sites and more. There’s even a petition to sign where you can add your voice to those of the House members to ask the Dems, please, Don’t Go!

Why a movement? The Right has not been as excited or mobilized about an issue since Harriet Meiers and the Amnesty Bill. The arrogance and hubris of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the rest of the Democratic leadership has chafed the GOP for months. The Energy debate was the place where GOP chafing, activist chafing and the People’s chafing came together. How dare they simply go off on a tax payer funded vacation without representing the tax payers? What started as a relative handful of Congressmen on Friday night turned into thousands of online activists by Monday morning. By this afternoon, Wednesday, just 5 days after it began, it had crossed over to the MSM with Radio, Print and TV reporters and personalities clamoring for time with Odom and his colleagues. The next up is an interview with Hugh Hewitt this afternoon at 4PST, 6CST and 7EST. Eric is a friend and so I was able to reach him at his office in Chicago and he confirmed the growth. “#Don’t Go Movement had 62,000 hits at the site in the very first 24 hours!”, he said. I checked the running total for signatures at the petition site. It was over 22,500 for the first 24 hours and climbing several signatures per minute!

That’s why a movenent. The question is, can it continue? Pelosi foolishly shows no sign of returning. It may be too late for her. Her best chance to derail the GOP’s efforts was Friday night. She hoped it would die, instead. That miscalculation means she can’t come back now without being seen to be bowing to GOP pressure and she can’t stay away without being seen as unconcerned with the People’s plight. It’s a lose-lose. In chess, it’s called getting “forked” when you are maneuvered into a position where your only option is to lose one of two pieces after you complete your move and your only choice is which loss is the least severe. Pelosi has done this to herself. She’s going to pay the price. The GOP and the Right are not going to stop pounding the drum of “Don’t Go!” until the Dems come back on Sept. 8 or until Pelosi calls them back early. Even still, they will be plagued with the question, “What took you so long to do the right thing?”

For the GOP to turn this event into a movement that outlives its original purpose will take some doing. With sharp operators like Odom, Fuller and Ruffini at the helm they have an excellent chance to turn the “Don’t Go Home for Vacation Without Doing Your Job!” of August into the “Don’t Go Back to the Democrat’s Failed Leadership of the Last 2 Years!” of November. From there, there’d be no stopping the call to “Don’t Go!”

Blue Collar Muse

Popularity: 40% [?]

One thing I love about my job is that I get to travel. Over the last couple of months I’ve been in Plains States and Mountain States. One of the prettiest and friendliest places I’ve visited is Denver, CO. Not only are the people great but the Downtown 16th Street Walking Mall and LoDo are fantastic, the capitol is beautiful and the mountains are, of course, exquisite!

Even Denver International Airport (DIA) is cool with its stylized snowcapped mountain peaks and all. One of the best features of DIA, however, is free WiFi at the airport! So far, DIA is the largest airport I’ve found providing that service and all one need do is watch a commercial or two and endure a permanent banner ad. I’ll gladly pony up that price for the ability to work and surf while waiting on my flight. Plus, after the ordeal of TSA screening, it seems somehow proper I should get a reward for being a good boy. But am I really all that good? Opinions seem to vary.

You see, earlier this week, on my way to Montana (also an incredibly beautiful state), I had occasion to again pass through DIA and, as I was packing my laptop, spent some time on the web. While checking email and catching up on some reading, I decided to see what the folks at The Next Right were talking about and that’s when it happened. Evidently I’m not the good boy I thought. Seems I’ve been associating with undesirables, malcontents and rabble-rousers - you know - bloggers! And when I entered http://thenextright.com in the address bar, I got the following message:

Notification

Bad Reputation

Your request to URL “http://thenextright.com/” has been blocked by TrustedSource. The Web reputation score of this URL is 127, which is not allowed by your administrator at this time.
generated 25/Jun/2008:21:17:01 -0600

The Next Right is banned in Denver? Who knew??? I’ll bet Media Matters in Colorado is turning handsprings! I know Ruffini, Dayton and Henke can get a bit testy at times. I know TNR diarists, including myself, surrender to the temptation to engage in a bit of snark on occasion. But “Bad Reputation”? In the first place, TNR hasn’t been around long enough yet to acquire a reputation bad enough to warrant being banned by any source, “Trusted” or otherwise! In the second place, just exactly who is “TrustedSource” and what is their reputation? Who exactly is it that trusts them to tell me who I should trust? Banning TNR isn’t inspiring a lot of trust and confidence in me. Is there a place I can go to ban them?

But the ban set me to wondering. Why was TNR banned. Am I missing something? I thought I was on the inside track with these guys. I joined TNR early and post often. Have I not met Jon Henke personally? Did I not grieve at the treatment Soren received from the powers that be? Do I not abase myself before Ruffini in all things techie? Have I been excluded from a special page at TNR that that all the really cool bloggers get access to? Perhaps they’re selling calendars featuring pictures of the TNR trio brandishing their keyboards in a menacing fashion above the caption “Armed and Dangerous”! Airports do seem to be more security conscious these days! Maybe the guys aren’t wearing shirts in their calendar pics, although Soren as “Mr. June” in a pic like that might actually be enough to warrant a ban (no disrespect intended to the tastes of any current or future Mrs. Soren) .

Of one thing, however, I am absolutely certain. The actual content of the site had nothing, whatsoever, to do with the ban. This is America and no one would think to ban TNR, or any other site, for being a place where folks exercise their 1st Amendment right to free speech. There’s no way being a tolerant repository of a wide variety of ideas, thought and strategy would get a site banned. It’s comforting to know some things are still legal and acceptable, even on the Internet. But that still sheds no light on the reason for the ban.

And what’s with the score of 127? Didn’t government schools teach us high scores were a good thing? For most of us TNR diarists, 127 will likely be the best score we ever get on any test and should be something to be proud of. I’m thinking of having a t-shirt made up saying, “Jon, Patrick, Soren and I scored 127 at DIA!” or maybe “I went to Denver and all I got was banned and this lousy t-shirt!”

In any event, both a few neighbors back home and the parents of a couple of ladies I wooed in my misspent youth have been vindicated. They noted, correctly it would seem, I would likely not amount to much as a direct result of hanging around with the wrong crowd. “A pity!” they told me, “So much potential being wasted!” Who knew that after 35 years spent trying to prove them wrong, I’d be tripped up by hanging around with respectable Washington insiders. I suppose I should have known. I wonder if I’ll get time off for good blogging behavior?

Blue Collar Muse

Popularity: 31% [?]