Obama-Biden Transition Website Accepting Questions and Comments

Although overshadowed in the media, two recent initiatives by President-Elect Obama demonstrates his unprecedented commitment to Internet transparency and citizen engagement. The first concept, announced by transition head John Podesta last weekend, is called simply “Your Seat at the Table.” Obama-Biden Transition team will meet with hundreds of private organizations. Anyone they meet with must agree to allow any briefing materials be posted online, where citizens can review them and post their comments. Since launching last weekend, PDFs of briefing materials from over 100 organizations have been posted, and thousands of citizen comments posted in response.

Any presidential initiative that excites both Mother Jones Magazine and the Cato Institute must be unique indeed. Although the Cato bloggers griped that similar transparency is often not applied to budget matters, they should remember that as U.S. Senator, Barack Obama was a driving force behind USASpending.gov, whose sole mission is to let Americans “see where their money goes.”

The new initiative raises many questions — who will process the comments? How will they be recorded for history? How is the transition extending the dialogue to Americans who cannot — or prefer not to — engage with their government on a website? Are there any meetings where the briefs cannot, or will not be posted? These questions aside, the experiment fundamentally transforms the usual input process for government policy by allowing some conversation to occur between individuals. Some of the most exciting technology in this area are new social feedback tools like UserVoice or GetSatisfaction that attempt to create a technical framework for a collective discussion, without the prohibitively high technical barriers to entry (and problematic lack of user restrictions) of wikis.

This type of social feedback software is exactly the type of technology the fuels the other new tool, “Open For Questions” the campaign unveiled today, which “lets you ask the Transition team any questions you have about the issues that are important to you” and also “browse through questions other folks have and check off the ones you think are the most interesting.”

Fundamentally, both of these technologies of are applicable to policy-making at the local level, which unlike for the presidency suffers a lack of participants, and a need for better ways than public meetings to bring people together across time and space. If the Obama Administration can demonstrate their practicality at the national level, perhaps it will serve to debunk skepticism and resistance at over levels of government. What will remain is to extract the technical machinery behind Change.gov and make it available to local governments, overcome the political, cultural, and policy barriers to enhanced transparency and dialogue, and develop the expertise to deploy them in constructive ways.

> Change.Gov – Your Seat at the Table and Open for Questions

Transition News Items

Since President-Elect Barack Obama’s election last week news has been flying fast. Here’s a few items that caught my eye.

Obama quickly launched an official transition website, appropriately called Change.gov. Featuring a blog and an invitation for users to submit their vision about what “America can be” and “where President-Elect Obama should lead this country.” The website briefly featured his campaign platform, which has been removed. The platform was captured on WhiteHouse2.org, a private effort to allow thousands of citizens to set the agenda for the new president’s first 100 days. The website links to this transition guide for Obama’s transition team and various nominees and appointees, which features among other useful information a directory of acronyms and this high-level organizational chart of the federal government. (See full size)

The Change.gov transition website is reminding some of his tech policy, released a year ago, which pledged he would let Americans review and comment on non-emergency legislation online for at least five days before signing it. Here’s a piece from Slate on the possibility the Obama administration’s website would function as a social network:

The sort of Web site the Obama team seems to be envisioning—one in which the president and his citizens hold deep discussions about the controversial issues of the day—will surely be much less focused than My.BarackObama.com, which had a singular goal: to get Barack Obama elected. Obama’s campaign Web site connected disparate people who shared a common passion; the White House social network will connect people who disagree with each other and with the president—and whose goals might be in conflict. So far, the Web hasn’t had a great record of bridging social divisions. If Obama can change that, maybe he really is a different kind of politician.

On another topic, Obama adviser and transition co-chair Valerie Jarrett recently reiterated he plans to create a White House Office of Urban Policy. In addition to the new office, his picks for many other posts will have a profound impact on our cities, including three posts Richard Layman is thinking about: Secretary of Transportation, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and Director of the Federal Transit Administration.

> Slate: “You Are Now Friends with Barack Obama”
> CNN: “Obama launches Web site to reach public”
> Change.gov

Obama Reaches 1 Million Facebook Supporters

Around 10 p.m. last night, Barack Obama’s official Facebook page reached 1 million supporters. The news has generated buzz, and rightfully so. It dwarfs John McCain’s 147,000+ supporters, demonstrating his breadth of support. (techPresident has charts of various online popularity metrics) Politico’s Ben Adler reported the two campaign’s internal social networking tools have similar numbers – with my.barackobama.com over 900,000 and McCain Space reporting only “tens of thousands.”

I found it interesting it took so long to reach the 1 million milestone. After all, it took just 9 days for Stephen Colbert’s group to reach 1 million members in October 2007. Barack Obama’s independent “One Million Strong” group is only up to 566,000 after several months of trying. I don’t think it’s because of political apathy, especially since political groups opposing Bush and Clinton already hit the mark. What I think it suggests is that people take supporting a candidate seriously, even if that action is the single click it requires to join a virtual “group.” With five months remaining until the election, I wonder how high the numbers will go.

There’s no easy way to find a list of the biggest lists on Facebook, although a few lists exist. Here’s a sampling that have tasted the rarefied air of 1+ million supporters:

• Six Degrees Of Separation – The Experiment (4,911,727)
• Let’s set and break a Guiness Record!!!! Approved by guinnessworldrecords.com (2,822,768)
• If you remember this you grew up in the 90′s (1,538,571)
• When I was your age, Pluto was a planet. (1,306,606)
• 1,000,000 Strong For Stephen T Colbert (1,248,629)
• The Largest Facebook Group Ever (1,191,504)
• I bet I can find 1,000,000 people who dislike George Bush! (1,001,973)
• Stop Hillary Clinton: (One Million Strong AGAINST Hillary) (992,294 – was over 1M)

How Obama Did It

It involved hire a “drama-free” team, getting millionaire fund raisers to sell $3 key chains, and building an organization that reflected his personality — not the bad habits of the party establishment. It also meant technology — according to Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi, “the Dean campaign was like the Wright brothers. Four years later, we’re watching the Apollo project.”

> TIME: How Obama Did It

‘I Will Be the Democratic Nominee for President’

“Let us unite in common effort to chart a new course for America.”
– Barack Obama, June 3, 2008, St. Paul, Minnesota

“The most important thing we can do right now is to reengage the American people in the process of governance. To get them excited and interested again in what works, and what can work in our government, to make politics cool again, important again, and relevant again.”
– Barack Obama, February 11, 2008, College Park, Maryland

Txt with Obama

Yesterday it was brought to my attention not all of my friends who support Obama have signed up for his text messaging list. Subscribers receive short messages roughly once a week or less, related to major announcements in the campaign, primaries, and media appearances. You can sign up online, or by texting GO to OBAMA (62262). I first subscribed after seeing it advertised at his College Park rally earlier this year. The campaign website also offers a variety of ringtones, wallpapers, and suggests high-volume users should follow him on Twitter.

> Obama Mobile

The Candidates on the Issues

All the major presidential candidate websites are generally similar in their structure. All three feature an “issues” tab, with pages on a variety of issues. These sometime link to other materials, such as lengthier plans in PDF format or other materials, but I thought the choice of issues and length might tell us something about what each candidate’s campaign think is important. At the very least, it might speak to the interest groups they’re cultivating and their general philosophy about how much information they should provide before requiring visitors to click more. Of course, what candidates say about their priorities, and what they actually do in office can be quite different for a variety of reasons.

Here’s the three way comparison (larger):

And just Obama and McCain (larger):

Obama’s top three are technology, urban policy, and family, and McCain’s are economy, national security, and veterans, and Hillary Clinton’s are innovation, veterans, and schools.

I noticed both Democrats have long pages on technology and innovation issues, a topic McCain omits entirely.

Barack Obama is also unique in organizing a variety of urban-related policy proposals and positions under the umbrella topic of Urban Policy, something that was added to the website since I scrutinized it last. As the first bullet to his plan he proposes creating a White House Office on Urban Policy to “develop a strategy for metropolitan America” and coordinate federal urban programs, reporting directly to the president.

Update: On the suggestion of Andrew Gelman, here’s a different version ranked by the difference in words between Obama and McCain.

Another just by Obama topics: