The Obama Effect
As the TwitVote experiment likely proves, the Twitter community—itself a reflection of online technologists and other early adopters—is pro-Obama. I suppose I’m no different.

The Twitter community is a bit biased

This election cycle has been far more uplifting than the past several if only because it seemed several reasonable options among the many candidates, in a race that included an historic battle late into the primary season. Barack Obama isn’t my ideal candidate, but when I show up at Meadowwood tomorrow morning—some 3.3 miles away from my house—I’ll be voting for what he inspires.

We forget, often, that the President may be the most powerful leader in the world but he also holds an office that doesn’t make laws, establish budgets, or rule on Constitutionality. Presidents merely influence these things through the people they choose to surround them and the way they conduct themselves in public. I’m sure Barack Obama has great ideas about how to fix the economy or health care, etc., but that isn’t the reason to vote for him.

If you want a sign of what kind of nation we might be under Obama, look at the army of citizen volunteers willing to go door to door to fight for his candidacy. They change avatars and middle names on Facebook in a sign of support. They compose songs. Most importantly, they get involved with local politics and become active in their own communities. Kerry and Gore didn’t invoke the same degree of passion. Obama is attractive because of the reaction the nation has had to his campaign.

Vote Report
Obama can’t take credit for any of the work done on Vote Report—a community-sourced election oversight project—but I have to wonder whether it comes to fruition without his Presidency motivating people to get involved.

Vote Report is led by a group of online activists that include Micah Sifry and Noel Hidalgo. For the many voters who experience voting problems—long lines, broken machines, missing names on registration rolls—this project provides a conduit to register a complaint on location. Using Twitter and hashtags (like, “#wait:120″ for a 2-hour wait in line), messages are distributed and aggregated to give a real-time look at where problems arise in the 2008 national elections. You don’t have to use Twitter in order to participate; Vote Reports has other ways to send your experiences to the volunteers, including phone (an automated system at 567-258-VOTE (8683), or talk to a human at 1-866-OUR-VOTE).

Community-source election oversight

One of the outcomes of this mass of information is a Plodt graph to show how the data changes over time. The team of developers is also working on a mashup with Google Maps. For developers and researchers, there are also several ways to get the raw data. Vote Report is a massive collaborative effort that includes support from organizations like Rock the Vote, Common Cause, NPR’s Social Media Desk, Women Donors Network, PBS, and Demos.

Behind the scenes at Vote Report

For more on Twitter and politics, visit Warren Sukernek’s list of political Twitter bookmarks. It contains a growing number of web articles and tools surrounding the current political season.

Lewis: They (The American People) want leadership. They’re so thirsty for it they’ll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there’s no water, they’ll drink the sand.

President Andrew Shepherd: Lewis, we’ve had presidents who were beloved, who couldn’t find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. People don’t drink the sand because they’re thirsty. They drink the sand because they don’t know the difference.

–The American President

When the Barack Obama lovefest started, I wanted on.

I braced myself for the ride of my life and headed out to see Obama speak. I wanted more than politics—I wanted leadership. I wanted a politician who understood the difference between fighting the fights he can win, and fighting the fights that need fighting. Surely someone with Obama’s charisma and intelligence could persuade the American people to talk about the real issues instead of dumbed-down soundbites.

I want to believe in Barack Obama.

Rewind 17 years.

Fall of 1991. Working days at a bank and evenings as a waitress, taking some coursework in the afternoons, I survived in a fog of beer and cigarette smoke, stumbling through early adulthood.

Something happened and I woke up. My stumbling shifted to gingerly picking my way through the days, making sense of my life. The day I woke up, I turned on the TV and saw a bunch of older white men—looking like all the uncles at a Bridwell family reunion—and a younger black woman.

The man in charge said all the right things. He talked about the justice system—allowing it to work without bias—and then sat back as the other men demeaned and belittled the woman. He might have felt an urge to stand up and do something, like impose basic rules of evidence so she could have the same protections she would have had in a court of law. This was the Senate, however, and he chose to wait for the fight he could win instead.

I watched, horrified, as the men pretended to understand the basics of sexual harassment, thus their convenient dismissal of any expert witnesses on the topic, and then asked questions that completely missed the point. These were questions designed not to enlighten, but to debase. It was a stunning illustration of how little power American women have, how very much power white rich men have, and how very little the senators understood it all. Clarence Thomas was confirmed to our Supreme Court where he can show generations how dangerous the cavalier abuse of power can be.

Today

I hear Obama saying a lot of right things. I appreciate him reaching out to a broad audience in order to beat John McCain. My complaints about Obama do not mean I’ll vote for McCain. The implication that my desire for more intelligent and honest discussion means I would prefer the lowest common denominator is infuriating. I’m complaining because I’m tired of drinking sand. By adding Joe Biden to the ticket, Obama might as well have handed me a toy funnel so I could swallow more efficiently.

I want a presidential candidate who is truly presidential. Someone who has the courage to confront the American people with deeper discussions than his polls dictate. Someone who assumes we know the difference between sand and water.

It’s easy to argue that Biden didn’t do anything wrong during the Clarence Thomas hearings, it’s much harder to argue that he did anything courageous. I find a similar theme throughout Obama’s platform. Instead of fighting the fights that need fighting, he’s standing by, voting present, almost leading.

I’m thirsty.

Welcome back, Joe Biden. Love, The Onion.

I had plans, man. I was less interested in the Who than the Effect. I planned to drop everything I was doing the moment I saw the first tweet confirming the selection—and face it, Twitter was going to beat my cell phone to the punch, guaranteed—and then watch the explosion of Obama references emerge on Twitscoop. Perhaps even with a screen cast.

TwitScoop tracks Obama-Biden

My guess was, being a savvy political unit trying to be inclusive of all Americans (including Hawaii), the Obama camp would decide the optimal time for the text message would be 3p Eastern, when all of America is awake. Apparently the future President got that mental memo, but interpreted it in military time.

3:47am? I’m not even up that late when I’m not sleeping. West Coasters only had to have a late night at the bars. Eastern Time Zone residents didn’t have a chance of the shared experience.

Had I been up, I would have seen Biden’s name on CNN (I got my email alert at 12:50a) and on Twitter. One of the people I follow is a regional politico, Paul Roales, who has been tracking this VP watch for a long time. Much of the commentary by him and others had pointed to Indiana senator Evan Bayh. While this proved incorrect, Roales wasn’t alone in this thinking, or in the speculating while I slept.

Here is a reverse chronology of tweets from my information stream (the highlighted are was the first mention of The Text):

Twitter was marked by speculation while waiting for The Text

The choice, ultimately, couldn’t be Evan Bayh because the bumper stickers might send the wrong message (as in, “Obama? Bye.”) But does anyone else remember the same Joe Biden I do? Or is this a different one?

Preparing to see Barack Obama

The Pre-Game

Barack Speaks to Bloomington

Reflection