2009 has been a rough year for the netroots. It's not surprising that we find ourselves in the midst of a chaotic period. With Democrats in power again an identity crisis has arisen. Who are we now? What is our mission? How do we remain relevant?
We grew up out of a collective sense of powerlessness and frustration and became a potent tool for activism on the left. Our focus was on electoral victories and reform and we definitely have proven our worth.
Now that we have gained success we're struggling to understand what our role is now. It's clear that the Daily Kos community is still grappling with this. However, I think we're starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. As the real consequences of our distracting inward focus is playing out now in MA I believe we're beginning to remember our sense of purpose. Maybe I'm too optimistic. :) I hope not.
Anyway, with that in mind, it brings me to a much neglected subject around this community. Strategy.
We've spent a year indulging our passions without much thought toward effectiveness. I believe it's time to talk about our goals and how to achieve them. This community is an embarrassment of riches. We're bursting at the seams with bright, talented people with experience and skills that dazzled me during the 2008 general election. We don't lack for awesomeness. We just don't have a game plan.
So, let's talk about this and keep talking about it. Personally, I'd love to see some discussion and ideas about reaching out to voters and building liberal/progressive messaging infrastructure that will reach beyond the blog to liberal talk show conduit. I think we need broader tools that hop over the mainstream media and speak directly to voters. I'm not knocking liberal talk shows, I'm just saying that I don't think it's enough. Should we look at some of the grass roots approaches that the Obama campaign used? Personally, I think we should but perhaps you guys have ways to build on these approaches that we haven't talked about yet. How do we coordinate, use our talents, pool our resources (time and money) to really start speaking to voters in states like Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Arkansas, and so forth?
Where do we go from here and how do we get there? Any thoughts?