Who should win the democratic nomination?

[INTELBYTES]

At the website vote.com, they are having a poll for who you think should win the democratic nomination. This site is often freeped, but jump on and vote in mass. There is a wide variety of topics to vote on as well. They email a copy of your vote to whatever party the vote pertains to. (Clark has another vote from my camp!)

http://www.vote.com/

:freak:

[UrbScotty]

1. Look who's in the lead!

:shrug:

[INTELBYTES]

2. That just means...

It all the repukes doing the voting. Unless there is more Zell Miller democrats in the party than I care to think about.
:spank:

[maddezmom]

5. Dean and Joe L.

when I voted

[RandomUser]

3. Vote.com is a freeper site

They're extremely right-wing and republican. They email out advertisements for Bill O'reilly's and other rightwing conservative books published, but not for any liberal books. And the questions and discussions on the site are very often slanted pro-Bush and republican.

Vote.com results are a pulse on the pro-Bush community. Hmm...looks like we know who the freepers want to be our nominee, or at least the ones who run Vote.com.

[INTELBYTES]

4. Don'tcha

think that if more dems knew about the site they could level the playing field? I could tell it's slanted, but I think we could shift the balance if we all voted there. Or do you think they fix the numbers?

[RandomUser]

6. The bias goes beyond the voting

I remember taking part in it a long time ago, because I thought the concept cool. You vote and it emails the proper people for you -- congressional representatives, state AG, etc -- without you lifting a finger. They automate it all, making it less effort on your part and thus more people likely to participate. Also, they use your zipcode to make sure it gets to the right local authorities. And I still lament that Democrats have no similar instrument.

But the fact that they use your email address, which they promise not to give out for commercial reasons, to promote conservative publications, but not liberal ones shows their bias. Even if we load the site with Democrats, this won't change. Since this is from the top down from the administrators.

Further, I left the site because I was disgusted with the vote results continuously coming out in favor of the rightwing. Other Dems will eventually feel this same peer pressure and frustration, ending up with them leaving. Thus, it is a self-selecting population that is very pro-Bush.

The answer is not to load the site with Dems, but to create one of our own to mirror it. Kind of like how we've recently created mirrors to the Heritage Foundation and conservative thinktanks.

Vote.com serves a very tangible service for Republicans, by automating the grassroots emailing of local representives, and promoting conservative authors. Further, their official statement that they're not a partisan website, despite the obvious bias in book promotions and the republican history of the founders, lends them a degree of credibility when they email representives with internet user emails and claim to be a grassroots organization.

The republicans have spent decades creating these instruments. From conservative think tanks, to conservative talk radio, and now conservative grassroots automation online with things like Vote.com. We've countered with recently created liberal think tanks. We're trying to start liberal talk radio networks. And we've had some success online. But I don't know of any liberal counter to Vote.com's grassroots emailing automation targeting interest group representatives and local politicians.

Would DU or DU'ers be interested in creating such a mirror? We can just copy what Vote.com does and counter it.

[INTELBYTES]

7. Good post randomuser

I agree. I think we should have a site like that. (Wish I were computer savvy or I'd do it myself!).

[RandomUser]

8. Any computer savvy DU'ers?

Who want to take up this cause? We currently have no liberal counter to Vote.com. Their influence stretches across the board, emailing everyone from politicians to business ceo's to media representatives to whoever can be pressured to influence political issues.


Their key is:

1) automation (you vote, we'll write and send the email for you)

2) localized targetting (using zipcode to send email to local politicians) as well as national targetting (national politicians, business execs, television studios)

3) breadth of range on what types of people they target (harnessing and directing the masses to email boyscouts HQ to ban gays, business execs, politicians, interest groups, etc. Every single issue.)

4) their disingenious claim to nonpartisanship (we don't have any issue positions, it's up to the voters and the community. They vote, we're just faciliating in a non-partisan manner).

5) community consensus and peer-pressure (the discussions on the votes are community building efforts and also ways to influence the decisions of moderates -- 90% of the people online think Bush is great! It's not us, it's the grass roots activists! Have you read the latest conservative book? Here's a sample chapter free from this nonpartisan site.)


I think we Dems need to address this. We have no comparable tool. And if not dealt with, it may grow as a cancer on the web. It will be too late once it reaches the stage of conservative think tanks and talk radio. They've been laying the groundwork for years on the internet with Vote.com, slowly growing their following and credibility as a false nonpartisan group (kind of like how the conservative think tanks were "nonpartisan"), sent millions of emails on behalf of their users. Who knows how much weight local polticians and business execs have given to those emails already.

[INTELBYTES]

9. I'd do my part to help fund this...

Why should the shrubites monopolize the internet tools?