Last week, while I was lying in the hospital, I caught Glenn Beck on the O’Reilly Factor. Beck explained that this event would be non-political and very, very different.

“Yeah, right.” I thought. “I’m supposed to volunteer for that. There’s no way the tea party crowd will be apolitical.”

I was completely wrong.

Volunteer Training
Yesterday, I attended a volunteer training at the Hyatt near Union Station. Upon my arrival, I noticed a conference of black teamsters and Women of Faith were at the same hotel, which made for interesting people watching. Nothing happened, and everyone was polite to each other.

At the training, which was led by Capital Services, Inc., a vendor contracted to plan the rally and the upcoming 9/12 March, three things were emphasized:

1. Do NOT wear any political or partisan attire or carry signs.

2. Do NOT engage with hecklers. Be polite and smile and step away.

3. Help pick up trash.

Word had some how gotten out to not wear political items, so the volunteers wore all of it to the training session. It was like Christmas Eve when all the grandmas wear every single holiday item they own because they won’t be able to wear them for another year.

Groups had on matching t-shirts. One woman had on a glittery cowboy hat and matching boots emblazoned with the American flag. Some people were already sporting their fluorescent orange Restoring Honor tshirts that had “Marshal*” written on the front and back. Another woman had on a sequined Glenn Beck logo tshirt. Sequins! A number had on Beck’s “faith, hope and charity” shirts or the Restoring Honor t-shirt.

During the training, one man asked if he could wear his Sarah Palin pin written in Hebrew. That one shocked the other volunteers and a murmur went through the crowd. Sadly, the man was told he could not wear his volunteer t-shirt with Hebrew Sarah Palin pin. (I’d really like to see what it looks like.)

Early Morning
My volunteer shirt started bright and early around 6:45 a.m. I was assigned to help direct people from Metro Center to the Mall. Volunteers picked a Metro Center exit when they arrived, so I stood at 12th and F.

Once the Metro opened, attendees came in waves as trains arrived. I stood at the top of the escalators and gave directions as groups exited. Most people were overwhelmingly kind and thanked me for spending my Saturday volunteering. Several people asked to take my photo, so I posed with a number of random children. I felt like some type of Glenn Beck mascot. Wearing a volunteer shirt really didn’t make me any more special.

Hecklers
Because of the Metro schedule, people came in waves. There were long stretches without anyone to direct, so I stood there quietly. Around 7:30 a.m., two black men in suits walked toward the Metro. They looked to be my age. They saw me and asked what I was doing. I politely explained I was volunteering for the Restoring Honor rally and helping to direct attendees from the Metro to Lincoln Memorial.

This apparently made one guy snap. He looked at me and asked, “How many homeless people are you going to feed.”

“Excuse me?” I replied. I was confused.

“How many homeless people are you going to feed today.” He repeated. This time he sounded angry.

I shook my head, smiled and walked away. Heckler guy and his friend continued toward the escalators, continually shouting at me, “How many people are you going to feed today?”

Newsflash liberals: all signs point that conservatives donate more money and volunteer much more than the left. DO NOT get into a “Who cares more?” contest with me. Unless you are a missionary or a Peace Corp volunteer, I will win every time. Each year, I spend hundreds of hours volunteering. I donate significant portions of my income to charitable causes. In college, I was in a service sorority, and then I served as a VISTA for two years. In terms of dollars and hours, I probably care more than you.

Don’t think that you are better than me because you lean left. I guarantee that I do more to help our fellow man. The heckler’s entire argument was based on the stereotype that all conservatives are selfish, white people. Grow up. Yelling at me only makes you look like a jerk. The left continues to prove that they are the ones perpetuating stereotypes. As much as I wanted to inform hecker dude of these facts, I was bound by the Restoring Honor rules and disengaged as soon as I sensed they wanted trouble.

A little later, I noticed a grouchy lady get off the escalator. As soon as she saw me, she scowled. It was a busy moment, with several waves of rally attendees huddling near me to get directions. I noticed the woman stand off to the side and then stroll around the escalator in circles. She waited until the crowd had thinned out, when she “casually” walked by me, stopping long enough to say, “No one cares about your stupid directions for your dumb rally.”

Mature. Real mature for a woman in her late 40s. I loved how she stuck around until the crowd thinned out so she could drop her amazing cut down. My feelings were hurt…

The Rally
Around 11 a.m., the steady stream of attendees stopped, so I walked towards the rally. As I got nearer, I noticed that this crowd was different. Many people wore Glenn Beck t-shirts or Christian t-shirts. Some baseball player was speaking about being a Christian. I walked by street preachers. This rally seemed much more religious than patriotic or political. It was immensely different than any Tea Party event I’ve attended.

Everyone was on the quiet side or subdued. Most were there with families and sitting on lawn chairs or blankets. The crowd seemed peaceful. Quite contrary to how the left paints the typical Beck viewer!

I walked around for about 45 minutes and realized I wouldn’t get very close to the Lincoln Memorial. I walked from the Washington Monument, through the World War II Memorial up to the Duck Pond. There were scores of people huddled under the shade in the trees between the Reflecting Pool and the Duck Pond. You couldn’t see much, but you could hear the rally.

Overall, this rally was much more faith-oriented than anything else. I’m not complaining. I’m a Christian and heart Jesus, but this was not what I expected. I work with a number of organizations that focus on freedom of faith and restoring our Judeo-Christian heritage. This event easily could have been sponsored by one of them.

I did miss the first two hours due to my volunteer station at Metro Center and only stayed for a little while, so the portion I saw was very limited.

Crowd Size
I took a few photos, but my cell phone is not cooperating and uploading them to the web right now. It’s always difficult to estimate sizes. The National Park Service stopped doing it because event organizers of all kinds of events would get upset at their estimate. Hard core devotees will inflate. Detractors and enemies will deflate. The truth is somewhere in the middle.

Some folks on Twitter claim between 500,000-1 million. I could be wrong, but that seems high. I would venture between 250,000-400,000. Between the Lincoln Memorial down through both sides of Reflecting Pool and the areas next to them, to the World War II Memorial, crowds were densely packed.

Between the World War II Memorial and the Washington Monument, the crowds were much more scattered. Folks were spaced far apart and sitting on blankets. You could walk through the crowd. It was impossible to walk through the crowd between the WWII Memorial to the Lincoln Memorial.

It seems as though 1 million people would require the entire area between the Lincoln Memorial and past the Washington Monument to be packed in tightly. However, I’m terrible at estimates. That’s my honest attempt to describe the crowd as accurately as possible.

Reactions
This rally proves the phenomenal power of Glenn Beck. Love him or hate him, you should respect his influence. He’s hardly my favorite pundit (too much emotion and emphasis on conspiracy theories), but he’s gotten the American people to read and study the roots of the conservative movement. Not even Buckley or Rush have been able to do that. Beck has found a way to bring conservative intelligentsia to the masses. I can respect that.

*Marshal is the National Park Service term for volunteer on the Mall. It’s dumb. Blame it on some bureaucrat.

Welcome to reality TV’s Washington: Wealthy women with Newsweek-grade opinions waxing soporific on the existential significance of a black president on Real Housewives; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dicing things up on Top Chef; twentysomethings pining progressive on the Real World. And absolutely everyone—except maybe Tareq and Michaele Salahi—boring the pants off their viewers.

Are people boring? Not the ones that I know and have observed. It’s the the opposite. When all the fascinating and interesting stuff is private and off-the-record, only the flimsy, boring moments remain.

In other words, despite the establishing shots of the Capitol and the increasingly pathetic cameos from attention-seeking federal-city figures, what reality TV producers have chosen as their locale is not a nexus of power and celebrity, but a nest of normalcy. And as one reality TV producer recently told Esquire when asked about the increase in scripted reality TV shows, “Normal people don’t make good television.”

The problem also isn’t that people in DC are normal. Normal doesn’t reside in the Beltway.  Most people in his region are uber-nerds in something. We’re the grown up versions of extreme stereotypes in high school. Imagine an entire city populated with the A/V nerds, student council members and annoying activists.

Reality TV could work in DC. The problem is that it would require a level of honesty and transparency that no one in the area is willing to give.

Why? DC will never be LA or NYC. We’ll never be upfront about our love of fame, money or appearances. We’re DC. We’re supposed to be the people with substance. The ones changing the world. When you take the same formula that works in other parts of the country–whether it’s Top Chef, Real Housewives or the Real World franchises — and apply them to DC, they always fails.

Unlike reality shows in other parts of the country, anything filmed here has very real and very serious consequences. Even the most silly or shallow gaffe could be construed to hurt a political party, piece of legislation or organization in the future (for example, fundraisers at bondage clubs). People who live in this town also have a habit of becoming either famous, powerful, influential or a combination of all three.

The revelation that Scott Brown posed nude for Cosmo is interesting once, but it is a problem when behavior like that becomes the norm. Americans don’t want leaders and bureaucrats with colorful and checkered pasts. We want dignity, calm, gravitas and respect. Because of that, you’ll never get anyone really interesting on a reality show in DC. You’ll only get the shallow people, the ones unwilling to work hard and make it the traditional ways.

Everyone else — the powerful and influential ones that you never hear about — realize that discretion is a key resume-builder.

On one level, it’s a shame. I’ve had fascinating jobs and sat in interesting meetings that will never be captured for the masses. All of those closed meetings, off-the-record conversations and casual get-togethers would never work with a camera crew. The few attempts to capture them are thinly-veiled satirical novels. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve sat in a meeting, felt a sense of déjà vu and realized that the same scene was nearly played out in a Christopher Buckley novel.

The same story lines that work on reality shows won’t work here because they’re meant to capture the bizarre worlds that are out of reach for most Americans. In DC, the normal is so bizarre that they don’t translate. TLC and Discovery, two reality-loving networks, are headquartered within the Beltway, yet the closest thing to local reality shows are Puppybowl and DC Cupcake.

Rather than look at rich housewives, follow the behind-the-scenes operations of a think tank. Instead of putting 10 strangers together in a house in DuPont Circle, follow a group of real interns around on the Hill. Do a special on the ability of DC twentysomethings to combine any team sport, a bar and copious amounts of alcohol into a social event. We may be smart policy wonks, but we’re smart policy wonks who can drink a lot. That perception gets lost on most, particularly producers of reality shows.

I can’t see this happening, but follow the inter-workings of a real campaign would be the ultimate reality show. Sure there are enormous hours of mind-numbing busy work, research, web design and data entry, but the moments of activity are unlike anything else. Even a TV show tracking the rivalries on softball leagues would be better than watching a group of silly women pretend to be power brokers and friends.That milieu doesn’t work in the District.

Shows following the work of local nonprofits would be fascinating. Imagine a show at the Washington Animal Rescue League. They are one of the premiere animal shelters in the country and rescue animals from around the globe. What about profiling the DC Central Kitchen or look at the DC Opportunity Scholars? How many policy groups and nonprofits are doing cutting-edge work here that go unnoticed?

The problem isn’t that DC is boring. The problem is that we don’t fit the cookie-cutter. In order to survive in DC, you have to adapt to the District. Reality show creators need to do the same.

A few weeks ago, my prayers were answered. Pastor Mark announced that the movie theater at Potomac Yard would be the sixth NCC location!

To help promote the initial meeting about the launch, Pastor Kurtis, the campus pastor for the new site, made a rap video. Pastor Kurtis is an extremely talented musician, but I had my qualms when I heard about it. However, it became an instant NCC classic, and people requested that they put it on YouTube to promote the new location. It may even replace my favorite NCC bumper of all time.

As soon as I heard the news, I knew that I had to be involved. I’ve served on the Hospitality Team at the Ebenezer’s Coffeehouse location for a couple of years, and I helped out at Embrace Church when I lived in Chattanooga. Over the next month, I’ll be transitioning from co-leader on the Hospitality Team at Ebz, to Hospitality Leader at Potomac Yard. (Hence the new church responsibilities.)

If you are in the area and looking for a church or just want to give church a try, stop by the movie theaters on September 12. If you are a Believer, we would appreciate prayers for this launch. A large percentage of NCCers were previously de-churched, meaning they grew up in the church and stopped going for a year or more. There’s huge potential here. Just consider the neighborhoods surrounding Potomac Yard: Crystal City, Del Ray, Arlandria, Rosemont, Old Town, Pentagon City and Four Mile Run. So many people live in this small area of Northern Virginia.

Generally, I shy away from blogging about church because I don’t want people to think that NCC is only filled with other right-wing crazies like me. As I’ve said before, NCC does an awesome job of staying above the political fray. In fact, I appreciate the refuge from the political world. Without taking a few hours a week to leave partisanship at the door and just focus on God with fellow Believers, I don’t think I could survive life in the Beltway.

Mark your calendars for the Potomac Yard launch on September 12!

Earthquake Opportunity #1

An earthquake did happen. Back in 1988, a small tremor shook East Tennessee. My family was out of town. I came back to tales of my friends sharing how a few dishes had fallen off the wall or the deck shook. I was disappointed. I had nothing exciting to say at recess.

Earthquake Opportunity #2

Fast-forward to spring 2002. We had nearly two decades of tectonic peace. One morning my sophomore year in college, my phone rings and wakes me up early. In the immediate post-9/11 days, that was slightly scary. Every Fox News Alert caused a slight heart attack.

“Did you feel it?” My mom asks. She sounds excited. Something must be wrong.

“What?” I sleepily reply, looking at my alarm clock. It was 6:30 a.m.

“The earthquake!

“There was an earthquake?”

“Yes! How did you miss it? It shook the house.”

“No. I didn’t feel anything. I am on the 12th floor and sleeping on a loft. Is anything broken? Are the dogs ok?”

“The dogs? They’re fine. Nothing was damaged.”

“No national emergencies then?

“No. everything is fine. I was just curious if you felt it.”

“Ok. Bye. I’m going back to sleep now.”

Once again, I had missed an earthquake in East Tennessee. Those were the days prior to Facebook, so everyone broadcasted their relationship status, emotional states and drinking locations via IM away messages. That morning they all described their earthquake experiences. For the first time ever, I was disappointed that I was a heavy sleeper.

I had slept through my second opportunity to experience an earthquake.

Earthquake Opportunity #3

This morning, I was sitting down to eat my delightful bowl of Kashi Honey Sunshine and strawberries when I saw the news on Facebook that DC had experienced an earthquake. I immediately sent out a surprised tweet.

Once again, I missed an earthquake…

This time, I wasn’t alone. It seems that everyone else missed it. Kudos to FamousDC for their in-depth coverage of the devastation in the DC area.  I have faith that the community, which collectively whined together throughout Snowmaggedon, will somehow survive.

I don’t want to wish a devastating geological event on the DC area, especially after the horrors of Haiti. However, I keep sleeping through these things.

*We also had at least one nuclear fallout drill, which appeared to be the same as an earthquake drill: get under your desk and kneel on the ground to cover your head. I fail to see how covering your head with your arms protects you in a nuclear holocaust. Looking back, I think my principal was on the paranoid side.

Given her horrific fashion choices, I’m surprised that she’s catching flack for re-wearing clothes. This is the first sensible action I’ve seen from either wing of the White House. While most of her fashion choices are out of reach of average Americans (how many of us can afford to wear Lanvin or Narciso Rodriguez?), she shows some understanding of the economic tone in this country.

So what if she recycles clothes? The FLOTUS is photographed every single day. Wearing an outfit more than once is practical. Her fashion choices are high-end. If you’re going to invest in extremely expensive clothes, wear them more than once! Even the wealthy should show some measure of American sensibility. I agree with Mary Tomer of the Mrs. O blog:

“I think the fact that [the first lady] re-wears pieces from her wardrobe shows deference to the economy … but more so, it’s normal,” said Mary Tomer, author of the book “Mrs. O: The Face of Fashion Democracy” and writer of the blog Mrs-O.org. “Even in the White House, it doesn’t seem practical that a dress or a pair of shoes would only be worn once.”

While the fashion choices themselves are bad, as evidenced by Politico’s slideshow, well-played Mrs. O for making some attempt to be frugal with your extravagant wardrobe.

When the Susan G. Komen Foundation reached out and asked me to post information about the Global Race for the Cure, I promised to help. I had completely forgotten to write about it until I saw their newsletter this morning.

The 21st annual Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Washington, D.C. will be tomorrow morning. Per the organization’s newsletter, late registration is still open today from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency on the Hill.

The race kicks off tomorrow morning at  7:30 a.m. with opening ceremonies on the National Mall.

Awareness of breast cancer is an interesting topic. Many companies have been accused of pink-washing to get a coveted pink ribbon on their packaging. For example, is it good for KFC to promote breast cancer awareness when obesity increases cancer risks?  It’s also hard to track where all the money goes. So many huge organizations are raising money to fight cancer. How do you ensure accountability?

The Komen Foundation passed on local facts:

Last year, the race raised $4.7 million for local education and community outreach programs that work tirelessly to assist vulnerable populations.  Some organizations that received grants this year include: Whitman-Walker Clinic on 14^th Street, Food and Friends, Georgetown University and Sibley Memorial Hospital.

There has been some controversy over the Komen Foundation funding grants for Planned Parenthood, which is explained here. Given their history and priorities, I would love to see Planned Parenthood close down its doors throughout the country. They are the main source of reproductive health care in many rural and low income neighborhoods and do provide services besides abortion. Quite simply, Christians have neglected to fill this gap in services, so Planned Parenthood stepped in to fill a legitimate need. It doesn’t make the entire organization less reprehensible, but I have no issue with the Komen Foundation fulfilling its mission by funding organizations with the capacity to help.

Unfortunately, there are many murky political issues that surround cancer research. Those should be examined and are important. However, when you watch a relative slowly waste away from cancer that should have been detected early or watch someone struggle through chemo, it changes your perspective. I think the Komen Foundation has tried to address this issue and respect both sides while fulfilling their goal.

Anyone with a loved one facing the Big C understands the need to do something about it. I’m not a research scientist or a nurse. I can’t help patients with cancer or find a cure for the disease, but I can donate money and raise awareness of programs that are helping patients and searching for a cure.

After realizing how ridiculous that reaction was and turning off the phone to conserve battery life (no one else had a charger that would work), I looked forward to this opportunity. I was in Indiana to celebrate the wedding of a dear friend and help her out, not share the minutiae of my existence with those who follow me on the global conversation known as Twitter.

I joked that I was suburban camping, and only went through withdrawals for a few hours. While I was busy helping with preparations, I soon noticed I wasn’t as jumpy or tense as I normally am. I didn’t feel the compulsion to read 800 newspapers or blogs a day to keep up with every breaking news story. I could focus on a task longer than 10 minutes. I was relaxed.

Now, I was hardly cut off. I checked email once a day, and sent out a couple of tweets on Saturday, but it was far from my usual time spent online. Honestly, I didn’t miss it.

Given my job and geographic location, I can’t maintain this level of disconnect, but I appreciated it. Outside of urban areas, I noticed that people don’t obsessively check their phones and BlackBerries for messages. Actually, not that many people had smart phones. At the rehearsal dinner, no one pulled out their phones for hours at a time. It was so noticeable that I commented on it, and a fellow guest, who lives in the New York area, agreed. People were focused on the conversation going on physically around them rather than activities back at the office or chatting with other friends.

Checking your phone constantly or texting while out with other people is a pet peeve of mine. I’m guilty of doing it, but it is rude to focus on some web device when out with friends for dinner or happy hour. It’s even worse if you’re on a date!

While situations arise when you do need to check your phone for something important, we blur the lines far too often. Following the latest trending topic on Twitter does not count as an emergency. If you are physically at an event with others, you should mentally be present as well.

Of course my period of disconnection didn’t stick. As soon as I got to the airport, I took advantage of free wifi. When I got home, I immediately spent a few hours catching up on the interwebs and penning this post.

I’m hardly turning into Wendell Berry, but I do think that humans need to disconnect regularly. Perhaps it’s just the news-obsessed culture of the DC area, but everyone around me would benefit from a tech break. Humans were not created to constantly absorb news and regurgitate information. Just because we can share information immediately, doesn’t mean we need to comply. The expectation to react 24/7 is not healthy, and it made the political world much worse.

I still love technology, partially because it pays the bills, but I do wish that it was easier to step away from it all.

CAMERA-READY: When President Obama (with Vice President Biden) announced Elena Kagan's nomination, her style was tidy but also quite frumpy. (Susan Walsh - AP)

Just when you think everything that could be said about Elena Kagan has been said, the Washington Post goes for the fashion card. I’m not surprised. I anticipated an article coming out like this. I was just waiting to see if it would be the WaPo or Politico.

The point of the article is to express once again that fashion in DC is boring because anything fashion-forward or fun makes the individual appear frivolous and silly. WaPo writes:

Looking drab has its advantages for both men and women in the nation’s capital because it insulates them from accusations of superficiality — a sure-fire political career killer. And as a society, we still cling to certain cliches about absent-minded professors whose brilliance is only matched by their just-rolled-out-of-bed appearance. We connect brains with bad clothes.

I agree with prevailing thought on this. Regardless of how much I dislike wearing business suits on regular occasions, first impressions are partially determined by appearance. Until we can rewire the human brain, people in DC should dress seriously. No amount of lamenting from journalists can change that. Can you really take Rep. Corrine Brown seriously after watching this video?

Business suits are generally awful on women. Aside from the Chanel style, they’re a drab feminine version of a male suit and was designed to make us more accepted in the working world. Aside from shoulder pads and ties, they haven’t changed that much since the 1980s. Jackets are more fitted and skirts are shorter. They’re still overwhelmingly boxy and boring. It’s a fact of life that we have to deal with. You have to go back to Joan Crawford’s in the 1940s style suits to find anything interesting. Bottom line: we’re left working with bad material. Unless you’re very tall or extremely thin, finding a suit with the perfect fit is tough.

Secondly, I actually think Kagan is doing pretty well. She’s a woman of certain age and body type. Her suits have been fitted and the skirt length appropriate. While she’s probably the type of woman who would look better in pantsuits, she’s being completely appropriate and wearing a skirt. How many times has Hillary broken this rule?!?

Keep in mind that I do not support this nomination. As Newt Gingrich pointed out last week, she’s anti-military. She’s not the worst that Obama could have picked, nor is she the best. Since I disagree with President Obama on virtually every policy point, chances are that I will never be happy with any judicial nomination that he makes. However, her fashion choices haven’t been that awful. I don’t like everything Kagan wears, but overall, she’s done fairly well. Due to a combination of age, body type and decorum, she’s picked suits that aren’t bad.

Contrast her to Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation process, and it’s a dramatic difference. Both women have similar shapes and heights. Sotomayor always looked like she bought the clearance suit off the rack from Marshall’s and TJ Maxx. She always wore boxy jackets that hit her at the widest part of her hips, and skirts that hit below the knees. It’s harsh, but when you have cankles, you need the skirt to hit either right at the knee or a hair below it. An a-line skirt would have also worked to balance out wide shoulders and hips. She also wore frumpy pumps. A higher heel with a sleeker toe would have streamlined her appearance and made her look longer. Fashion is all about balance and streamlining the lines of your silhouette.

There’s nothing wrong with clearance suits off the rack. A good chunk of my income goes straight to Marshall’s, but I’m not appearing before the country as a possible candidate for a Supreme Court. When faced with the possibility of national television appearances, pull out the plastic and hire a stylist. No one is immune to making fashion blunders and having an expert opinion is critical to making smart first impressions.

I do wish WaPo writers would read up on etiquette before completing articles:

In the photographs of Kagan sitting and chatting in various Capitol Hill offices, she doesn’t appear to ever cross her legs. Her posture stands out because for so many women, when they sit, they cross. People tend to mimic each other’s body language during a conversation, especially if they’re trying to connect with one another. But even when Kagan sits across from Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who has her legs crossed at the knees, Kagan keeps both feet planted firmly on the ground. Her body language will not be bullied into conformity.

She does not cross her legs at the ankles either, the way so many older women do. Instead, Kagan sits, in her sensible skirts, with her legs slightly apart, hands draped in her lap. The woman and her attire seem utterly at odds. She is intent on being comfortable. No matter what the clothes demand. No matter the camera angle.

Technically, it’s incorrect for any woman to cross her legs if you are on a platform or before cameras. While Kagan should have crossed her legs at the ankles and tucked them under her chair, she’s more correct than the other women being described. Is it really that hard to thumb through a copy of Emily Post if you regularly write on fashion?

Update: Double X also picked up on this story here and here. Kind of sickened that I wrote on something from the same angle as them, albeit reaching different conclusions. Still…

Update 2: Per my mom’s IM, I neglected to point out that in the first WaPo picture of Kagan, she’s rather vulger in her seated position with her knees spread apart. Both stances of Kagan and Senator Klobucher are inappropriate. Do women no longer learn how to sit correctly? What’s wrong with being classy and ladylike?

Vic James Photography

Are you in the DC area? Take your happy hour money and put it to a good cause tomorrow night. The Tennessee State Society is hosting a benefit tomorrow, Wednesday, May 19 at the Sign of the Whale from 7-9 p.m. Facebook invite here.

Who: Tennessee State Society
What: Fundraiser to Help Flood Victims
When: Wednesday, May 19 from 7-9 p.m.
Where: Sign of the Whale (1825 M Street NW, Washington, DC 20036)
Cost: $10 wristband at the door and $3 domestic beer and mixed drinks.

The event will benefit the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee and the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis.

If you’ve followed my posts, you’ll know that Middle and West Tennessee were hit with devastating floods a few weeks ago. Please stop by and help them out tomorrow night. If you’re in DC, you’re probably drinking anyway.

The annual Politics Online conference is this week. This is definitely a conference for the sausage makers and is aimed at those working in nonprofit, government or political technology. When I first attended in 2006, this conference helped my thesis come together, so I’ve always been grateful for it.

As I sat through the sessions yesterday, something seemed off. It seemed…flat. The panels weren’t insightful, and I’d heard most of the case studies. Honestly, the energy felt deflated.

While the conference is nonpartisan, about 20% of attendees and panelists are right-of-center. I’m not complaining because up to this point, the best people were on the left. The developers and strategists that I wanted to see belonged to the other side of the aisle.

After I sat through the pre-lunch talk with Joe Trippi, it hit me how much the online situation has changed.

Trippi did a lot of really cool things…back in 2004. I highly recommend his book, The Revolution Won’t Be Televised, but now it’s part of history. It shouldn’t be viewed as a current strategy piece.

Over and over, he kept discussing MoveOn, Meetup and the resistance of the GOP to the web. He and the other speaker, Rod Martin from Paypal, were interesting, but I got the overall impression that not much had changed for Trippi since 2007. I wouldn’t discount his career since you can influence politics in DC from beyond the grave (i.e. Reagan, FDR and JFK), but it was sad.

When was the last time that MoveOn made the news? Oh, they still send emails. I’m on their list. But they’re formulaic and boring. Online email strategy has evolved (disclosure: email fundraising is primarily what I do professionally), and they seem stuck in the anti-Bush frame. How much longer will that message resound? At some point even MoveOn will need to move on.

Then there was the Q&A from the audience during various sessions.

Since the overwhelming majority of the audience were Democrats or left-leaning nonprofits, almost all of the questions surrounded the Obama election.

The Obama election? That was 17 months ago. In the online world, that’s practically a lifetime. Everything that can be studied has been analyzed and dissected.

Then it hit me. After years of self-flagellation and bemoaning (and I was one of the many bloggers doing the moaning), the right has actually achieved success on web. Note that I didn’t say Republicans, but the right. There are still pockets of resistance, especially among standing members in Congress and state legislatures. I’m not the only one to notice. Look at these stories at The Hill and The Weekly Standard.

Since 2008, conservatives have seen McDonnell, Brown and Tea Parties. All of which were fueled by the web.

The Bob McDonnell and Scott Brown campaigns expanded on lessons learned from the Obama campaign and took it to the next level. Just look at online ad spending. Obama’s people spent 4%. McDonnell spent 10%. (Correction: McDonnell spent 8%, Brown spent 10%.) Google is now advising all campaigns at least spend 10%.

Without the technologies that liberals and Democrats used in 2006 and 2008, the tea parties wouldn’t exist. Ironically, the liberal developers are the ones who gave those crazed masses their tool box.

This post isn’t to mock the left or proudly announce that we won. We haven’t, and we’re far from it. As Rod Martin declared, the web has made politics more and more volatile.

The internet embodies populist politics. Since populism swings back and forth from left to right depending on the economy, foreign policy, wars and other factors, our political cycle could resemble a roller coaster going forward.

In other words, the web is the tool of the angry and upset. In 2006 and 2008, BDS ruled the interwebs and motivated the folks agreeing with that message.

Now the tables have turned, and the formerly silent majority has literally taken to the streets.

I would argue that tea parties are slightly different. Polls show that 25% of Americans identify with those values. At no point in history has one-fourth of our population marched with liberal or progressive movements.

I would also argue that tea parties are the first truly grassroots movement that we’ve seen in decades. Grassroots movements are marked by chaotic order, widespread issues and are leaderless. Those are three attacks that the media has repeatedly made on tea partiers.

Yes, Obama had millions of small dollar donors. Yes, he got 53% of the vote, but most of them now disapprove of his performance. Further examination of his fundraising shows that traditional big dollar donors were the backbone of his election machine. It’s a nice Alinsky-esqe story to say that Obama appealed to the little guy–the $5 donor–but his muscle came from the established monied left.

The fate of Organizing for America serves as further evidence that the Obama campaign was just grass-washing. What happened to them? Much like MoveOn, when was the last time you heard from them? Even the overall netroots haven’t done much. The plot to infiltrate the April 15 tea parties bombed. What ever happened to the plan of getting OFA members to call talk radio?

:::grasshoppers chirping:::

While the left may have convinced themselves that they created the first “grassroots” energetic movement online, the evidence suggests that it was still a very top-down campaign that Democrats have always run. Now that the powerful are in charge, they can ignore the little people they leveraged to get there.

I saw this firsthand last fall. The project that I was working on was the subject of a high-profile story from an arm of Center for American Progress. Overnight, our hate mail quadrupled and our traffic certainly increased. However, when I drilled down and studied the blog posts that were complaining about us, I noticed that they all copied one of the major liberal blogs, primarily Think Progress. And by copy, I literally mean copy. We got hundreds of hits from small bloggers who cut and pasted the Think Progress post.

I had never seen anything like it on the right. Almost all of the posts lacked attribution. I think this example highlights the very hierarchical nature of the netroots that is symptomatic of the entire left.

But what about the success stories on the right? The Politics Online conference did highlight those. As I listened to the the case studies, I realized that I had already heard them. Through sheer desperation, the right has organically built ways to communicate. Blogs such as The Next Right, weekly events like Heritage’s Blogger Briefing and annual conferences like Americans for Prosperity’s RightOnline communicate activities and educate members about emerging technologies.

Last year, I taught a couple of sessions at RightOnline and was shocked to see 80 year-old grandmas in the audience. They recognized that technology had changed, and they as individuals, needed to change in order for the conservative movement to win.

The morning after election day 2008, the establishment also started listening. We know that Red State has become influential on the Hill, and CPAC has done a great job of incorporating digital media and bloggers into the conference. Also, The Heritage Foundation has integrated digital media into every aspect of their activities. Their hard work should be applauded. Like their policies or not, their work is always imaginative. Do you get much more old-school conservative establishment than The Heritage Foundation and CPAC?

A telling comment at Politics Online captures the state of the liberal netroots. During a panel on social media apps, an audience member asked what it would take for more people to embrace smart phones. Since the next wave of technology is mobile, it’s dependent on individual users to voluntarily opt-in.

The panelist replied, “subsidized smart phones.”

That’s right! In order for the left to reach the next level, the government needs to subsidize smart phone adoption for the average tax payer. Unlike adoption on social networks, which only required a computer and an internet connection, mobile adoption requires the average user going to AT&T or Verizon and forking over $100 or more a month to access Facebook on the road.

I was floored. Cost is an issue, and I hate how phones are attached to carriers. But expecting the government to subsidize smart phones so that someone under the poverty line can become the Mayor of Taco Bell on FourSquare is too much.

This is another area where the right may have an advantage. Since polls show that tea party members make more money, they’re more likely to adopt new technology and use smart phones.

With recent court decisions making a national broadband plan and Net Neutrality a giant question mark, I think momentum has finally shifted right. This isn’t accidental. Conservatives at every level, from executives at think tanks to frustrated mommybloggers, have gotten involved and fought to get here.

As I mentioned earlier, we still have a tremendous amount of work ahead. If Republicans are lucky in November and regain control of both Houses, they need to enact swift fiscal reform and dramatically cut spending and taxes. Conservatives have the message, but the biggest question remains–has the GOP learned?