ProgressOhio

It’s finally over. Or was it over in Iowa. For Barak Obama in reality had a cyber convention long before this week’s show in Denver.

Not since the 1968 dramatic primary of Lyndon Johnson’s surprise announcement, MLK and RFK slain in violence, Eugene McCarthy and finally Hubert Humphrey has the Democratic Party withstood a long tough primary.

But unlike 1968 the voice of change emerged – largely from new technology. A well-funded Hillary-Bill Clinton machine, steeped in traditional politics, planned for four years and set the table for four years, only to be done in by a social convention in bytes and bits online.

Where Humphrey had a party machine, Barak Obama used new media masterfully, re-wrote the primary script, the fundraising script and thus created a new ending.

And it ushers in a very new era in politics – a different historical moment than that talked about most often in Denver this week. The rule-book of organizing and politics is changed forever.

From the obvious that a Bush or a Clinton will not reside on Pennsylvania Avenue for the first time since 1988, to the two million online donors Obama has reportedly attracted on-line – the dynamics of national politics changed forever today, when Hillary Clinton graciously and exuberantly sealed her unanimous support of Obama’s legendary primary.

Two million on-line donors change forever the dynamics of influence in politics.

Where Obama surely pulls in special interest and corporate donations – they are not a reliant lobby – not when you have an online well of $2 million one dollar donations waiting in the well.

Using the same Blue State Digital technology that ProgressOhio uses and an arsenal of creative out-of-the-box thinking, Obama was able to change even the way in which people can organize their support.

Whether the MyObama social networking that triumphed in Iowa or the creative text-message announcement of his Vice Presidential nominee, Obama managed to do what few progressives have done – merge the grassroots door-to-door model of organizing with the online tools that drop in our lives every day.

The “old” Saul Illinsky style of door to door organizing which a young Obama learned on the streets of Chicago merged with the tools of organizing groups, blogging, email, texting and user generated participation. It’s no longer one style or the other. Barak Obama merged the two.

Where Clinton managed to use the tools of old organizing in large states like Ohio, Obama did the unthinkable and chipped away state by state in places that had not seen a primary Presidential candidate since 1968.

In Pac-man like fashion he blew up Iowa and super-Tuesday and rolled into unlikely places like Idaho with huge crowds and along the way created a community of believers instead of a patchwork campaign of coalitions.

And Wednesday evening, in an ode to the new politic, the old-fashioned roll call never even finished as Hillary Rodham Clinton nominated Obama by acclimation – a formality thanks to the organizing efforts online.

The McCain campaign with its parody of the Obama movement shouting Obama, Obama, Obama seems to be headed toward the same misunderstanding as the Clinton campaign when it comes to the Obama movement. This isn’t driven by Obama or handlers; it is driven by people not at rally’s but reading email, chatting online, at the office and at home. It involves Americans who have not participated in the process and may never do so outside their homes.

Indeed in Ohio, it even attracted Ohio’s acting Attorney General Nancy Hardin Rogers and her husband who left his law firm to help the Obama campaign – the significance – both had father’s who served in Republican Richard Nixon’s cabinet. It is a deep-rooted community that transcends the norm.

As I sit in Denver I file this story from the two story Big Tent filled with bloggers and legitimate journalists. Videos stream live onto the internet to be posted and emailed back home. Newspapers struggle in the electronic age while blogging alongside volunteer bloggers and folks like us at ProgressOhio. None of this existed in Boston four years ago after a brief glimpse of possibility in Howard Dean’s fledgling 2004 campaign that seems like Jurassic Park with today’s advances.

It remains to be seen how things will play out in two months. Will states like Ohio that still have machines and organizations trump the on-line effectiveness of Obama? Or will Obama’s appeal in the new west of Colorado, Montana, Nevada and New Mexico and the reformed south of formerly lost states like Virginia change the script that seems headed for the Buckeye state, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Will negative television keep the race tight? Will John McCain have a Howard Dean moment that many predict or fear? Will race rear an ugly head? And more to the point will race even matter?

As recently as last month a gutter-level anti-Semitic add in an ugly Memphis, Tennessee primary largely back-fired or more to the point was ignored in an 80% to 20% victory against such ugly tactics.

And with a community of over two million funders, who are also activists, Sen. McCain will face the same unwritten script as the Clinton campaign – how and whether he can adjust to the electronic unknown can and will make a difference in a tight state such as Ohio as the negative attacks counter each other and swing voters bask in confusion.

It is often said the netroots has yet to win the big-one much like Ohio State in the last two National Title games – but Barak Obama is the netroots and this time the big-one was won – not the biggest one, but close to it.

The fact of the matter is that if Barak Obama is able to pull off a victory in November, the sheer size of his organized community will help him govern in a fashion that will allow him to cut loose a funder or lobby on issues that cause gridlock.

The way in which he cobbled this victory together will impact the way in which he has the freedom to govern. It may perhaps be the one thing that can break our nation’s dreaded gridlock that prevents a national government from moving forward socially and economically.

But all of it matters only if the Obama community does not scare off a Middle America that may be increasingly exposed to new technology, but is also decidedly dowdy in style. That in essence is what John McCain’s supporters were conveying in their Paris Hilton celebrity ad.

The nation has embraced netroots through Obama mania, but in the end the price of victory for Barak Obama may just be convincing the netroots to embrace the nation in places like Ohio.

Of course, Barak Obama has faced this before in integrating old school organizing with new technology. The question is whether he can integrate old school Middle America moderate social politics with his new found community of vocal change. Polling is on Obama’s side.

The question is can he merge competing traditions old and new once again. And for that he needs his two million strong community to embrace a stodgy nation into his community rather than allow the McCain campaign to isolate and scare the cusp of victory away.