The Netroots Should Not Be Fairly Compensated
by Chris Bowers, Wed May 02, 2007 at 09:29:24 AM EDT
Jerome, Matt and several others blog already covered this, but the still unfolding story of Obama's MySpace page angers me quite a bit. For those that have forgotten, here is a quick reminder of how money is spent in electoral politics:
In the 2004 federal races, more than $1.85 billion flowed through a professional corps of consultants whose influence plays an important, though largely unexamined, role in the unrelenting escalation of campaign spending, a groundbreaking Center for Public Integrity study has found.(...)And here is a quick reminder of where that money comes from on the Democratic side:
- About 600 professional consultants were paid more than a combined $1.85 billion in the 2003-2004 federal campaigns.
- Media consultants, who offer political and strategic advice and handle political advertising, were paid $1.2 billion, or 65 percent of all consultant spending.
- Direct mail consultants billed the second-largest amount, $298 million, totaling 16 percent of all consultant spending.
- Consultants routinely pitch campaign plans that rely heavily on their own specialty because there is a financial incentive to do so.
- Fundraising consultants, whose services are necessitated in large part by the rising amounts campaigns spend on other consultants, cost candidates at least $59 million.
In the 2003-2004 cycle, according to an internal study of FEC reports, the membership of MoveOn.org contributed $180 million to Democratic candidates for federal office (House, Senate and President). Given both that the progressive netroots are larger than just MoveOn.org, and the propensity of netroots activists to make small donations that would not appear in FEC reports, the total amount of money the netroots contributed Democratic federal campaigns and committees in 2003-2004 was probably closer to $300 million.In the case of Barack Obama presidential campaign, more than $7M has already been raised online. Considering that the Obama campaign refused to compensate a super-volunteer for putting together a website with 160,000 supporters reinforces a disturbing pattern that is taking place between Democratic campaigns and the progressive netroots. Small online donors and activists are expected to use Democratic campaigns as a means to funnel huge amounts of resources to wealthy consultants and thirty-second television spots, while the netroots itself is not expected to receive anything in return. We have already done this to the tune of several hundred million dollars during 2003-2007, and clearly it seems that the same song keeps playing without skipping a beat.
People can argue over the specific amount that Joe Anthony should have been paid for the two and a half years he spent building up the Barack Obama MySpace page. Was $44K an appropriate amount? I certainly think so, especially considering the vastly greater amounts of money other consultants receive as compensation for less effective campaign work. Others will disagree, and argue that a smaller amount, such as $15K, would have been fair. However, the specific amounts are not really the point, especially considering that Joe Anthony has received exactly zero dollars in compensation so far. The point is that this replicates the pattern I have complained about for so long. Even as they spend millions of dollars in other areas, Democratic campaigns refuse to fund even the most vital netroots activists who work on their behalf, because they are unable to control those activists. As I wrote in January:
But I am not just angry at myself, or the general lack of funding currently available to the people, institutions, and ideas that make the progressive movement so vital. I am also pissed off at the Democratic and progressive establishment that is funded with our dollars, but which refuses to fund us in return. I have worked on trying to secure more monetary and other forms of support for bloggers for a long time. For example, that was why I founded the Liberal Blog Advertising Network, and that is what Matt and I are trying to do with BlogPac. However, there have been quite a few other, less successful ventures I have tried, and the main problem has always been that large progressive donors, institutions and politicians just don't want to fund something they can't control. Since the political blogosphere and the people powered progressive movement is, by nature, something over which no one can exert all that much individual control, it just doesn't get funding in the same way that more staid, cautious, and restrained progressive organizations and politicians receive. It also doesn't help that we have been so good at channeling resources into the establishment without asking for anything in return. Why would major donors, organizations, and politicians bother to fund us if we fund them without asking for anything in return?The way Joe Anthony has been treated is emblematic of all the funding problems currently facing the progressive blogosphere and netroots. No matter how much positive work we do on their behalf, they can't control us, and so they don't compensate us. In this case, they will even usurp us after asking us to name our price, and simply being unsatisfied with our offer. I wonder what offer the Obama campaign would have accepted and not viewed as grounds to simply cut off ties. We may never know, because apparently the Obama campaign did not even bother to make a counter offer.
This situation sucks--literally. When it comes to political contributions and the progressive movement, the flow of money is almost entirely one-way. To the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, it is sucked out of the movement, and pocketed by the establishment.
The Obama campaign should just pay the man. Re-open negotiations and find a price you can both agree upon., Break this cycle where our money and energies are sucked up into the political establishment, and we receive nothing in return. The netroots do so much to help Democratic campaigns, that the least these campaigns can do for us is compensate us for our work when it is warranted and legal. This is one of those cases. Pay the man.
Update: Those who say that I wouldn't be making posts like this if another campaign had acted the same way are being ridiculous. For example, I kicked up a huge shitstorm during the Edwards bloggers bit. If you think this is about having something against Obama, rather than about standing up for the netroots, your head is in the sand. Where do you really think my loyalties rest: with one campaign, or with the netroots? If you have any familiarity with my writing, you would know the answer is obviously the netroots. Stop projecting your inclinations toward a particular candidate instead to the netroots onto me.
Second, to somehow turn this into an argument that all Obama volunteers should be paid is absurd, intellectual sophism. Anthony was delivering an incredibly important service to the campaign, and was then asked by the campaign to name a price for that service. Thus, the only apt comparison to make is when another volunteer is asked by the campaign to name a price for a service s/he provides. Further, when he named a price as asked, instead of a counter-offer, the campaign seems to have cut off all ties and given him nothing. Now you tell me--who negotiated in bad faith in that exchange--the Obama campaign, or the netroots activist? Was he given some kind of warning that if the campaign didn't like his offer, they would give him nothing and cut off all ties? I don't think so. And what does this exchange say about the campaign's respect for the netroots?
Tags: Barack Obama, Money, netroots, progressive movement (all tags)
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