Joe needs no introduction. You know him from JoeTrippy.com and his blog and the Dean campaign and the Edwards campaign and a lot of other campaigns, so. Too many. Too many. So basically I think we want to start where a lot of the conversation has been for the last two days. If you were taking charge of the White House Change.gov or anything else you can think of, you know, what would you do, what would you ask for, what would you want from the President-Elect and the team and how would you try to engage supporters both politically and in the process of governance? Well, I don't know that I do. I mean, first of all, I think they're doing a pretty good job at the start. So it's not so much what I do. I just think that the tools have never been used before. I mean, I really believe that this is, you know, John F. Kennedy sort of brought in the television presidency 1960, 1960 and it's, you know, gone on for 40, 50 years, 48 years now. And this is going to be the first, you know, wired, connected, interactive, whatever you want to call it, presidency, and we don't know. You know, just like a lot of the tools didn't exist, YouTube didn't exist, you know, in 2004. There are going to be tools that these guys are going to develop, you know, during the presidency that are going to be pretty amazing. I mean, I think the one thing I think the mistake is to think of this as just the White House. I mean, what's wrong with citizens able to report directly when they think they see a corporation polluting to the EPA?  Not just the YouTube radio address kind of thing that we've seen already in Change.gov, but how do you create a collaborative government in which the people are actually participating and use the tools that are out there now, plus what can be built to actually not just, people keep talking about the 13 million people that these guys brilliantly cultivated and helped and those people create this. When the President of the United States stands there in the inaugural and asks the American people to engage and work with him to pass an agenda to better the country, I don't think it's going to be 13 million. I think it's going to grow pretty exponentially. Imagine John F. Kennedy saying, you know, ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country. If you had these tools at the moment, he said those words, what would have happened? And you have someone with 13 million signed up already, if he, you know, he's going to say something like that in this inaugural address. I think millions of Americans who did not sign up in a competitive sort of campaign and candidacy are going to want their President to succeed, want their country to succeed and want to be part of that. Now what do you do with the 30 or, I mean, I think it could be incredibly millions more than we've seen now. And then how do you create the collaborative government? Again, like I said, not just the White House, I think we focus too much on that. But the EPA, the, you know, energy, you know, how people have ideas about how to solve some of these problems that we have and how those percolate up within departments and within cabinet departments and are used to, I mean, one of the things that I think both campaigns, Dean's campaign and I think the Obama campaign and a lot of campaigns that have used these, you know, had these millions of people or hundreds of thousands of people signed up with them is that how quickly you realize that the headquarters isn't as smart as the 650,000 people that were out there in the Dean's campaign or the 13 million people that were out. They see things that you can't see. You know, you can't be everywhere at one time and neither can the government. So I'm actually pretty excited, but I'm not going to, you know, sit here with a prescription of this much, you know, video and this much that. And he's kind of told. So one thing I would say is that, you know, I think they could do some really cool video stuff, which is not just, I mean, why, the networks are only going to give the President 30 minutes every time there's some kind of big problem or every so often. And, you know, in a five minute radio address is all you're going to get on the radio. There's no reason you can't do a 30 minute YouTube address to the nation any time you want. Well, let me ask you about what about doing that in crisis? I mean, with John Edwards, we saw when he came under fire after the campaign ended, you know, for the allegations around his sex life, he chose to go and do a traditional media interview and sit there and get pelted with questions and try to deal with that. Do you think he should have or in the future might you advise someone to say, you know, if the issue is between you and your supporters, you should just upload a video and do one way communication. Should Barack Obama use one way communication when he's under fire in crisis or does he still owe more of an interaction with questions in the press? No, I mean, look, I think you could look, there's certainly a way to have millions of Americans on a site populate questions. I mean, basically put questions forth and then have, you know, rating system in which the top 10 questions of, you know, that millions of Americans move all the way to the top and in the press conference just answer the 10 questions that the American people, you know, that 30 million, 40 million, 13 million Americans asked. Well, I'll just interrupt. On change.gov, there's the issue right now where that's happening, but community members are flagging questions about the Illinois governor as inappropriate, so some of those questions are being pushed down. I mean, how do you do the community norm on that? Do you have a position on that? Well, no, I think that that's what the press secretary of the communications director is there to do. I don't mean that, you know, it's not necessarily he is the president of the United States. You're answering the questions that are important. I'm not for censoring them or flagging them, but I think what I think would be cool is answering the top 10 questions that are part of the community and having the press do the follow-up. In other words, so you don't get a pass.  But my own view is populating the questions up, literally walking out there and instead of Helen Thomas asking the first question, the first question is a citizen who, you know, 12 million people said that's the question we want to answer. Maybe it is Begoyevich who, fine. Answer the question. And then the follow-up, you know, that's where the press comes in. If the post wants to do a follow-up to that answer, that's where they would come in. But I think that might be a far more interesting way than having, you know, whoever it is. David Gregory or somebody asked the question that we all know is going to get asked and, you know, it doesn't really, it's not really something anybody else gives a damn about. Do you think the press is more receptive to playing that role and joining with citizens? No, they would be, no, I would like, I think they would be, I think they would be really pissed off, but I still, I don't know what the argument is, right? I mean, what, somehow you're the vessel of 15, you want to think you're representing million, million, what are you, the readers of maybe the New York Times? I mean, even if you want to do that leadership, that readership that's nowhere near the community that, I think, by the way, I think, again, looking at this in the context of what I think is going to happen, millions more Americans joining their president, not joining candidate Obama like 13 million did, but joining their president in participating in their democracy and the president's agenda, I think that could easily grow to something, you know, 20, 30, you know, million and I don't know where, you know, I'm not going to predict how big or how small it's going to be. I mean, I think much bigger than 13 million over time, and that I don't understand how you can argue that some member of the press has more insight as to how many million, that many millions of Americans who want to know about, and if it's Bogovitch. First of all, if that is what's going on, the president and his people should know that that many million of Americans want an answer to that question. Whether they're going to flag them and push them down or not, that, I don't believe that, I think you should let it, you know, you should answer what the top question is. But I'm saying that even if they decided not to, it's, I think it's better for the democracy and the president to understand their people who want to answer that question. So I think in that way, it'll be a better thing. So when while we're on the press, I want to look from 04 to 08, and I want to do it with a 50 set quote.  I am a big 50 cent fan. Yeah, so this is the right way to do it. You know, 50 cent, when talking about his evolution from being an underdog to being a big star to then being attacked a lot, he said, well, that's fine, that's just entertainment. And the history of entertainment is building up entertainers so you can tear down entertainers for the sake of entertainment. And it seems like the more that politics is covered like entertainment, the more accelerated and vicious we see that cycle for at least political and politics. And you can combine that out not only for the politicians, but also their movement or their supporters and a huge distinction I see between 04 and 08 is that when Howard Dean was taken down, and it's a complex story that people know, right, but one facet of it was the media not only really coming down hard on him, but coming down hard on the entire thing he built. I remember feeling really angry at how much activism and volunteering and work that should be good almost wherever it is located on the spectrum as just totally dissed. And yet what we saw even early on even before it was clear how well Obama would do, I think we saw a very different presentation of his supporters and his activists from the traditional media. A, do you agree? B, why do you think we've seen that shift and C, does it matter for building a participatory political process? I mean, yeah, that shift happened to, it matters, but the reason it's not something we haven't seen in politics before. Often, you know, Gary Hart got caught with Donna Rice right in 88. Four years later, and he got dropped out of the race in three, four days. I was his deputy political director and became Lee Hart's chief assistant Lee Hart's chief of staff the morning that the news broke about Donna Rice and we lasted about four days. I think there was a real catharsis about what that kind of stuff meant in our politics. Here was a guy, by the way in 1987, this is when this happened, Gary Hart was campaigning saying that that our whole entire defense and intelligence thing was all messed up. That it was geared towards mega wars with Soviets or the Chinese and that wasn't the threat anymore, the threat was third failed states and terrorism and that we had to slim down, make our defense and intelligence units slimmer, smaller, faster, more nimble and have better intelligence to avoid third-world states with terrorist groups that would be organizing against the United States. 1987, the guy saw the 9-11 before decades before 9-11 happened, he went out the window because of the Donna Rice problem, mess. I think people really focused on that thought after a year how stupid it was that maybe there should have been at least some glimpse into this guy's campaign longer than four days before he got shoved out the windows. So in 1992 when another guy running for president with Paula Jones and Jennifer Flowers chasing him around right before New Hampshire it doesn't work the same way. He actually, the country takes his pause, they look at it, they may not like what they're saying but let's hear what this guy has to say he goes on to become president. It's very often in presidential politics that what's laughed at or scorned or misunderstood the next time around is looked at completely differently and I think in retrospect as people looked at the dean campaign and a lot of what a lot of the innovation that occurred in it and a lot of the activism that occurred in it people who once laughed and said it was a sparsing out of Star Wars weren't laughing anymore. And the big mistake of 2006-2007 my my belief was there was one campaign there are several campaigns but one campaign in particular the Obama campaign one because in my view he was a community organizer so he understood bottom up in a way that a lot of candidates do not. Howard Dean was one of the most courageous people I've ever met and ever worked for but he wasn't a community organizer wasn't natural to him but they understood that that wasn't some fad there was something and not only that they felt it in their bones and a lot of people like Joe and others that worked in it were really some of the top people in the country had helped build the thing and make it happen with Dean were there and another campaign the Clinton campaign I think my own view had very smart people but the top of the campaign at lip service they did not really believe that there was some new different way to let people have some ownership of the campaign and use these tools to decentralize and do amazing things and and paid the price for that I think that decision alone is part they're sort of wanting they were the 30 smartest people in the world the Clinton campaign and a lot of them were friends of mine I'm not trying to put them really was sort of the last the last bastion of the people who said it's a star or a star wars instead of embracing it is look this is a really powerful thing that can bring change and to get people participating in their democracy again and the tools that those guys built in the way they used them was stuff that you couldn't possibly envision in first of all some of the like I said YouTube did not exist will I am I mean it may have had nothing to do some of the stuff that had nothing to do with actually inside the campaign he wasn't even a hologram yet wasn't a hologram it couldn't have happened just a real person I mean it couldn't have it couldn't have you know having millions of people watch this the race speech all the way through millions of them couldn't couldn't have happened four years later that's one thing so they mean the tools in this stuff that was there the network had grown bigger and more people using had access to broadband but then the way Facebook applications the other amazing things that the Obama team built taking advantage and understanding that there was a new way to do it new politics versus I think a couple of the campaigns that were still sort of stuck in their old way and you know the clean people look the way they had done it had worked for them in 92 they'd won the presidency worked for them in 96 they'd reelected the president of the United States so there why would they I mean looking at from their view you know they didn't see a necessity to use this stuff in a really different way they didn't need to which is the other thing that happens in these it's the Kerry campaign didn't think it needed to either four years earlier so that's I mean that's one hypothesis there that the dean campaign as you're saying like other cycles helped create a framework that even in failure habituated the stakeholders and some of the power players to be more more receptive to this kind of campaign this kind of activism I just want to say though there are other folks who say argue that in many ways even if it was unfair the dean campaigns failure on the narrative of its failure if anything actually ultimately set participatory politics and some of this internet work back a little bit and I just will give you one so and that's you know only one piece of it but the idea being that it didn't didn't go as well go ahead you want to respond first I think that's ridiculous I just think that's absolutely ridiculous and so because when I think some of the very first people I know everywhere I went out there I'd run into dean people who would like come up to me and say like hey you know love you great or you know god you're what you do with all the money or whatever the hell that was going through their heads but they all said they all do you know gosh you know I've signed up for Barack Obama or Edward they tended to be more Barack some Edwards and almost no Clinton but they were the first hundred if you they were really I think some of the first people out there fueling some of the Obama decentralized stuff not that the camp the campaign was doing amazing things too and the key look the candidate has a lot to do do this obviously I mean I think and I think Howard would be the first person to say Barack Obama was a better candidate than him in terms of in terms of sustaining you know the candidates see all the way to the end that doesn't that doesn't mean that what happened in the dean campaign somehow set the set this back I mean it's like crazy I just don't I mean like yeah I don't think that's real at all I mean I think the opposite I think part of the thing too was I mean there's a reason Joe was hired was yeah it wasn't because it was it was because he wasn't I mean it was because he was in the dean campaign went to the you know blue state all the experience they had good or bad started in that you know I mean we're brilliantly in the dean campaign and yeah sometimes I made a mistake somebody else mistake mistake we went down the wrong road but part of going down the wrong road makes it easier for the next guy particularly if people like Joe were there to go I'm never doing the way Trippie did that or what I mean I mean I mean all right well that's what I'm just no but I'm being honest with us we have everybody here so what Joe I mean one item is that you know we have these comparisons and you've said and other people have said that you know the dean campaign was like basically the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk and the Obama campaign moved to this like Apollo level and Joe rose bars was with us you know when asked about that he told Newsweek well not really if you consider that Kitty Hawk was a successful flight as compared to something that blew up on the fucking launch pad well now I don't think to be fair that he means that that wasn't a step forward but it was a big explosion maybe so so how does that work it's simple we were trying to go from we were trying to go from a biplane to launch in a rocket in 13 months so we're sitting there we got a little propeller and some flimsy wings and we put a rocket on the back of the damn thing to try to launch to the moon and land in the White House and the damn thing blows I mean at first of all I think it's ridiculous and I'm not talking about Joe I'm just saying like it look there is a campaign in which I believe everybody in the country you know regardless where they liked Howard Dean like him like trippy didn't like trippy who the hell cares about that started something with hundreds of thousands of people who started it too I mean it wasn't just you know but it was a campaign it was the first one to use and by the way very primitive tools we didn't have YouTube Facebook was on a few call it was on college campuses had never had not yet really launched off of them and by and wasn't in any case wasn't populated by millions of people didn't have it in the its API wasn't available to make an application with it so I mean you're sitting there and yeah what I meant by that is we're sitting there and we've got wooden propellers they're the first wooden propellers anybody seen there's you know we've glued stuff on the wings we didn't start from Chicago where there's a bunch of David Pluffs and David Axelrods this guy's running from Vermont it's anybody who got in their car and drove up there and trust me none of them would have gone we tried I mean not just Donna Brazil tried you know a whole list of people so you know my point isn't to defend the campaign so much as to say you got to a place where um um and you know I mean first of all you get to a place where you have that relatively primitive technology and four years later like I said you have Facebook there are millions of people already on Facebook the network in a lot of ways was already out there and you had people who were more adept three more years of knowledge under their belt more code writing able to write you know have access to the API and go ahead and write an application you know it's like saying like there's a bunch of brilliant stuff on the iPhone sure we didn't have an iPhone I mean it's like you know that's what I meant about a pop you know they went from we went from we went from a bicycle to a Ferrari you know they drove the Ferrari faster and better than anybody's ever done and innovated most of the Ferrari I mean that I didn't mean it as a hit I meant it as like these are brilliant guys who did an amazing thing if we're not the right brothers I'm sorry you know I think the Dean campaign was I have more questions that I solicited from some readers and people online but I first want to open it up to people in the room and then we'll maybe do both so are there questions and comments here Chuck DeFeo is you know you campaign manager Bush Cheney it almost sounds antiquated to have this to put this question out there the model of what you guys were trying to do was an insurgency campaign and what we did at BC04 was much was a traditional this is an incumbent president when you look at what the model of e-campaigning is and how you guys made much more of a distributed decentralized model there's some argument even though it got you to where you needed to be it wasn't sustainable in the long term what are some of the lessons learned that you think moving forward and what are the appropriate online campaigning models that you see moving forward for either for and maybe part of this question for an incumbent Barack Obama well I mean look you have to it's candidate it's a message in saying something you know and people wanting to become part of that you know matters and I think I think it's easier to say look I could tell you exactly how I would have done the Clinton campaign and you know the Clinton campaign if she had started the campaign by instead of saying I want to have a conversation on the couch you know I mean it was cooked you know she could have just said look you know I'm running for president and every woman within the sound of my voice knows we're not the status quo we're change and we have a different view a different understanding of what it means to educate our kids in this war not just this war but all war and save a planet that's in trouble and I believe there are 5 million women within the sound of my voice who contribute $100 to make real change in this country change our politics and change this country and change the world now I firmly believe had she run that campaign there would have been 5 million women who sent her under bucks and it's not about the money I know I talk about that but it's always a lot of ways it eases the way for people to get it and what I'm saying she chose to run the same in a lot of ways the same I mean she's a woman damn it she could have run and she was somebody who's changed she's locked into the experiencing I don't understand what the hell those guys were thinking over there I just don't most of them aren't here today so you can't ask them but I really think that President Obama is going to be I think the most powerful presidency that we've seen because it's him as a change with millions of Americans directly connected to their president in a way that's never there's been again this is a totally new presidency and we're going to be living under it not just during the Obama era but into the future this is actually a little bit more about the I guess political environment than it is and I mentioned this in the last session Joe when you weren't here I'm already under the theory that maybe the Democrats got a little lucky in terms of coming back into power so quickly you know laying the groundwork and then becoming a DNC chair the web victory that put us at 50 in the senate having a care in it like Obama who had just looked at the prime anything goes wrong these things go wrong maybe it takes an extra cycle or two for Democrats to come back to power as the right looks to kind of have this own transformation of its own you know is the Democratic model maybe a little bit more on the lucky side and the shorter side than they may experience just because of circumstances and maybe a little bit longer through maybe no fault of their own well I mean look macro you know history has a lot to do with this and and certainly all the things that the various Joe's did and the various Howard Dean and you know etc did in the end may not have had as much to do with it as a guy named George Bush did in other words you know there he helped a lot I mean unfortunately I don't mean this you know I mean it's like here was a guy who who just made enough Americans start to say with a lot of help from documentarians and other I mean all this kind of stuff was going on that created an environment in which people realized the president of the United States was a liar got us into a bunch of stuff that he shouldn't have gotten us into I mean and this is what they're feeling and and whether they thought he had lied to them or not thought he was a failed president and they wanted to do something about it they were not involved and at the same time Howard Dean was there a 50 state strategy a lot of people who wanted to you know take their country back all of this is going on I think the reality is they didn't need to do it I mean the reality is George Bush his pioneers and rangers just like the Clinton campaign with Terry McAuliffe and the big donors in the Democratic Party it worked great for the Clintons in 92 it worked great for Bush in 2000 and it worked great for him in 2004 so there was no it wasn't it's not that they don't know you know it's that the infrastructure of their party the head of the party actually kind of runs things which in this case was the president of the United States and you know even though I think Roeve and Ken Melman and a lot of people who were at the top at the time understood that there was a power bottom of power the internet and sort of the big with it they weren't as they weren't desperate to get to use it because they didn't need to and so now guess who's desperate to get it because they really need to the Republicans we on the progressive Democratic side are we're you know gosh we won we're smart we've outmaneuvered them we've got a big advantage and that's how over time you know they're they're likely it's like Ron Paul why because out of desperation was the only you know only vehicle he had so I think you know to say that conservatives Republicans won't won't move and start raising money and building infrastructure decentralized using the net and the tools is going to happen and then you know the the issues can you know where I think there is a small problem or a problem for them now is that if you start with a community of 13 million and over here is a community of you know at you know let's call it a million and as this thing you know the first mover thing can you you know how fast can that can they catch if we if the progressive side keeps moving I don't know the answer to that so far I mean in product stuff it doesn't happen very often I mean you know Amazon doesn't I'm saying that the network gets bigger the the other thing I'd say now let go that is the more important thing I think is generational what's what's happened I think because they failed in a lot of ways didn't need to talk in a medium that younger people tend to use and talk talk with again earlier I was here for a few minutes when talk about how people don't use younger people don't use email they didn't because Bush didn't need to do this stuff and they they sort of ignored that and there was a lot of energy there against Bush in that generation and to take the country back in and to fix what the boomers and a lot of other people screwed up it was I think a big problem becomes a bigger problem later on because once a generation tends to vote in its early stages with a party or in a progressive or conservative direction usually stays that way and so just like the Reagan era brought in all the young people were voting for the first time and the Reagan era became republicans and stayed that way one of the problems they now have is two cycles 2004 because of West Clark Howard Dean a lot of young 3 million more young people became democrats that year and then you saw the same kind of big growth better growth with Obama they did a much better job grew it even more there's now a generation that's a real problem long term for the republicans and the conservatives yeah thanks Rob Farrison Berkman center I was wondering what you thought the emergence of online tools would mean for the power of political parties you could look at one side would say better organizing tools would strengthen these existing institutions on the other side they're portable and you could say that this is going to suck power out of them I think the parties are dead over the long haul I don't mean that I love my party I'm not saying that disrespectfully I just mean that that there really is sort of Obama democratic party or maybe I mean I'm talking about Howard I mean sort of the 50 state party the established democratic party sort of diminished in this election and it really is about in fact that's who they beat I mean the Clintons tended to have most of that that party apparatus and I just think you don't need it I mean if you can say something that gets thousands and then millions of Americans to join you, evangelize for you decentralize organize for you contribute to you you don't have I mean there's only two or three reasons to be in a party and the biggest one is the donor base of the party I mean you know that's why you want to be there and then you know the second one is is sort of the organizational base of the party which both parties have been the party boss board leaders they only exist now two or three cities and where they do exist there tends to be a lot more corruption and stuff so I mean I don't think those are going to somehow get re-energized and reinvigorated so you know look you're losing the organizational strength and the ability of these tools of people to use them together in their community like the Obama campaign in particular did in a way we couldn't do and I don't think we could have done it in time in 2004 I mean we just you know again the other thing is we were doing this on the fly I mean just literally building the airplane while we were already moving down the runway which is a bigger problem when you're you know YouTube was already there, Facebook was already there millions of people are using we were you know when we did Dean TV I think Dean TV had like 190,000 people playing around with it putting stuff up and watching stuff you know that was you in a weird way YouTube before YouTube was YouTube and it was popular we're talking about 190,000 people on a good day not the millions that are on YouTube just by accident tomorrow you know so that mattered and we were building Dean TV as we were rolling down the runway you know and did we waste time with that probably I mean I don't know I mean I don't know whether the 190,000 people you know were seeing that video and doing stuff with it. We'll go to one question online I would also flag that I think Joe speaking about the mass participation aspect of the decline of the power of the party which I think is absolutely true there's a counter trend of course at the level of partisan identification among highly involved activists and we've seen I mean the outsourcing of the DCCCC's strategy to the net roots and the liberal blogosphere and the idea of a democratic you know house and senate candidates to affect the party clearly comes from people who are distributed around the country feeling a strong identification with not necessarily today's democratic party but a democratic party that they want to build but that I don't think competes with the numbers that are being drawn away in the trend you're talking about. Well also I mean I just think that there's a chance there's a a decent chance that as you know not everybody's going to you know either of these parties have like decided they're going to change I don't mean that the Obama era may be about change and he may be about change and the party may be different but there is a chance that at the end of eight years the country is saying you know we want you know we want somebody something different again and that may not that may be an end of I mean somebody who can not I'm not talking about somebody who can engender you know a bunch of small contributions and lift you know get escape velocity and who's not a member of either party I don't mean it is a bad thing I just think it's in the future I don't mean they're dead tomorrow we're all gone. The other thing that did happen which I thought was really cool was you know all of a sudden at party central commuting meetings all over the country after the dean campaign the five regulars showed up for their meeting and all of a sudden there were 30 people that they had no clue who they were they were dean or west park or other people and they elected five new members of the central committee and therefore there was a new and different democratic party I expect that to really happen with the Obama general this Obama campaign. So in the short time we have left I'm going to take two questions from beyond the room and then end with some more questions in the room from Daily Coast where we invited people to give questions the first is from Delfill ask him why he was such a pessimist on Daily Coast during the campaign OMG we're going to lose Ohio and so on I hated his stupid diaries and wait and the second and the second question but when you did they read the second question is from Granny Helen conservatives derided McCain Feingold because of the limits corporations could make to candidates under the philosophy that money equals and should equal speech did these conservatives have a point in our system given Obama's success and where we're headed does money equals speech regardless of whether it comes from corporate America or small donors. Well I don't I mean I don't think money equals speech but that doesn't matter what I think I mean the supreme court's not going to stop not going to say you can't spend millions of dollars saying you know swift voting somebody or not so I don't think that my personal opinion about it doesn't really matter OMG I think that there's a lot of stuff in the blogosphere where you say something because like you know I mean during the time where Hillary Clinton was ahead of everybody by a zillion percent and you say and maybe Obama wasn't even in the race yet and you say like gosh unless something happens here Hillary Clinton's going to be the nominee OMG and then like two years later somebody says jeez how come you're such a bummer on the Hillary Clinton thing like at the time I don't know I don't even know what the hell the the diary said you know don't read my diary you know I mean shit I don't get it you know like why does he say I already hated reading this stuff okay don't read it weirdest stuff maybe he hated it and loved it all at the same time maybe he loves to hate me that's fine too you know I've got plenty of those but that's right you can't be killed I'm Dana Fisher from Columbia University and um so you just were talking before the OMG stuff about um excuse me the parties being dead and one of the questions I had if that's true is where then do all these people who mobilize for Obama or mobilize for other campaigns where is the lasting infrastructure then and I was wondering if you could take your experiences from the Dean campaign and beyond and project and think about if there really is a retraction in these parties how do people stay connected together because for those of us who study civic engagement the party provides the lasting or it's supposed to provide the lasting contact for people well I mean I think it's the you know look you were talking about entertainment and his politics gets more like in it I mean look it's the thing that holds it together is the personality I mean in other words people were attracted to Howard Dean or attracted to something Obama said not that they I mean I don't believe that I mean I think there were a lot of independents and a lot of Republicans that were attracted to Barack Obama and are in that 13 million people a lot of them aren't as Joe was saying earlier in the panel that I was listening to you know they sort of almost changed what being a Democrat is it didn't you know it wasn't like strong D there was a lot of independents joining it so I think you know increasingly it's a personality that I mean it's it's a human being not the party that people are rallying are you then saying it's charisma I don't I mean it could be an issue it could be I think it was a lot of his opposition to the war a lot of his courage on things that the Democratic establishment thought he was crazy for saying but and they by the way were helping to kill him most I mean it wasn't like we were done in by the press it was you know the establishment the other candidates but my point would be that which which was a different situation with Obama you didn't see as much of that he he garnered enough of people I think in the establishment of the party had enough respect from them possibly because he'd been in the Senate for a while and they'd actually gotten to know him I mean I'm not but you know Howard was a Martian I mean for those people I don't mean I think he was great so you got to be careful because then this ends up on a blog and I called him a Martian and everybody mad at me so well people stopped reading your diaries we told them to so please stop reading my diaries we'll do we'll go last question to meet up Thanks Scott Hey there Joe so coming off of Dana's question I thought her question was really interesting that that you know that the part she says the party is supposed to keep the party is supposed to keep things together or the you know that there's a function of providing a structure a foundation an organization and and yet and then you said oh well but it's personality and charisma isn't the you know what's your vision for in the 21st century is there such a thing as you know structure organization foundation beyond is it just going to be in sort of OFA2 land is there or is I mean is Clay Scherke right that the future of organizing is no no organizations no foundation structure yeah I think that's more right I mean let me give you an example if the the structured and established democratic party I think clearly wants Barack Obama to be one thing and I think the the people or many of the millions of people want him to pass an agenda of change and are you know are sort of asking us about you know what are all the party officials in Washington gonna how are they gonna muffle the change that we want and all I'd say is you know I give you an example I don't think this is gonna happen but if Barack Obama turns out to be more of the same just sort of the standard politics no change I mean let's such like no change at all right it just stays the same I don't believe that's gonna happen but if it did you can't tell me that a third part that the millions of people don't say to hell with this we tried the Republicans for eight years we thought Obama we thought we'd elected change and this guy was gonna do it he didn't so I think there would be a hunger for now all of a sudden this new guy or new woman who decides they're gonna be you know screw both parties we need real change I'm just saying I could see how I now believe that the structures there the tools are there that if those kind of dynamics occurred I think yeah there is no organization anymore it's it's an organization of millions of Americans who come together in common purpose in 2012 or 2016 it happened I believe that's exactly what happened in 2008 around Barack Obama who happened to be a Democrat but who who won the election because it was it was the organization of those people I mean them doing it they created their own party around Barack Obama who happened to be a Democrat and I think that's what I maybe I didn't articulate the personality thing I think like you know that's what it was it was more millions of Americans connecting to each other forming this organization around Barack Obama and he happened to be a D and many of them were not most of them were but many of them were not great thank you Joe and thanks to everyone thanks for having me