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Permalink Reply by Andy Horning on July 3, 2008 at 9:05am

Here's my suggestion: don't let candidates submit anything. Avoid pre-canned committee presentations like the plague.
You should expect us to come to a place and time you choose for us to get interrogated. While voters may submit to their chosen leaders after the election (politicians sure act like we must), candidates are not in charge of the election. Voters are. Elections are not about candidates; they're about voters.
So bring us in for some unscripted, sweat-inducing, gloves-off and lights-on interrogation. Ask us tough, basic, important questions about the role of government in our lives. Make it memorable by making it relevant to citizens lives (not just to political hacks), and you'll have accomplished something no candidate could do.
Take back what has been stolen from voters. Make the candidates act like the job applicants they are, and make voters understand that everything that happens in this state is by voters' choice.
In other words, no more excuses and no more genuflecting/blaming the politicians we hire and fire; voters alone are accountable for their choices, and we need to be informed.

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Permalink Reply by Scott Semester on July 3, 2008 at 9:17am

I hadn't thought of it in quite this way. I was envisioning it all through the SI web interface, but what if this is an opportunity for our community to embrace SI's F2F* component? (* I am not afraid to admit that I just recently figured out that F2F = face-to-face.)

What if we marshal our resources (mostly social and political capital, I would think) and organize an actual, in-person candidates' debate -- or even individual sessions with each candidate? And then (like the SI office-warming party or the Symphony Happy Hour), encourage Smoosiers to blog about them in video and in writing?

Just brainstorming here...

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Permalink Reply by Scott Semester on July 3, 2008 at 10:14am

And this opens up a whole other arena -- live, streaming video (Pat Coyle, do we have that capability?) and Smoosiers liveblogging the experience.

I can't say I have political blogging skills to match WXNT's Chris Spangle, but I did liveblog a Longmont, CO, City Council meeting once. :)

I'd be glad to offer my fairly nonpolitical (and, ideally, somewhat less snarky and somewhat more informed than my Longmont City Council post) view of the political process...

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Permalink Reply by Pat Coyle on July 3, 2008 at 11:20am

Live streaming is certainly possible...and we can capture the video / audio for posterity...and we can set up live blogging...and we can probably generate a huge amount of buzz in traditional media if we pull this off...I'm heading out on vacation, but I'll be back in a week. Maybe we ought to pull the thread participants into a f2f planning meeting during he week of 7/14...I think we're onto something!!

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Permalink Reply by Scott Semester on July 7, 2008 at 6:01pm

I'm pretty excited about the potential of this and would like to be a part of making it happen.

Would a planning meeting of this nature be appropriate for SI's virtual office space at The Intelligent Office? We could also look at meeting in a restaurant, I guess...

I'm heading out of town late next week, but could do a f2f planning meeting any time between 8:30 a.m. and 11:00 p.m. on Wednesday, 7/16. I could also be there any time between 8:30 a.m. and 11:00 p.m. on Monday, July 21.

What say you, Smoosierati? Are you enthusiastic enough about this to help make it happen? If so, let's get a meeting on the books and figure this out!

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Permalink Reply by Andy Horning on July 7, 2008 at 9:48pm

I suspect y'all want me to stay out of at least the planning stage, but I'd be happy to help should you want a candidate's perspective.

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Permalink Reply by Amy Stark on July 3, 2008 at 5:00pm

I like the way you think!

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Permalink Reply by Lorraine Ball on July 3, 2008 at 3:54pm

Politicians like any "brand" are often defined by their customers.

If we create the debate by posting questions and inviting them to participate, the conversation on SI will go on with or without them. If they join SI, they are welcome to participate in the conversation, if they don't they can simply observe as an outsider.

Either way, they have access to opinions of their constituents and the ability to express their views if they choose.

So what do you think Pat, can we give it a try?

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Permalink Reply by Pat Coyle on July 3, 2008 at 3:58pm

I won't stand in the way of progress...what are you wanting to do first? Gather questions?

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Permalink Reply by Amy Stark on July 3, 2008 at 4:59pm

What you must do first is decide what type of not-for-profit you want SI to be. If your goal is 501(c)(3) status, you must be extremely careful when dealing with politicians and elections.

501(c)(3)s are not allowed to participate in electioneering or politicking at all! Since political campaigns are highly publicized, you might be opening the door for a disgruntled candidate to cry foul, which will attract IRS scrutiny and loss of 501(c)(3) status.

The next step is to incorporate as a not-for-profit to protect yourself from someone going after your personal assets. These are critical first steps.

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Permalink Reply by Nwokedi C. Idika on July 3, 2008 at 10:26pm

I think the hip way to do this would be to set up a social link/question voting site using, for example, reddit.com's open source solution, or slinkset.com's solution. This way, the Smaller Indiana community could vote on questions that they want politicians to answer. Also we'd able to assess what's REALLY important to the SI community.

Candidates (or their representatives) could go into the comment/discussion sections and answer the questions of their choosing & actually interact with the SI community. Or candidates could give their responses to the top 5 rated questions at a physical event or via some live streaming.

Here's an example that was used for Startup School '08 at Stanford:
http://askpmarca.slinkset.com/ (I'm NewWorldOrder, 6, 7, 18, 20)

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Permalink Reply by Lalita Amos on July 5, 2008 at 6:47pm

I think politicians will become members when when learn about SI. Well, maybe that's not quite all of it. I've been on LinkedIn for quite a number of years and was surprised to see that only Senator Obama and Representative Ron Paul had profiles for the bulk of the primary season and that only Senator Obama had been using the LI Q&A to post questions and learn more from that demographic (his last query got over 8,000 responses last time I looked). Similarly, I blog on the American Values Alliance and have supported Bilerico.com and the former received some interest from those in local contests and the later, national contacts from pols trying to reach the LGBT community.

At the same time, I spoke with a State Rep (don't squeal on the man, Lalita) who, in response to my suggestion that he consider the local and state blogs to get his message out said (publicly) "Blogs. I don't read them. They aren't important." (NB: I want a cookie for not telling on this tech and leadership Luddite. Now would be good.)

Some pols, as this example points out, just don't "get it" even after John Edwards' great use of blogs in the 2004 presidential run-up. I think SI can help train companies, civic and governmental agencies on the use of social media.

Please hurry.

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