Obama is sad. Can Web 2.0 help?

This Christmas, one of the gifts that I received was the book “The Audacity of Hope,” by Barack Obama. While I hesitate to sound like every other Obama convert, I have to admit he writes well and presents some compelling (if not altogether novel) ideas. I must also admit that I am predisposed to being an Obama cheerleader, since I am from Chicago, am a Democrat, and realize that, despite my admiration and support of Hillary, and despite her wealth, name recognition, and centrist politics, it’s improbable she’ll make the trip all the way to the White House. If she does, that’s great and the country will be better for it, but if in fact my gut is right, Obama might be our best hope.

Now, as an aside, the fact that the best we Democrats can do after eight years of Republican skull-fuckery is pick an inexperienced jr. senator whose name sounds like the bastard offspring of Iraq’s former leader and Al-Qaeda’s current one, well, that’s a bit sad. But as I said, that’s an aside.

What I really want to talk about is one of the key messages in the first part of his book. It has to do with how people look at politicians and think that Washington makes them calculating, cynical, and captured by special interests. He makes a good argument as to why politicians are perceived as such. Grossly oversimplified, it’s something like the following: the media provides the biggest exposure of a candidate to his constituents, and therefore, not only does a candidate have to watch the words he says, but his opponents are also encouraged to run negative campaign ads that dig deep into his electoral voting record to pull out the small print that makes him look bad. I see his point; every major bill has a hundred different amendments, and it’s certain that some of those amendments are good ones and some are bad ones. A politician who has been in Washington for a while realizes this, and the less idealistic ones decide that the best way to win is to be calculating to mitigate sensational media exposure, cynical with the types of legislation they pursue, and captured by interest groups, since satisfying them promises their future support. So maybe it’s not just a perception people have – maybe it’s true, but also, maybe it’s natural and inevitable.

Of course, Obama claims to be of a different grain. I think over time we’ll see whether this is true – as I said I like him, so I’ll trust him for now.

Now, let’s look at the question of political transparency. Obama says that the media, the legislative process, and negative campaigning have a lot to do with the current state of affairs. That’s understandable. What I wonder is, in the same way C-SPAN was able to open up all the sessions of the House and Senate to video scrutiny, can Web 2.0 facilitate a more meaningful dialogue with a politician and his constituents?

Dean’s campaign in 2000 was the beginning of this trend, but since then the form has not advanced much. Blogs are still the only real “Web 2.0″ tool used in politics, and even they are strictly reserved as (in)formal mouthpieces for politicians. And in truth, campaign / politician blogs do nothing to solve the issues Obama highlights. (When I talk about blogs, I’m not referring to blogs like the Daily Kos or The Huffington Post- those are great blogs that have done loads to make media more transparent and politicians more accountable. I’m talking about the dumb blogs that candidates put up to talk about how nasty their opponent is or how positive their campaign group is being despite what the polls say. I’m talking about the blogs that have tons of !!’s in them.)

Here’s what I think could be great:

• Encourage candidates to publish their own voting records along with the bills that they refer to – that way, people can see and judge for themselves why a person voted the way they did. Tie in wiki and social annotation features, and then you can create a system where constituents can actively determine a candidate’s true position and share that information with others.
• Create a media play-by-play page where political staffers can take media articles and write notes in the margin that show what things mean.
• Make a list showing the promises a politician made as a candidate and how his electoral record compares to that (and where there are exceptions, politicians would be able to provide the necessary context as well). And again, throw up a comment board to get an idea of what people think.

I’m sure there are hundreds of other areas where the “interactive” processes of Web 2.0 can make a difference. Any thoughts? Post your comments below. Maybe at some point, someone clever will design a nice, lightweight template that candidates can use to actually implement these ideas. =)

Darshan is a Web developer and co-founder of ImagineEasy Solutions, LLC, an educational software firm.