Rock Star Politics

There are only two democratic politicians out there today that can qualify for Rock Star status - Barack Obama, and Al Gore. Both of them had their rock star moments this week.

Barack's moment came yesterday when he officially announced his candidacy for President. It was an inspiring speech, particularly in his call for us all to participate in a generational movement to change our country. It was very Howard Dean circa 2004, and I'm sure it resonated hugely with Millennials, so many of whom seem to be lining up (and building grassroots infrastructure) to support him.

Barack's new website, packed with social networking features in a clean interface, seems to back up the rhetoric about an inclusive, bottom-up campaign. It's probably one of the best campaign websites I've seen. After cruising it for about an hour, there was only one fault that I could find: there doesn't seem to be a way for content to filter up from the grassroots and appear before a national community (at least not without direct moderation from the campaign).

It's a subtle thing, and I almost missed it among the cornucopia of ways to participate on the site, but there is a sharp divide between the national campaign and the grassroots that I would expect to have disappeared in any campaign looking to be Dean 2.0.

In any event, the Rock Star politician rocked it out yesterday. And based on recent activity moving FaceBook energy offline or into donations, the youth vote is set to be a powerful part of Barack's base. Hillary and Edwards are going to need to do some spectacular organizing to pull ahead in that demographic.

Al Gore had a more literal rock star moment on Thursday when the Financial Times reported that he plans to organize a series of concerts (modeled on Live Aid) this summer to raise the profile of global warming as the most pressing challenge facing the planet, and inspire people to action.

"Live Aid was about asking people to stump up money, this is about effecting systemic change.

"The aim is not just to drive awareness but to get people to take action."

These actions are likely to include personal pledges to reduce emissions, for instance by using energy efficient equipment or flying less.

I'm sure the concerts are going to be amazing, and it's always awesome to see a someone injecting a political issue into the cultural zeitgeist to bring about change, but I'm not at all confident that these concerts, as currently described, are the best model for affecting longterm, sustained change - or even calling people to action.

Gore is opting for a big PSA broadcast to the world - a huge awareness raising event to inspire people into action. It's great, and it will probably raise awareness a little bit. Probably not all that much considering his documentary is an international sensation likely to win the Oscar. But on the whole, these major events tend to fade pretty rapidly. Does anyone even remember Live 8, the Live Aid clone that took place in 2005? If you do, is it because of the event and its message, or because of Bob Geldof's sense of self-importance?

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the "ask" will be better than personal pledges or a reduction in flying (not a realistic target; flying isn't necessarily a luxury item). Maybe his team will think of a great way to link the concerts and encourage small, local actions that are sustainable over time. Maybe he'll partner with more musicians to push his message at their shows year after year. Maybe it will become a yearly event - that might have an impact. We'll see.

On the whole though, it's a shame to see someone who was moving quickly to embrace participatory culture (Current TV) and decentralized organizing (training 1000 people to deliver his power point presentation on global warming) moving back towards a broadcast model whose effectiveness at creating longterm change is doubtful at best.

I don't know, am I off base here? Or does this seem like a good thing that could be a whole lot better?