Positions of 2008 Presidential Candidates - ExpertVoter.org

The Wiki Presidency is not just about picking one candidate, but also about fee free information dissemination so that no campaign finances are required to get a candidate's message out, presented in a non-partisan fashion.

Gary Stark dropped me a note this weekend to let us know that he shares my concerns about money influencing presidential elections. And he has translated his concern into a web site (www.ExpertVoter.org) which offers video clips from news sources about where each of the declared 2008 U.S. presidential candidate stands on a range of key issues. He still has a lot of blanks in his video clip chart, but he has already received confirmations from some of the candidates for the clips he has posted as being "approved" (i.e. not mis-quotes, but valid presentations of the given candidate's position).

ExpertVoter.org takes submissions from anyone wanting to provide a link to a video clip with a candidate's positions, so as part of the Wiki Presidency effort, if you have something you can contribute, please visit www.ExpertVoter.org and use the submission option on the site.

I have added Gary's Site to the Wiki Presidency blog roll to make it more easily accessible from here.

A President For and From the Masses

If you're at all like me, you are probably disappointed in the U.S. political process, especially as it relates to running for federal office. Presidential campaigns these days are more about money than anything else, and about partisanship after that. Both these factors have sadly been unavoidable until recently - and both are destroying the fabric of democracy in the U.S. But things can be different for the 2008 election.

During the 2004 campaign process we got an inkling of the power of modern technology to raise awareness of candidates in the form of Howard Dean and his successful grass roots on-line fund raising efforts. But even up until his fatal yell Dean was still part of the same political process - money and partisanship.

Ordinary folks who want to have input into the presidential political process, but don't have the money to noticably help finance campaigns or who don't have a strong Republican or Democratic Party affiliation have been bereft of real options. And there are many others who have money and partisan affiliations who also feel disenfranchised - at least if my friends and family are any indication.

So, can we, as a collaborative collective of people who want to see a real change in presidential campaigning, and more importantly, be able to vote for a president in whom we believe instead of voting for the least worst option? I believe so, and the answer is the Wiki Presidency.

The Wiki Presidency is an idea that has been germinating for a while, but applies the on-line collaboration we see today in sharing and supporting ideas, pictures, videos, and our lives to the process of selecting and then electing a U.S. president of the people. It's people from all walks of life getting together and working together in something they believe in, much like the Open Source effort is a collaborative effort where the goal is producing good software, but here it's people collaborating on a good president Americans can be proud of.

Components of the Wiki Presidency include setting up a wiki (any volunteers?), blogs, and other on-line efforts to both help find a suitable non-partisan candidate, as well as help develop a campaign platform for the Wiki Presidency. And, as this is a collaborative effort, individual contributors can come up with other interesting and unique ways to help the Wiki Presidency effort. Imagination has no limits in this technological age.

But here's the really interesting thing - the Wiki Presidency does not require any significant financing of any sort. The tools for the Wiki Presidency are free (or almost so) - just witness this blog on Blogger - no cost at all. YouTube is free, Gmail is free, Flickr is free, just as a few examples. Basically, the Wiki Presidency is built on the contribution of one's time and effort, and not money. And by not taking monetary or material contributions, all sorts of arcane Federal Election Commission documentation requirements (and administrative fees and salaries) go out the window - if there's no money, there's no campaign finance laws to run afoul of.

Can a presidential campaign be run without money? With the modern collaboration tools available to us, it's more possible than it ever was before. Traditionally, campaign funds pay for advertising campaigns, local "grease", transportation, and salaries, among other things. With an on-line collaborative campaign, none of those things are required. Imagine free advertising where fellow Wiki Presidency volunteers are including campaign banners for their candidate of choice on their own web sites, for example. And electronic communications in the form of e-mails, instant messaging, video conferencing, and VoIP are effectively free. All you need is people and time to work together.

Furthermore, by running the Wiki Presidency as a non-partisan write-in effort, you bypass the need to battle it out in the primaries on the turf of traditional campaigns. This provides more time to campaign and more energy can be directed to emphasizing what the Wiki Presidency candidate stands for - a people's president as opposed to the president of special interests and political parties.

The Wiki Presidency concept obviously still needs quite a bit of fleshing out to make it work.
But if you want to have your voice heard, shake up the status quo presidential campaigning process in the process, and have a shot at actually having a say about who goes to the White House in January, 2009, then you should roll up your sleeves and pitch in on the Wiki Presidency.

The invitiation is here, and I will gladly enable other primary posters on this blog. Just drop me a note.