San Francisco — On July 2, 4,391 people joined the group "Senator Obama - Please Vote NO on Telecom Immunity - Get FISA Right," expanding the group by fifty percent. The following day the group added another four thousand or so members. And to date, the group has become the largest on U.S. Senator Barack Obama's very own social networking site, MyBarackObama.com. But by the holiday weekend the growth in membership dropped dramatically. Just under two thousand joined during the 4, 5 and 6 of July combined. Granted it was a holiday weekend, but the trend was evident on Monday, July 7, as well when only 1,627 people signed onto the group. What accounts for this steep decline in interest? Did all of the sudden the well of outspoken activists run dry? Did the Netroots stop caring about FISA and retroactive immunity? While I'd imagine that the latter seems unlikely, the former could be true if weren't for the fact that there is a more plausible explanation based on a significant event that took place right around the time the drop occurred.

At 4:38 Eastern on July 3, Obama responded. Joe Rospars, the campaign's director of new media, posted an entry to his MyBarackObama.com blog containing a response written by Barack Obama addressing the mounting groundswell of dissent. But that's not all. Three members of the campaign's policy staff spent over an hour trying to address comments submitted to the post. In essence, Obama and his presidential campaign made it clear that they are listening even if they are unwilling to capitulate. And it appears that many felt as if being heard was not insignificant. Not only did the number of new members per day drop dramatically after the action taken by the campaign, but there has also been a steady decline in traffic on the group's listserv. 464 messages were sent to the group on July 3 and by the 7th, 218 were sent.

Just to be clear, I don't think the decline in activity surrounding this group should be taken to mean that Obama has suddenly erased the deep concerns that many of his supporters have over his acceptance of the FISA bill. I don't think he has. But what I do think, is that he has dispelled some of the anger by showing that he has not forgotten about a significant number of active supporters and that he is willing to listen and respond. The manner in which the Obama campaign handled the frustrations of its online supporters is very munch in line with something the New Politics Institute (NPI) and NDN have long recommended to organizations and political leaders, engage.

In NPI's New Tools memo "Engage the Blogs" written by Jerome Armstrong of MyDD.com, the advice given is to not be afraid of the Netroots but to reach out, interact, and fully engage. That's what Obama did here and his use of the strategy appears to have been a success.

In a Wall Street Journal article, Emily Steel reports that Google is set to release a new tool which measures Internet use. Intended to help advertisers identify the best places to buy online ads, the products most valuable asset might be its cost.

Unlike other services that gather data on internet use largely by tracking the online activity of different panels of people, such as comScore and Nielsen, Google will be offering its new advertising tool to marketers for free.

An excerpt from the article:

"Google's new tool could bring more efficiency to the process of buying online ads, ad executives say. Google already has one of the dominant systems for online ad-serving, which helps Web publishers manage their advertising sales and serve up ads each time a consumer opens one of their Web pages. The Web-audience data could be combined with the ad-serving system, so that advertisers would be able to find out whether they would reach the right audience before they committed to placing an ad. Existing ad-serving systems don't currently provide detailed Web-audience data about the sites where they place ads. By giving away the new tool, Google could presumably attract more ad business."

In addition, Google is expected to produce another tool which will show how web users respond to online ads. By comparing groups of people exposed to an ad with others who haven't been exposed, Google is able to account for such factors as search activity and site visitation. These tools combine to offer amazing opportunities for marketers on all levels as access to such a tool could save billions in the advertising world.

One-stop shops generally rely on more affordable prices to compensate for a lower quality package of services. However, the new Google marketing service will be both the most affordable and advanced technology on the market - making Google the one-stop shop to end all one-stop shops.

Rock the Vote just came out with a nice two-page fact sheet that lays out the essential numbers behind the surge in turnout for young people in the 2008 campaign. We’ve been talking a lot about this phenomenon, and we had a Rock the Vote person speak at our day-long event last Friday, but sometimes it’s nice to look at the cold, hard facts.

• Young people from age 18 to 29 have doubled their numbers in the presidential primaries this year. This is the combined number of all youth in both parties and is measured against the last competitive primary (2004 for Dems and 2000 for Republicans).
• If you look at individual state numbers, some of the states tripled the turnout of young people, and no state with valid numbers showed less than a 40 percent increase.

So you may say that, sure, youth turned out, but so did all kinds of groups. However, youth increased their turnout by much more than any age group. This is measured by the all-important percentage “share” of the electorate. If you consider all ages taking a slice of the pie of the electorate, the Millennial Generation’s slice grew by taking more of the pie from the slices of the other age groups.

• In the average of all Democratic primaries, youth went from 10 percent of the 2004 primaries to 14 percent of the 2008 ones.
• In every single state that held a Democratic primary so far, the youth “share” of the electorate went up. In Iowa, they went as high as 22 percent of the electorate.  Almost a quarter of all voters were Millennials there, in the state that started Obama’s rise.

The Republican numbers for increases in share of the youth vote are less dramatic, and in a few states they did not increase, but nevertheless, the general trend is playing out there too. Youth of all ideological stripes are more engaged in politics than we have seen in a long time, though that is particularly true on the Democratic and progressive side.

There are four drivers of the New Politics that Simon and I have been talking about for the last several years, best laid out in our recent magazine piece “The 50 Year Strategy.” These are four disrupters of the old politics that are restructuring how politics is carried out and will continue to be played in the coming decade. They are the new tools, the young Millennial Generation, the rise of Hispanics, and the emergence of a new 21st century agenda. What’s been incredible about this primary season is how fully realized and important they all have become.

One way to look at the success of the Obama and Clinton campaigns, and their relative strengths and weaknesses, is through the lens of their use of this New Politics. This perspective helps explain the results of Super Tuesday, including what happened in California. The boiled down essence is that Obama is ahead in the tools and Millennial categories, but Clinton is way ahead on Hispanics. As for the agenda, Obama is talking more transformation, while Clinton is talking change, though both are close to each other in specific policies they are not yet keeping up to their rhetoric with truly 21st century policy shifts. Let me explain a bit more:

Tools: Obama has done a phenomenal job in the new tools category, while Clinton has been solid and at least kept up. The most dramatic measure is in the online money category. Obama raised an unprecedented $32 million in January, $28 million of it online, and most of it based on 275,000 people who had given $100 or less. Clinton only raised $13.5 million in January, though she has raised $7.5 million since Feb. 1st , mostly online. However, Obama has raised another $7 million in just the 36 hours since Super Tuesday.

The other side of the tools is the online organizing and coordinating. Again, Obama has come out ahead, as I have talked about in other posts. He has an extremely active and virally growing network of people actively campaigning for him. This has been boosted in the last week with the endorsement of the 3.2 million member online organization MoveOn. Then there’s new media, such as the use of video. Obama had been masterful in reworking his campaign speeches via video, something again we have posted on. And his user-generated Yes We Can YouTube video is in a league by itself, now with close to 2.5 million views.

One of the best analyses comparing the two campaigns on this front is Micah Sifry’s recent post at techPresident. He frames Obama as the first in a long line of reform candidates like Ted Kennedy and Bill Bradley to have the staying power precisely because of the new tools. It changed the game.

Millennials: Much has been said about the Millennials in other posts, but it’s worth pointing out that turnout of young people under age 30 was much bigger than in the past years. For example, Of the eight states that were also part of Super Tuesday in 2000, seven saw increases in youth turnout, and in some of these states, youth turnout tripled or quadrupled. The Millennials share of all primary voters was in the teens, and even high teens, in all but three states. They played a significant role.

Obama took the youth vote in 10 of the states, with margins in the high 50s, 60s, and even 75 percent. The three states where Clinton took the youth vote were because of the high numbers of Hispanics in those states: Arizona, California, and one percent more than Obama in Massachusetts. A good overview of all these numbers can be found in this PDF at CIRCLE, the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

Hispanics: This is the category that Clinton dominates and her campaign has to be credited with foresight on seeing how important this constituency is. The Obama campaign, meanwhile, seems to have grossly underestimated their importance and is playing desperate catch-up, though making good strides, particularly among young Latinos.

The Hispanic vote almost alone can explain what happened in California. As discussed elsewhere, Clinton overwhelmingly took the Hispanic vote in California, 69 to 29. In normal states, that margin could be offset by other factors, but in California, Hispanics made up a full 29 percent of the turnout, compared to 16 percent in 2004. In some calculations we made at NPI based on CNN exit polls, we found that if you took out the Latino vote in California, Clinton and Obama would have been in a dead heat. When you put them back in, Clinton takes almost every age group, including young people. One thing we all learned here: Hispanics really matter.

Agenda: Change has become the mantra of the race, and implied is not just a change in leadership but a change in agenda. My sense is that craving for a new national agenda is more a part of the equation than the media or the campaigns even recognize. Because if you look closely at the specific policy agendas of Obama and Clinton, they are not representing as dramatic a change as their rhetoric suggests. Nor, in my opinion, are they transformational enough for what the country and the world needs to see. That may well be a function of the primary season. Perhaps we will see more ambitious plans once the nominee is settled and the campaign against the Republicans takes place. Or maybe it will have to wait til after the election.

This final piece of the New Politics equation is the least developed right now. It’s the agenda that boldly takes on the array of 21st century challenges and helps transform America and the world. With that in mind, NDN and the New Politics Institute are putting on a special one-day free event on March 12th in DC to explore whether we might be in a transformational moment. We have a great lineup of people who will be taking about the need for change on that plain. Anyone who is interested is invited to come.

One of the most remarkable things that is happening in the Democratic primary contests this year is the voter participation producing record turnouts in every contest. Even in Florida where there was virtually no competition between the candidates, more than one million voters cast ballots in 2008 versus 2004. It is important to understand this context because we are witnessing record participation among Latinos in a record setting election cycle.

I am able to identify at least four states that have exit poll data available for Latino voters for both the 2004 and 2008 primaries. These states are Arizona, California, Florida and New York. In three of these states California, Florida and New York each of these had more than one million voters participate in 2008 compared to 2004. Arizona had more than 100,000 voters participate in 2008 compared to 2004. With the exception of New York, all these states posted a higher percentage of participation among the Latinor electorate in 2008 compared to 2004, but even New York had an increase in the number of Latino voters who participated even if they had a lower percentage.

What this means is that in these four states alone there was an increase of almost one million Latinos voters in 2008 compared to 2004. This doesn't include the increase in participation from Latinos in other states such as Nevada, New Mexico and Illinois, nor does this account for the participation of Latinos in the upcoming contest in Texas.

We are truly witnessing something phenomenal occurring in the Latino electorate and in the Democratic Party. NDN has been talking about the Latino electorate playing a decisive role in this year's elections, and there is no one who can argue against that point with these results. Candidates will have to include the Latino electorate in their overall strategy from now on if they choose to succeed in a national election. I am sure that this is only the beginning of a strategic transformation that will reshape American politics.

I am including some charts for you to look at so that you can see the numbers firsthand. Keep checking in on the blog as I will add data as it becomes available. Feel free to let me know if you have any data that you want me to include that I may have overlooked.

It’s late Monday night before the Super Tuesday election and I’m reflecting back on the most extraordinary 10 days of politics that I have ever experienced -- 10 days, to borrow a phrase from John Reed, that could shake the world.

Only 10 days ago we watched the South Carolina primary, seen as a do-or-die moment for the Obama campaign. That Saturday January 26th primary was being held only a week after the Nevada Caucuses that Hillary won, a week that was marked by negative campaigning and the constant talk about the impact of race in the pending vote.

Obama had to win and win he did – big. The 55 percent landslide vote for him (versus Clinton 27) was decisive, but just as important was his victory speech. He delivered by all accounts an extraordinary speech that touched almost everyone who viewed it – and millions could via web video and YouTube. That speech beautifully framed the themes that he would continue to articulate for the next 10 days, as he continued to gain momentum day by day.

It’s worth briefly remembering the major developments each day, lest we forget how fast this all took place. The speed is jaw-dropping, but not inexplicable. This speed is part of the new politics of our hyper-connected world. Ten days in 1919 revolutionary Russia with barely any telegraph lines is one thing. Ten days in our over-mediated internet world is another.

Sunday: The Caroline Kennedy New York Times editorial that started the meme of JFK comparisons. It was the critical crack in the dam that started the whole outpouring of Northeast liberal support.

Monday: Senator Edward Kennedy’s endorsement at American University was jammed with ecstatic young people. The Kennedy meme gets turbo-charged, and the establishment Democratic pols who had held fast out of respect for Hillary begin to break ranks.

Overshadowed in all this is President Bush’s State of the Union address, which is countered by Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, (who the next day endorses Obama in the heartland), and Barack himself who does a web video response that catches a viral wave in YouTube and tops the charts as the most popular video 24 hours later (now at more than 1 million views).

Tuesday: The Florida primary is held amid a lot of acrimony for Democrats. The national party had said no delegate would be seated because of the state party pushing the primary to the front of the line. The Democratic candidates agree not to campaign there, but Hillary decides to go down to Florida for a victory party since the names are still on the ballot and, in fact, she comes out on top. All night CNN and other TV stations display the results and confuse the audience. Obama supporters seethe at what they consider dirty tactics.

Wednesday: The Edwards bombshell drops. After telling everyone that he was in the race til the convention, John Edwards decides to abruptly pull out before Super Tuesday. The great sorting process begins for former Edwards supporters, but more to the point, for the progressive wing of the Democratic party. They must figure out which of the remaining two will best carry out the progressive cause. MoveOn decides to hold an unprecedented “election” of its members to see whether a two-thirds majority will endorse.

Thursday: The morning does not start well for the Clintons. The New York Times publishes an above-the-fold front page article on former President Clinton’s shady dealings with the authoritarian leader of Kazakhstan, Nazarbayev. A crack team of Times reporters nails down the story of how a buddy of Bill’s is able to secure a lucrative uranium deal against all odds shortly after Bill and Buddy visit Kazakhstan for a sumptuous banquet with the strongman, who Clinton praises. The buddy makes a killing when the price of uranium skyrockets, and then proceeds to donate more than $130 million to Clinton’s charitable foundation. For many Times readers the whole deal reeks, and is reminiscent of the bad old days of Whitewater.

Hillary has her own bad media day when ABC News digs up old video tapes of her time serving on the board of directors of Wal-Mart, between 1986 and 1992. They show her remaining silent as the company waged a battle against any efforts to unionize the Wal-Mart workers.

By the evening, the Democratic Debate takes place in Hollywood, in none other than Kodak theater, the site of the academy awards. The stars come out for this one too, (though substantially less decked out). California, and the rest of the nation really tune in as the two candidates pretty much debate to a draw, but the newcomer Obama benefits more from two hours straight in the national media sun.

Friday: MoveOn does endorse, after 70 percent of members who vote choose Obama. This commits the powerful 3.2 million member organization to put its online organizational machine into overdrive.

The online money story starts to really make the rounds. Obama raised $32 million in the month of January, more than any presidential candidate has ever raised in a month during competitive primaries. But the real kicker is that $28 million of it came online, and 90 percent of those online donations were less than $100, meaning the campaign can come back to those people time and time again before they max out at the $2300 cap. Clinton meanwhile, declined to say what she raised, though it came out later that she raised only $13 million in the same period. In other words, Obama raised almost $20 million more than her.

Saturday: Time Magazine comes out with a cover story for the coming week on “Why Young Voters Care Again, and Why Their Vote Matters.” The text reads like an infomercial for Obama, who clearly garners the vast majority of Millennial Generation support. So Time ensures that in doctors and dentists offices across America this week, the talk among patients will be about these kids and why they love Obama.

Sunday: The Los Angeles Times comes out with a glowing endorsement of Obama, to join the San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Bee, and San Jose Mercury News. To top it off, Maria Shriver, first lady to popular Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, surprises the Obama camp by showing up to a big rally of women in LA and endorsing Barack.

Monday: Polls are now showing the critical state of California as a virtual dead heat. This is an extraordinary shift in fortunes. In the summer. Clinton led everyone by 30 percent, by December she still held a solid 12 percent lead.

Some national polls even put Obama ahead of Clinton. Again, this an extraordinary shift in fortunes. As of only Jan 20th, Gallop had Hillary 20 points ahead of Obama; by Feb 2nd she was only 2 points ahead – statistically tied.

By Monday night, when I am writing this, on west coast time near midnight, an incredible YouTube video tells the story. The Barack Obama Music Video, created only about 48 hours earlier by a group of popular young musicians, passes the mark of 1 million views. The title is appropriately called: Yes We Can.

If you have not watched it, do so. It explains, as much as anything, what it is about Obama that many people clearly love.

I don’t know exactly what the Tuesday elections will bring in terms of final results. But I do know that we have crossed a threshold of American politics where we are in uncharted turf. It’s very possible that what will come out of this primary will be very powerful indeed. It may well shake up American politics, and roll through the November election, and yes, it might just shake up the world.

We’re all spectators to what is now unfolding, but we’re also all actors. Whatever comes next is up to us.

Let’s see what the next 10 days will bring.

And please vote. Thanks.

Let’s take a moment in this busy political week to marvel at the wonders of web video. It is simply amazing what this nascent medium has done to change the presidential campaign less than 18 months after the debut of the shaky “Macacca” video.

Think about it for a minute. Before this cycle any of the 300 million Americans who wanted to hear the victory (or concession) speeches coming out of early primary states would have to hope to catch a significant snippet on the broadcast or cable news channels or try to randomly come across it on late-night CSPAN. Or they could read about what David Broder or some pundit who was present at the speech thought about it the next day in the newspaper.

These days when the polls close in South Carolina, anyone from any corner of America (let alone the world) can immediately watch the entire Obama speech, unfiltered, unedited, almost as soon as he gives it. Not only that, but that viewer in, say, California, can then send the link to that video to 30 of her friends and family, and half of them might watch it the next day, and then send the link to their network too.

We’re really only now digesting what that capability does to politics. For one, it nationalizes what once was a very localized event – candidate speeches. A good speech is not just for the consumption of the 1000 people crammed into a hotel ballroom or school gym somewhere in the heartland of America. The speech is open for all the country and all the world to see.

And it isn’t just primary victory speeches – it’s endorsement speeches or whatever else the campaign wants to put out there. Obama had well-packaged versions of the Kennedy endorsements and Obama’s response on the campaign website shortly after they delivered them. People hear some television anchor talk about the endorsement or about Teddy’s passion, and they leave the tube and pull it up on their computer for full viewing.

This is not just happening with journalists and political junkies, but with average Americans. Out here in California, I am getting barraged with links to web video in on online version of the old office water cooler. “Did you see that last night?”

One consequence of this is that average people are almost impulsively giving money to campaigns. They see a passionate speech and in the heat of that moment they click on the button right next to the video that says: “Donate here.” The Washington Post blog reported that just after the Obama speech in South Carolina, the website was processing campaign donations at the rate of $500,000 an hour. I just got off a media conference call with Obama Campaign manager David Plouffe and he said they have raised $5 million online in the two days since South Carolina.

The gap between the spark of passion about a candidate to the moment you can cross the line and give money to a campaign has shrunk to seconds. How long would it have taken you to span that gap just a couple cycles ago, back in the ancient days of the 1990s?

Another consequence of this web video development is that the dying art of political oration might be making a comeback. The political ecosystem of the second half of the 20th century did little to reward great orators like America has seen throughout its history. In that broadcast TV world it was much more important for you to package your message into 30 second sound bites.

But in the new world of web video, where length does not matter because 30 seconds costs the same as 30 minutes, your ability to connect with an audience and hold their attention is a huge asset.

I think that is partly why Obama has been faring so well in this environment (and why I have been focusing on him rather than other candidates in this post). Obama clearly has no peers when it comes to speaking ability. And his campaign has been the most adroit on using the new medium of web video. The Clinton campaign has done a solid job with keeping up with the basic web video capability, but Hillary does not have the same flair for speaking.

There’s been a lot of talk about old and new politics. Set aside what that means about policies, etc., and which candidate best embodies it. Clearly one piece of the new politics has to do with using the new tools, and the first among equals in that lineup is web video.

Just pinch yourself and remember that this web video phenomenon, and all its consequences, has only just begun….

An interesting factoid was thrown into play today by Micah Sifry at TechPresident. He did a comparison of how the supporters of the three major Democratic presidential candidates are using online tools at the campaign websites to organize offline activities like throwing house parties, fundraisers and phone banking.

The short answer is that Obama is overwhelming Clinton and Edwards. The numbers are really striking. Take the state of California where the statewide polls still have Hillary up by a surprisingly large margin. Yet you look at grassroots supporter-generated events in some of the key cities:

• Los Angeles: Obama 170, to Clinton 8, and Edwards 0.
• San Francisco: Obama 189, to Clinton 9, and Edwards 29.
• San Diego: Obama 55, to Clinton 6, and Edwards 30.

Even if you go to Hillary’s home state of New York, Obama numbers tower over hers:

• New York City: Obama 292, Clinton 13, Edwards 0.

Obama has clearly encouraged a bottom-up campaign that empowers his supporters to make things happen in his name. They clearly are responding in ways that have almost no parallel in campaigns on the other side – let alone on the Republican side, where there is almost nothing of this sort beyond the Ron Paul phenom.

We’ll see how this plays out by the primary day on Feb. 5th. My guess is that this is a ticking time bomb that is unnoticed now, but that will have large repercussions as the day to vote approaches. It’s not clear whether it will be enough to close the current gap, but I’d much rather have hundreds of hubs of campaign activity in a city than a handful, let alone none.