The New Organizing Institute was founded in the summer of 2005 by a
group of campaign staffers that had experience doing grassroots
mobilization in the '04 cycle, and realized that progressives need to
seriously invest in training future young staffers in the technology
aspect of campaigning. Their first "boot camp" was organized by Zach
Exley and Judith Freeman in the winter of 2006. Earlier this year, my
friend Barak Wouk and I were both accepted into the NOI's 8-day Summer
Campaign Boot Camp from July 1st-8th in Washington DC.

Barak and I arrived in DC a few days early to explore the city and
melt in the crippling heat and humidity we were forced into. But,
yesterday things cooled down considerably as we made our way to George
Washington University for the first day of the NOI Boot Camp. At 3:00
we arrived, and checked in to our dorm rooms along with the 60 other
young trainees (mostly recent college grads). In the evening Zach Exley
introduced the NOI program to us, gave his story of how he got involved
in politics, and told us what he hopes we will bring into the political
arena when we leave at the end of the week. It was an inspiring speech
that got everyone fired up about the program and our ability to create
change.

The main point of Zach's talk was that the internet has brought
about a fundamental shift in the people, on a scale similar to the
changes that occurred when writing, telephones, and televisions were
each invented. He told us that he began his work in the organizing
field shortly after college as a union organizer. After years of
frustrating experiences and many defeats he quit that job and became a
programmer. When George W. Bush first ran for president, Zach gained
instant fame for a small parody site (GWBush.com) that went viral after
the Bush campaign got nervous and blamed his site for Bush's cocaine
rumors. The storm of attention that swirled around his site was only
possible because of the internet. Zach then went on to tell the story
of how the Dean campaign discovered the potential of this new medium,
and compliantly revolutionized the way modern political campaigns use
the internet. Apparently the decision to set high fund raising goals
(as Joe Trippi advocated) was a dangerous risk that faced a lot of
resistance. Zach stressed that tension within campaigns always happens
and is a very important process. He asked us all to fight those battles
to take greater risks, because progressives can only win when we are
willing to take chances and raise expectations.

Then Zach explained how the mock campaign, a major part of the
training, will function. The 60 trainees were split into groups based
on colors. Then each group was randomly given a Simpsons character (or
the one Family Guy character that was tossed in) which they now have to
run a presidential campaign for. Each group will create unique websites
that will be completely open to the public. The goal of the completion
is to get as many sign-ups on our email lists as possible, and get as
many people as we can to attend a Live Earth MoveOn party here in DC.
I'm on the pink group, and our character for president is Stewie from
Family Guy. It should get interesting.

More from the NOI training later this week...