I have the feeling I'm being a straight man here, but taking the question seriously, MoveOn.org reports a current roster of 3.2 million members. Here's what they said they did in the most recent U.S. election campaign, in which they mainly supported Democrat candidates and raised money for close races: "You made over 7 million calls to voters (and millions more to members)getting people to the polls one by one. You gave over $27 million. And you raised the issues that powered the electionespecially Iraq, which some pundits told Democrats to steer clear of."--Eli Pariser, MoveOn.org Political Action, Oct. 8, 2006 One way they did this was by using e-mail recruitments asking members to sign up on-line to host "calling parties." Then they e-mailed the location of the parties to all members within a close driving distance, urging them to bring their cell phones and make calls encouraging registered Democrat and Independent voters to get to the polls (they didn't waste cell phone minutes on trying to convert Republicans). Much of this was done on a two or three day turn around, and there were hundreds (maybe thousands) of these parties announced. Very impressive from an IT standpoint. I doubt the Republican National Committee feels that their profile has dropped sufficiently...
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 12:14:31 -0500 From: Barry Wellman <wellman@chass.utoronto.ca>
Speaking of which, whatever happened to "Move On" and "Meet Up"? They were highly touted organizing affordances of the Dean campaign in the US just 2-3 years ago. And Dean is chair of the Democratic party in the US.
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 11:16:56 -0600 (CST) From: elw@stderr.org
i still get mail from them. often.
profile seems to have lowered a bit, though...
======================================================== James H. Watt Professor of Communication Director, Social and Behavioral Research Laboratory (http://www.sbrl.rpi.edu) Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 110 8th Street, Sage Lab 4518 Troy, NY 12180-3590 email: wattj@rpi.edu voice: (518) 276-4130 or 276-2784 fax: (518) 276-3740