Politics for the people

Although I'm a bit late to the party, I just wanted to mention that yesterday there was a huge Obama rally (link quotes sign as saying "We Need Change."  It actually read "Change We Need") on Johnson Field on the University of New Mexico campus.  By huge I mean 45,000 to 80,000 people huge.  That's almost a sixth of Albuquerque right there - an amazing feat for any event (Apparently this was the largest political rally ever in New Mexico, according to KOB-TV).

I was at the Obama rally as a volunteer, one of about 500 registering people to volunteer, assisting with the event, and generally doing anything we were told.  What struck me about the Obama campaign was its amazing organization and the way everything ran so smoothly with only a few days notice and preparation.

I am incredibly proud of this movement because this is truly a "grassroots" campaign.  We had volunteers of every age, every ethnicity, and just about every income level out there, working together for something they all believed in.  The raw energy of it was astounding.

I think that this campaign, if it successful, will do something more than simply "bring change to Washington;" I hope that this campaign will change the way campaigns are run.  We have the opportunity here to move away from a negative, top-down approach to political campaigns, and move towards positive, engaging, volunteer-supported, volunteer-driven, bottom-up campaigns that include everyone, not just "VIPs" or the party elite.  For too many years politics has been the domain of a privileged few.  Even the jargon of politics served to exclude people from the process.  Now, though, we can go back to the roots of mass democracy, something envisioned by James Madison way back at the founding of the United States.  

No one believed Madison that democratic-republicanism could be practiced with a large group of people over a large territory.  We can now, once and for ever, prove that Madison was right; we can practice real democracy, democracy where the most important thing is a single person with a single vote.  I'm not saying that party organization doesn't have its place, I'm saying that campaigns and parties should derive their powers from the same source that the government derives its powers: the people.

I realize this sounds as if I'm saying "go out and vote for Obama!  He's the only guy who really wants to listen to the people!"  And yeah...that's pretty much what I'm saying, I'm not going to deny it.

P.S. I've got pictures and a video of most of Obama's speech from last night that I will post as soon as I get it off the SD card.