I kid you not, I have been summoned to my son’s (hereafter referred to as T2) school today. He has, apparently, become a discipline case. He has been sent to the Principal’s office twice in the last week. Did I mention that he’s three?

Apparently, the latest offense is the most serious, warranting a parent teacher conference. His latest crime? (Again, I kid you not) He was recruiting a group of other toddlers in opposition to Circle Time. That’s right. My son the community organizer was no longer content to simply sit out of Circle Time. He was actively recruiting other children to join him in his non-conformity. I think the school is afraid my little cult leader may stage a coup.

While I am concerned about his long term development on many fronts, this really isn’t one of them. I just don’t know if it’s a great idea to teach toddlers that a) they must conform to what everyone else is doing, b) they must be a happy part of the collective, and c) they must never question that authority that demands they go along.

On many levels, I find it amusing, and even reassuring that T2, at a very young age, is displaying the traits of an organizer. The ability to not only refuse to be a sheep, but to also teach others not to follow blindly, is quite admirable. From a teacher’s perspective, I get that it can be quite challenging. On many occasions, I have been trying to get his sister to focus on something only to have him lead her away. It’s annoying, to be sure.

Also, from a teacher’s point of view, conformity is key. If the kids were expressing individuality, and pursuing only those things that interest them, we might end up with a world of innovative thinkers. It’s good to have teachers who will choke out the weed of self-expression and creativity. The productivity of the collective demands that we create a workforce of nimrods capable of simply pushing a button all day because they were told to. I get it.

From my point of view, however, I’m strangely proud of my child for resisting the brainwashing. I’m actually excited that he won’t simply go along with the crowd. I have even considered introducing him to Facebook and setting up the group “One Million Strong Against Circle Time”.

Well… maybe that can wait until he’s four.

Matt Lewis has a good post up at Townhall on the Soren Dayton flap. He takes McCain to task for his overreaction (which is fair). He also takes McCain to task for imposing limits on political combat.

Still, reprimanding him may cause future McCain operatives to think twice before doing their job. Is McCain recommending a sort of “limited war” in which the enemy can shoot at us, but we can’t shoot back?

Standing on principle is a good value, but so is supporting your subordinates and so is loyalty. It takes political courage to stand up for your team — even if it may cost you politically. Is McCain too concerned about wanting to come across as a nice guy?

The bigger point, and one I think that’s been lost in this, is that Soren was using his personal accounts in a personal communication. Unlike the Amanda Marcotte dust up, Soren was not hired as a spokesperson for the campaign and simultaneously promoting himself and his personal ideological agenda.

He didn’t use a campaign e-mail address to send the link to the video. He didn’t even use a McCain sponsored twitter account. He used his own personal accounts to share a thought with people he felt were friends about online politics – a field he happens to have both expertise in and familiarity with.

This was not like the Samantha Power incident where an adviser (albeit an unpaid one) was speaking with a reporter. This isn’t closer to the cases of Linda Olsen and Judy Rose who were fired for forwarding the “Obama is a Muslim” e-mail. While it was never clear to me whether the women in that case used official campaign addresses or their personal accounts, the material they sent was untrue and potentially slanderous.

Soren’s incident has none of that. The material in the video was predominantly Obama, his wife, and his pastor. Granted the video contains footage of Olympic athletes and Malcolm X that it should not have. The statements of Michelle Obama and Jeremiah Wright are more damaging without all that.

But again, Soren did not create the video. The message was not sent from the campaign systems. It was a personal note. He was not a spokesman, he was a private citizen working on a public campaign and using a personal address.

One thing about this incident sends a chill down my spine. Many people are afraid to run for public office because they fear the rectal probe that is our electoral process. They fear the media scrutiny and the potential that some past indiscretion – no matter how small – will make them a public spectacle.

Do political operatives now have to fear that their private communication will become tomorrow’s news story? Do the people that give selflessly in political campaigns have to dread every workday wondering if they will be the campaign’s latest black eye?

How many e-mails did you send today that, taken out of context and publicized on the news, could be an embarrassment to you or your employer? How many of your personal notes contain jokes about the office, your company’s competitors or some other matter best kept private?

If we have rewritten the political rules so every piece of personal communication sent by campaign staff is now fodder for political advantage, we will further degrade our political process.

I thought I’d share a conversation I had with a lawyer a few minutes ago. It was particularly amusing for what it reveals about the view some people have of what we do.

Me: Hey, did you get a chance to review that document I sent you yesterday.

Lawyer: I sent it to a couple of other people for some additional feedback. I’ll get it back to you shortly. Refresh my memory, what was this for again?

Me: It’s a post for the blog.

Lawyer: Oh, yeah. Right. I forgot about that. That’s a really stupid idea – that blog. People parse every word in legal filings that nobody ever reads and then we go say any damn thing on a blog. (Apparently he senses my shock at his comment) Sorry… I know the blog wasn’t your idea.

Me: Actually, it was.

Lawyer: Oh. Forget it. What do I care. I’m retiring anyway.

So there you have it. The world we occupy and the way the rest of the establishment sees it. Damn the man! Save the empire!

Back at the beginning of the year, David All joined the chorus of voices pointing out that the GOP was not exactly embracing the Internet as a political tool. Prior to his career as a professional agitator, David worked for a couple of campaigns and received notoriety for his role as Jack Kingston’s blogger. He is, by all accounts, a master of self-promotion.

I have run into David in several circles, but never really have sat down to discuss politics or technology at length with him. I don’t know what kind of guy he is. I had always, however, read what he had to say – agreeing with him occasionally, and disagreeing completely almost as often.

In the last few weeks, however, he has gone from someone I can agree with to someone for whom I have absolutely no respect. His post on RedState banning Ron Paul’s angry, vocal minority was ridiculous.

I agree with Captain Ed. Generally, Republicans need to welcome Ron Paul (and all others willing to wear a Republican banner) to the debate and the discussion. If Ron Paul doesn’t win the nomination, we need him to actively endorse and support the winner so that his supporters will use their energy to defeat Hillary.

Personally, I recognize that Paul’s support is very, very real, especially in the politics + tech sphere. He is the people-powered Howard Dean candidate of 2008 which I’ve been saying we need to “prove” the importance of an effective Internet strategy. He is that Revolution.

First, Paul is not a people powered movement. People powered movements have people. Dean in 2008 had people. He was surging in the polls and imploded. Paul has never garnered more than a single digit in any polling not conducted on a website. His “popularity” is a creation of, by, and for the Internet. I play video games online, that doesn’t mean dragons and aliens exist in the real world. Ron Paul may be able to organize his minions to stuff the ballot box on MSNBC, but can he deliver a single person to the polls?

Second, and much more important, a revolution of anti-Semitic, racist, white supremacist, black helicopter Republicans is absolutely not what we need to “prove” anything. Sending a crystal clear message to these people that we a) will not tolerate them and b) absolutely do not want them in the party is what we “need” to do. Erick Erickson is right.

If David All wants to bring in these people to beat Hillary, he can have at it. Thanks, but I’ll pass. The media already paints the GOP as angry white guys enough without David bringing these guys in to help.

I’m guessing David was about 8 or 10 during the 1992 convention, but the angry right was embodied by Pat Buchanan’s speech to the delegates in Houston. It was that speech, as much as anything else, that cemented our brand as reactionaries and zealots. It has taken us 15 years to recover from putting the radical ideologies of an extremist on display.

Arguing that we need people in our coalition who preach the “Zionist conspiracy” as a political philosophy (which is what Erick was railing against, and the reason for the ban) misses the point completely. If David actually believes that the lunatic wing of the right will fall into line to support the eventual nomination of Romney, Giuliani, Thompson or McCain, he needs an adjustment to his political instincts. As Erickson pointed out, Paul himself said during the CNBC debate that he would not support the GOP nominee.

Not right now I don‚Äôt. Not unless they‚Äôre willing to end the war and bring our troops home… No, I‚Äôm not going to support them if they continue down the path which has taken our party down the tubes.

I find it odd that Paul calls it “our party” having run on the Libertarian ticket for President the last time he ran. It seems he only wants to affiliate with the GOP when he thinks there is electoral advantage. His minions probably don’t share that tendency and would likely vote for the Libertarians’ quadrennial sacrifice.

What would cause David to believe that Paul’s supporters would ever get behind the GOP? That argument is almost as laughable as the one he used to defend Google and MoveOn.

Arguing that Google was simply protecting MoveOn’s trademark was laughable. That may be the justification that Google used, but it forgets one thing – our constitution and judicial system have always protected political speech above all else. Political e-mail is exempt from CAN-SPAM for exactly that reason. Commercial speech and political speech are treated completely different under the law.

David’s argument that Google was right to act as it did undermines that. He could have, just as easily, called on Google to recognize the value of political speech as the government does. He could have called on them to recognize that nobody has the right to hide behind a trademark to throw grenades at a candidate. Instead, he knelt at the alter of Google and jumped in bed with Joan Blades.

Erick Erickson theorizes that David’s problem is two-fold. First, David is more committed to the technology than the cause, and second, he is simply trying to grab onto the story to get attention.

Erick presents these in the opposite order, but I’ll tackle them this way, and one at a time. The more troubling of Erick’s charges is that David may be more devoted to technology than to the GOP. That, I would argue, is a harder charge to make stick. David has, to his credit, served a fair number of GOPers and spent some time in the trenches. Do I think he’s still a little wet behind the ears, and needs a bit more experience? Yes. Do I think he’s likely to look back on some of these positions some day and think, “What the hell was I thinking”? Absolutely. But do I believe that he has put a love of Google and a desire to see some marginal Republican achieve success online (even at the expense of the greater party)? I really don’t.

I’d like to suggest that Erick’s first instinct may have been the correct one. As I have said, David is, by all accounts, a master of self-promotion. It’s entirely possible that he made a conscious choice to take the contrarian position solely to further his agenda of making David everything that David can be. If that’s the case, he certainly wouldn’t be the first. Ann Coulter has made an entire career of being annoying just to get press.

That said, I have no respect for that. I dislike Ann Coulter and now refuse to give her a dime or a minute of my attention. She has advocated some ridiculous positions, and made the GOP look terrible for no reason beyond her own advancement. I think David has done the same. He has advocated against basic political speech rights of a candidate under attack, and argued (allegedly in pursuit of an “Internet victory”) for the rights of racists and anti-Semites to use anyone else’s platform as they please.

Does he do it out of some misguided technologist passion? I just don’t buy it. I think David is calculating, and has come to the conclusion that taking these positions gets him noticed. I think that’s why he took his post against RedState and circulated it to the media (as Erick alleges).

Back in May, David and I were quoted in the same WaPo story railing against the GOP and its inability to develop an “A” game online. It appeared front page, above the fold. It made me, with more than 20 years serving my party, a bit uncomfortable. You’ll notice I have since shown more restraint in my criticism. While I still believe we need to do more online, I am spending more effort helping candidates do it right than I am telling people what we’re doing wrong.

I believe that David took from the experience a completely different lesson. I think he discovered that when it comes to the press, the squeaky wheel gets the attention. I have noticed a significant increase in his tendency to not only get his name in print everywhere he can, but to promote any mention of himself via e-mail and blog.

I think Erick missed the target, but hit the tree. I think David is more committed to David than to the cause.

Update: Right after I posted this, I received an e-mail from a friend suggesting I take a look at David’s Facebook profile pic (below).

Pictures are normally worth a thousand words. In this case, 1,416. That image says everything I did, but it’s much more eloquent.

Former Congressman Bob Livingston (R-LA) yesterday joined the growing list of Republicans asking the Republican National Committee to free the presidential debates. In a letter to RNC Chairman Mel Martinez, Livingston writes:

The process of selecting our representative government is perhaps the most important function we, as Americans, carry out in our democracy. It is imperative that the process to do so is as public, and as transparent as possible.

Following on the heels of this week’s Republican debate in South Carolina, I am writing to urge you to give new consideration to the bi-partisan request you have received requesting access to the debates. I believe this effort is important to our democracy, and I am reaching across the partisan divide to join Senators Obama and Dodd, and former Senator Edwards in asking the parties to assist in opening the process to the people.

Livingston recently became involved with a project called the Capitol Hill Broadcasting Network – sort of a YouTube specifically for political content. He and his son David, who runs the CHBN, have added their names as signatories to Larry Lessig’s effort to encourage the Republican and Democratic National Committees to ask networks airing Presidential debates to place the footage in the public domain, or at the very least allow anyone to use it with attribution.

I’m pleased to see more Republicans joining the effort. If you are interested in joining the cause, you can reach me using the “contact” option at the top of this page.

Full text of the Livingston letter is available after the jump…

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