Thanks to Chris for the excellent article and for kicking off this discussion, and to Matt for his thoughtful contributions.

Originally I wanted to focus on the future-focused questions Chris kicked us off with (and hope I can still get a chance to do so before the week is up).

But Mr. Stauber's post raised some important challenges that cut to the heart of what MoveOn is and does and I think they need to be addressed. These questions concern me not just as former MoveOn Advocacy Director, (I left in 2007) but also because I've since worked with various manifestations of the MoveOn model in Australia (getup.org.au) globally (Avaaz.org) and seen the power it holds to empower progressive action at the state, national, and international level - a power that has only begun to be tapped. So I think it's quite important to address the serious misconceptions in John's argument about how this model of collective action actually functions.

Let me be clear, I applaud John for speaking with such candor and vigor. His motivation is clear: supporting a healthy progressive movement capable of creating significant change. And his observations are serious enough that --- were they correct -- they would merit our deepest collective concern. Thankfully for the causes we both believe in, they are not.

Point #1:

MoveOn raises millions and millions of dollars each year, but the dollars go into marketing, advertising, and candidates, and not into empowering the 3.2 million people on their list.

First, this picture involves a fundamental mischaracterization of how fundraising and spending works at MoveOn. It conjures an image of an elite group of MoveOn staff making decisions about how to dole out a massive war chest, "marketing" like a company promoting a brand, giving wads of cash to choice candidates, etc . It just doesn't happen that way.

MoveOn's political work has been funded entirely through member contributions since 2004 - the average when I was on staff was $42. Even before then the much ballyhooed major contributions from the likes of George Soros made up a small percentage of the overall budget. This, in of itself, puts MoveOn in a different category from nearly every major institution in progressive politics, including the foundation-funded environmental groups John addresses in his next paragraph.

But even more germane is how the money comes in. It's almost all raised from specific appeals to members for specific expenditures at specific moments. If the money goes to an ad, it's because members saw the ad, liked it, agreed with the argument for why it was necessary, and contributed to put in on the air.

The same goes for everything MoveOn does - local organizers, the voter-to-voter phone bank program, the door-to-door turn out program, everything has to be designed according to what members want and specifically pitched for funding accordingly.

Same goes for candidate funding - the PAC itself almost never makes direct, staff-selected $5,000 contributions to individual candidates in the way John's comment suggests. The millions "MoveOn" has contributed to progressive candidates over the years has come straight from individual MoveOn members when they see an opportunity that they individually chose to pursue.

Bottom line: The money goes where the members send it - it's that simple.

Alone, none of us could fund the ads, organizing programs, and campaigns we want to see on the issues we care about most. Together, we can. MoveOn gives us that chance, which means collectively we have far more power than we would otherwise. Surely, there are many different ways to "empower" - but this has got to be one of the best.

Point #2:

These 3.2 million people on the MoveOn email list are the object of marketing and fundraising campaigns, but they have absolutely no meaningful or democratic control over the decisions of organization, there is no accountability from the leadership to the MoveOn list members, and those of us on the list are unable to organize and communicate amongst ourselves within the list because it can't be accessed by the grassroots at the local or state level.

There are really two pieces to this critique: first the idea that MoveOn is essentially "autocratic" (a word which comes up later in the post) and second that there is no chance for local, horizontal communication.

Perhaps the fundamental difference I have here with Mr. Stauber is that I do not believe MoveOn members are hopelessly pliant idiots. Ok, that's not fair. He neither said nor, I'm sure, believes that MoveOn members are hopelessly pliant idiots. But for his analysis to correct, they'd have to be.

The bottom line here is that MoveOn is nothing more than what MoveOn members do. The influence on decision makers is signatures on petitions, constituents on the phone, activists staging local events, neighbors meeting with representatives. It's not anything that can or does come from the top: it's not big pools of money, it's not catchy press releases or original research: it's members taking action or it's nothing.

So the question is, why do members take action? In John's view, they are duped, pushed or somehow robbed of their agency and compelled into taking action by the extraordinary power of an email. In reality, each individual makes an individual decision every single time. John is quite wrong that 95% ignore every email, but he's right that people pick and choose - as well they should in a flexible, multi-issue, people driven movement.

The accountability couldn't be deeper or more direct: if the MoveOn staff call for an action, ask for money, or even so much as throw a party and the members don't want to come, it won't work. On a practical level, this means the staff has to focus 24/7 on tailoring the campaigns, strategies and tactics to what members want - and developing sophisticated listening and testing mechanisms to figure out what that is - because otherwise it just doesn't happen.

Yes, it's true, Eli gets to decide what emails go out and John can't run against him for Executive Director. (Though I can't quite find where I'm supposed to sign up to run against Mr. Stauber for the leadership of Center for Media and Democracy, perhaps he could post the link?). But the notion of "autocratic" authority is laughably misplaced in a dynamic where the staff spends all day everyday trying to serve the membership with opportunities for collective action based on the members' priorities that the membership accepts or rejects at whim.

There are surely many different ways to be "autocratic" but this kind of constant service is surely the worst of them.

Secondly, there is the point about horizontal communication and local empowerment facilitated through the MoveOn list.

I'm not sure how many MoveOn events Mr. Stauber has been to over the years, but every single one of them is an opportunity for building local, horizontal communication. In nearly all of the countless dozens of living rooms, restaurants, community centers and town square's where I've personally joined local MoveOn members over the years, new connections are forged, local email lists are joined, and plans emerge for taking the next step - inside our outside of MoveOn.

It's true that MoveOn is focused on national issues and organizes accordingly - no surprise there. But it's also true that MoveOn consciously works to bring progressives together locally specifically to build local social capital and political power to address the local and regional issues that MoveOn itself does not.

Sometimes that flows from local gatherings in ways national staff intend but cannot track. And sometimes it takes the form of targeted institution building, like the generous contributions MoveOn has made to seed the lists of state based groups like the Courage Campaign in California or Progress Now in Colorado.

There is also the matter of MoveOn councils, the official local organizing branch of MoveOn. Try telling any one of the hundreds of volunteer leaders who have brought friends and strangers together to build lasting, local progressive structures that MoveOn does nothing to empower or connect on the local level.

If John or anyone else would like to join a local MoveOn group and help steer its course, the sign up page is http://www.moveon.org/team/.

Point # 3:

...the failure of the Democrats and major collaborators like MoveOn to force an end to the war in Iraq after the 2006 elections...

Here I just don't understand what power Mr. Stauber thinks MoveOn has that it refused to exercise. As an outside group, the best MoveOn could hope to do is apply political consequences to being for the war and rewards for being against it, right? It's big, but it doesn't yet have a vote in the Senate - much less 60 votes.

MoveOn has consistently pursued this formula through every means available. The biggest fundraiser in MoveOn history was back in 2004 for Robert Byrd when he took a brave, and at that time quite lonely, stance against the war. It's a pattern MoveOn members have been generously repeating ever since. As Matt pointed out in his piece, MoveOn helped lead the charge in the war-related primary campaigns against Joe Lieberman and for Donna Edwards, just to name two high profile examples.

I left MoveOn shortly after the new Congress took power in 2007, and as I was working on a presidential campaign I was firewalled off and have no idea what the internal MoveOn conversations were like at that time. But looking from the outside, it seemed clear to me that MoveOn used every advocacy tool in their arsenal to persuade/pressure/push Congress not to submit a budget without a clear time line for troop withdrawal. We were all outraged when the Democrats caved, but it wasn't for want of MoveOn efforts that they did so.

There is of course a real concern here: Democrats are in power and the war is still raging with no end in sight. This is a national problem, and John Stauber, Code Pink, MoveOn, and the majority of Americans who want the war to end are all on the same side of it. Soon, wood enthusiastically knocked upon, we'll have a Democratic president and another opportunity - our best yet - to bring this war to a close and advance the myriad other major progressive reforms that are close to our heart.

When that happens, I sincerely hope we can focus all our collective effort on pushing the actual powers that be to do the right thing, and not taking swipes at each other.

Moreover, as the MoveOn model continues to expand domestically and across the globe, those of us invested in building grassroots, independent progressive power ought to fairly evaluate its limitations and strengths so we can make the most of this exciting new contribution to the arsenal of social change.