Thanks to Chris for pulling the conversation back to the future, if you will. It's super important.

Chris is quite right about the looming sea-change in context. And let's not forget our role in a member-driven organization: If we want the MoveOn model to succeed, we members cannot just sit back and hope the staff will figure it out for us.

I'll start by agreeing or even extending the challenging premise of Chris's question. Let's say Obama is elected. What then? Well, if the only thing we know how to do is link arms and oppose urgent threats, we may be screwed. The endless fountain of red-alert moments that was Washington in the Gingrich-Bush-Rove era will, thank merciful heaven, have dried up.

Not that there won't be urgent threats! Harry and Louise will look like Barney and Big Bird compared to what the right is going throw at any serious plan for universal health care or carbon reduction. But we know how to deal with that - it probably won't look very different than what we do now.

The more interesting and urgent question is how do we make the most of the new political alignment by fighting in the affirmative? What does national-scale, online driven organizing of the "non-shouters" look like when we're trying to push forward stuff that we like?

Here's a few speculative posits about where it might go, based on what we've seen so far:

Go Hard Core: One thing I noticed when I was at MoveOn is that the big propositional issues, (when we're against a real world condition, and for a political solution), follow a certain pattern: fewer people doing more.

Take global warming. It hasn't been one of the biggest petitioning issues. But when it's time to do the more hard core work, like showing up outside of gas stations or meeting with members of congress, the true believers come out like nothing else. I noticed this same pattern when I was running the online organizing for the Edwards campaign as well.

I think there's something to it: it's easier to get shocked out of your routine when your status quo is threatened, than by an appeal to one of the many changes you'd like to see. I think it's quite possible that in the new political world, MoveOn will run a lot more propositional campaigns in which smaller numbers of people who are especially passionate about particular changes do more of the work.

If that's right, MoveOn will have to redouble its investment in the structural pipeline that leads people into higher bar action - and we members, btw, will have to redouble our willingness to follow that pipeline.

Go Direct: When MoveOn was founded, the crisis was political. If Obama wins, Washington will likely start plodding in the right direction, and the crises we face will be real-world and quite serious. The economy, the war, climate change, extreme poverty, genocide etc.

The premier moment in MoveOn's history so far when we all felt the real-world crises clearly outweighed the political one (as serious as that was) was the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. For several weeks after the storm, MoveOn focused full time on "Hurricane Housing" -- MoveOn members across the country opened their homes and sheltered more than 30,000 survivors fleeing the gulf coast. (It's without question the campaign I'm most proud to have been affiliated with in my career.)

In the new era, we may see an upswing in the general desire to roll up our sleeves and take on the real-world problems we face in a more direct manner, and MoveOn may need to experiment with facilitating that. I'm not talking about service replacing politics, but I am suggesting the times may call for a more interesting fusion of the two.

Go Local: There's been a big wave of state level replications of the MoveOn model, Courage Campaign in California and Progress Now in Colorado being the flagship examples. It proves the model can thrive in a smaller pool, and there's a lot more room for this sort of thing. MoveOn may well find the energy it chases headed that way if the rightwing finds Whitehouse a less hospitable climate come January and shifts to the statehouse as the next great battleground.

Go Big: I'm currently doing some work exploring this model in the UK, which is an interesting point of comparison because in the same 10 years we've been battling Gingrich-Bush, outside activists over there have been dancing with their at least nominally progressive government and trying to figure out how to make the most of it. I've asked a bunch of smart people about where they've gotten results, and here's how I'd summarize the take away: it's sometimes-though-rarely possible to push the gov to do more than it wants, it's quite hard to stop it from doing something it does want, and the biggest net gain by far comes from helping a progressive government do what it would like to do, but barring grassroots intervention believes that it politically cannot.

That makes sense to me: the big opportunity before us is to take the progressive instincts of the new administration, pull on them, and get them to go "go big" by creating the external demand.

But the real question on the table isn't as much about what we want to do, as how will we find the energy to do it, right?

Another comparative example, Australia, offers some insights there. Australia is useful to look at because they were politically just like us until last November and the only other fully functional national example of the MoveOn model is based there. (I had the good fortune of working with them during their last elections).

GetUp (the Aussie MoveOn) has had a lot of success seizing on various initiatives from the new progressive government and using them to touch off large national rounds of aspirational organizing - much in the same way as bad initiatives used to spark oppositional organizing.

The strategic goal is to ensure that the government's initial offering is regarded as the floor, not the ceiling, for any progressive thrust. They've gotten a lot of traction with it, and a very energetic response from members. It's something for us to think very seriously about.

I have a piece coming out in the September American Prospect which goes more into this - check it out if this thread interests you.

Go Independent: One of the biggest shifts in the new world is that for the first time in a generation it will be both fun and useful for progressives to be on the inside.

MoveOn staff will have to fight very hard against the temptation to go inside and make deals that seem helpful but complicate their relationship with the members. Staying physically out of DC, as they mostly do now, is a good way to help remedy that. But MoveOn staff have been resisting that temptation for a while now, and the "deep accountability" model limits the danger. I'm actually more concerned about the rest of us.

I have no idea how big Obama's list is now, but I'm willing to bet it's the largest in the country. And I'm also willing to bet he'll break new ground as president by using it to keep people actively engaged to support his agenda. That list will be mighty tempting for a lot of MoveOn members as a new way to get involved.

But here's the GIANT catch: That list cannot, by definition, be used to pave a road Obama is not yet ready to take. It will only be as bold, or as cautious, as Obama himself because it will not be a bottom-up, member driven tool - that simply doesn't work in a government context. Don't get me wrong -- I'm thrilled it will exist because Obama's agenda needs and deserves support. But it is not enough.

As an example, take the difference between Obama's plans to curb carbon emissions 80% by 2050 (that's good) and Al Gore's challenge to generate all US electricity from clean sources in 10 years (holy crap that's awesome). Obama's list will not be able to organize en masse to pull Obama towards Gore. But if MoveOn and other independent groups do, and prove such a bold move is politically tenable, (or actually make it politically tenable) Obama might very happily step forward himself -- and then bring his home-grown list along.

I'm not saying we shouldn't all pile onto Obama's list to help him out. I'm just saying we all better keep at least one foot solidly planted in an independent camp at the same time, or we're shooting ourselves in both feet, so to speak.

What about growth? Does a more hard core, direct, local, big and outsider organizing model challenge the historic formula for mass growth? Well, to an extent, yes. But you know, I think that's ok.

We (big we: MoveOn and so much more) have had 10 years of growing in response to rightwing threats. Now it's time to spend that growth on pushing hard for the progressive improvements to the real world that makes everything we do worthwhile.

Silly right wing. You shouldn't have been so awful when the internet came along and made every bad thing you did a chance for us to grow. Now you're just going to have to bite your knuckles while we make the world a more fair, peaceful place. Sorry.