MOVE ON: Get In My Backyard Already!

Here's hoping Move On can build local capacity around a national issue like Bush's court nominees and then activate those folks on local issues and the recruitment and support of state and local progressive candidates.

MoveOn.org has quietly decided to experiment with a new form of off-line organizing, its Washington director Tom Matzzie tells me, one that readers of Zephyr Teachout's PDF articles will find immediately familiar: to support the formation of ongoing local MoveOn Teams, focused on the group's issue campaigns.

At first glance this may not seem to be a big deal, but up until now MoveOn has mostly done "one-off" kinds of local meetings, organizing thousands of house-parties, but not nurturing the institutionalization of continuing connections between MoveOn members in a local area.

The rollout of this experiment started Wednesday, with an email to the group's 2 million-plus members opposing "Bush's plan to stack the court." Matzzie tells me that at the 1500+ house meetings stimulated by this email, MoveOn members are going to be asked to join ongoing teams, that will presumably stayed focused on the many judicial nominations to come.

Tom also says that MoveOn is still trying to figure out its "blog play" and that other ideas for internal reorganization are also being discussed. But "we're still in campaign mode," he says, and that takes priority. [ Personal Democracy ]