e.politics: online advocacy tools & tactics

Prez Debate #2, Online and in a Crowd

October 7th, 2008

Man, these things are coming fast now — the second presidential debate is tonight, and watch parties are popping up all over DC (I’ll be at Left Bank again, after a Care2 happy hour @ Local 16). For those of you scoring at home (and we hope you are), you can always join in the virtual fun: if you’re not live-blogging or polishing your wisdom into 140-character nuggets on Twitter, you can always factcheck the candidates in realtime at Ameritocracy.com. Afterwards, there’s the breathless wait for follow-up emails from the campaigns (“ooh, what did Santobama send me THIS time — a fundraising plea or a volunteer opportunity?”), plus the chance to relive the whole experience via transcript, video and commentary on the Post site the next day.

Question: how are we going to fill our time after November 4th? This election year has been a spectacle, an extended sporting event, an obsession, a flat-out, dopamine-bursting ADDICTION for millions of people in this country and even abroad, and we’re all likely to suffer some kind of king-hell letdown over the few weeks after the vote regardless of who wins. Oh well — the struggle for survival in the post-apocalyptic hellscape Sure To Result from the Current Economic Crisis will no doubt have its own charms.

– cpd

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