Transcript

How Grassroots Conservatives Tap the Power of Open Networks

February 23, 2012

0:00:0

MICAH SIFRY: Hi everybody, this is Micah Sifry from Personal Democracy Media and welcome back to another of our Personal Democracy Plus conferences calls that we do regularly with movers, shakers, thinkers and doers, innovators in the place where technology collides with politics and government and civic life.

And I’m really thrilled today to have as our guest Martin Avila who is the Founder and CEO of Terra Eclipse, which is the nationwide leader in conservative political technology and consulting. And we’re going to be talking with him about how grassroots conservatives are tapping the power of open networks.

And just a little background about Martin, he’s sort of a classic tech geek story. He started Terra Eclipse back in 1999 while he was still in high school and he since built the company into a leader in the field focused on serving conservative candidates.

His company has worked for clients including Freedom Works, the Tim Polente Presidential Campaign, (inaudible) cycle, the Ron Paul 2008 campaign, and a number of other groups and senators and congressmen.

And one of the things that Martin and his team have done, which is certainly going to be a major topic of conversation is they’ve launched an open network site called Freedom Connector, which is being run by Freedom Works but is a place where anybody can join and create a profile, connect. You know, all the sorts of things that we see in many other political social network platforms such as MyBarackObama.com. And it’s very interesting to see the same sorts of techniques being used across the spectrum.

So, Martin I though what would be great to start maybe is if you would tell us a little bit about kind of how you got into this space and you know what you think -- you know, how you think about how technology and the fact that everybody’s network can be used to empower more people and move the political process.

MARTIN AVILA: Thanks, thank you so much. You know, starting a business in California is probably one of the hardest things to do (laughter) that I’ve ever encountered and you know, through that process -- we didn’t start off as a political company at all. We were just doing web development but just from running into that constant government bottle neck, the taxes, the fees and all those things that come with being a business, which California kind of forced us to kind of look at political issues. And through that we ended up getting political clients and those sorts of things. So, that’s how we kind of ended up in politics. It wasn’t really something that I set out to do -- that we set out to do, but it was kind of a natural movement.

MICAH SIFRY: (Overlapping remarks).

MARTIN AVILA: Yeah, getting into politics and so you know, from there we kind of took this Silicon Valley innovation and started applying it because we aren’t political science majors or anything like that. We just kind of started implementing some technology for some campaigns and the next thing you know we’re doing these money bombs for Ron Paul, and so we just kind of look at things a little differently I think, because we’re not really into the traditional you know, what I view as really a commanding control structure of politics where you’ve got these guys who are power brokering a lot of influence. I really kind of always have viewed it as kind of that Ron Paul grassroots momentum, that broad bases for -- that influences issues.

So, that’s really kind of our philosophy here is how do you harness that decentralized, broad-based levels of support that really can’t be brokered. And you see in the cycle that there’s a lot of -- you know, the pundits are just completely stumped as to what’s going with the -- you know, they say this -- you know, Mitt Romney’s got it locked up and then this is going to happen and then just everything changes.

I think that is a real consequence of what is happening online with the conservative movement. You know, up until this cycle conservative grassroots activists haven’t been online as much. I mean, it’s been a gradual -- you know, the left that happened a long time ago. You saw that with the Dean campaign. That same kind of thing was happening back then, but Ron Paul was the start, then you have the Tea Party Movement. And now it’s going to the evangelicals, it’s -- they’re on Facebook, they’re on Twitter, they’re discussing things on Freedom Connector and now you’re going to see that same evolution I think in the Republican Conservative Movement where this broad based, issue focused principled factions within the party have a much stronger voice.

And as we’re continuing to deploy tools online to leverage that, I think you’re going to get -- the establishment is really going to start becoming -- I mean, they’re already afraid, you can already see it’s palpable, the fear of the grassroots and the way they talk about it, they way the pundits talk about it. It’s really interesting to see that this -- it’s really starting to come together.

0:05:43

MICAH SIFRY: That’s really interesting. Let’s hold that thought. I actually don’t want to let you kind of slide past -- I mean your history in getting into this is important, too because the fact is you’re based in California -- you know, I may be wrong about this but just about every other major political technology company that works on national level stuff is on the East Coast. And so you’re about as far away from -- you know, I mean there are a few people -- Carey (sounds like: Kisoom) in Seattle. I mean it’s not like everybody is here on the East Coast and obviously now Todd Herman and those other folks have started a new thing out in Seattle as well.

So, it’s not like it’s -- you know, only a measure of geography, but when you got into doing campaigns, I mean you started out with local races, right? And you --

MARTIN AVILA: (Overlapping remarks) issue oriented stuff. You know, we were really tapping on a lot of private property things and grass roots advocacy campaigns first. Like that was really our -- and that (overlapping remarks) --

MICAH SIFRY: Right, so you were working from local clients, but you kind of developed your own method of we’re going to use the tools to enable lots of people to do things as opposed to you know -- I mean, I think a lot of the reason why we still see this, as you put it, the command in control approach, is the very first experience that a lot of political consultants had with the internet was in 2000 when John McCain raised $1 million seemingly overnight after winning the New Hampshire Primary. And suddenly everyone said, “oh my God, it’s a cash machine,” right?

And so people have been doing -- you know, let’s do it to raise money and then the Dean campaign was very obviously seminal for a faction on the Democratic side you know, led by people like Joe Trippy who have continued to argue that actually the tools can enable you know mass participation but you know, it’s not like every Democratic campaign is designed according to those principles.

But you came into this from working lower level races. I mean, can you tell us how you came to work for Ron Paul in 2008? Was that -- he came to you or you went to them?

MARTIN AVILA: Yeah, they -- it was funny, through these private property and issue based campaigns I just ended up meeting some of the people on that campaign over the course of a couple years, and I saw Ron announced and what I did was picked up the phone and called him. And I said, “hey ..” and they’re website was terrible, it was absolutely -- there’s a screen shot floating somewhere on our servers of the website as it was. And it was just about as outdated as you could have been. You know, no CMS, just a flat page.

And what we did was -- look, we’ll do your site for you, we’ll get you a contact management system and you know, you guys will be able to at least put updates on your site because it was just completely outdated.

And they were like, “okay, great.” And then through that we started to look at, “wow, this guy’s got a lot of people …” Let me step back a little bit like Ron Paul built his empire, if you will, off of going to these what most people would consider obscure conferences and talking about what most people would at the time consider obscure issues.

But they’re issues that people on the grassroots level researched and know about or have contended with first hand. I mean, you’re talking about stuff like -- back in 2004, you know, like Agenda 21 to see how (inaudible), which is now Glen Beck is running with and that’s got him a lot of national steam now and it’s actually still considered pretty obscure by a lot of beltway folks.

0:10:02

But out in the Midwest it’s a very real issue and you’ve got county supervisors up in Northern California where it’s acting on first hand and it’s a big issue now. But back then, Ron Paul would go to these conferences and he would be open to at least hearing from people about those issues and say, “hey, I’ll get back to you on that.” “I’ll have my staff look into that.” Or you’d have somebody like Kent Schneider who is his campaign chairman actually going on these radio shows where -- I mean short wave radio -- like, we’re talking about low tech stuff. But there’s a network out there of people who just have like landlines, they don’t have computers, they only have short wave radio, but they’re out there.

And Ron and his people would reach out to them and talk to them about you know, the IMF and inflation and the Federal Reserve, which back in 2004, super obscure. I mean you would get like the weirdest looks from people when you would bring this stuff up. Now, you know, everybody’s talking about the Fed, a lot of people are talking about Agenda 21, you know, IMF’s a little more obscure but that relates to like how the Greek bailouts are handled and you see it out on Fox News.

Anyway, Ron Paul built that constituency a long, long time ago and so that’s -- that’s kind of how -- we saw that and I knew that going into that campaign that those people were out there and that we just needed to provide platform for them to participate and project their issue set onto this campaign, even though he didn’t have it on his issues, they knew that he went to those conferences. And we’re talking 15 years of groundwork being laid of all these people who have absolutely no voice whatsoever on the national stage.

And so that really kind of goes to that broad based issue of leveraging and coalition building --

MICAH SIFRY: (Overlapping remarks) Right, right, but his site, as I remember it, you know it wasn’t that fancy and the -- I mean, to me probably the most important innovation was the decision to post you know, almost in real time the name and amounts of donations as they were coming in. And that is what enabled other people to start tracking, you know how is Ron Paul doing. You know, somebody created a site called RonPaulGrass.com, which was like this obsessive tracking of all the data.

But it was out of that that then some people you know, had the ability to say, “hey, you know, let’s aggregate our donations all around one day and pull out a money bomb and if we can raise $1 million …” whatever the target was, maybe the media will finally pay attention, right?

And that came more from the grassroots than it did really come from the you know, the campaign itself. But the decision to be transparent about the donations was obviously a pretty unusual one.

MARTIN AVILA: Yeah, for us the -- what we did first, actually was he needed $40,000 to open up a new office and staff it with people and chairs and all that. So, we just did a money bomb for that $40,000 office. We showed pictures of what we needed and we said this is all we needed and people loved it. I mean, we raised I think you know, a couple hundred thousand off of that. And then we stretched that out to be a week-long fete, which was called Fill the Quill for Constitution Day and it was quill, you know money tracker with peoples’ names.

MICAH SIFRY: Sounds like the (sounds like: Back for Dean).

MARTIN AVILA: Exactly, no and that (sounds like: Back for Dean) is like -- is one of my favorite all time things in politics. Like that’s (laughter) -- I have a (inaudible) out on that somewhere and I’m going to get it printed and framed somewhere at some point.

But yeah, that’s kind of what we did, and then of course, the grassroots from that broad base support, what we wanted to do was allow people to kind of stand with Ron by putting their names up there and that -- so you could continue to kind of like -- like if you saw somebody you knew or somebody in your home town, you’re going to more closely associate with that campaign and be more compelled to be a donor.

MICAH SIFRY: Right, but this was done in a very low tech way, right?

MARTIN AVILA: Yes.

MICAH SIFRY: I mean, just scrolling them across the front page of the site. But it turned out to be a brilliant stroke, as it were. So, that’s how you got into the poll campaign. And were you working at the strategy level or it was implementing and you know -- I mean, how much (overlapping remarks) did you have?

MARTIN AVILA: We actually has a large amount of input, and there was such a small campaign when we got started we were pretty -- us along with Justine Lamb who the campaign manager --I mean we were talking to them every day, proposing the next thing and you know, it was actually a really fun time. And we got to do it all remotely, that was cool, we got to go to DC. And we just did it from (sounds like: rosters) and had the projector going with those money bomb things projected on the wall, all the programmers sat around working on stuff for Ron and building out a -- we did a bunch of data basing work trying to get like a basic kind of precinct management system going. But we just wound up running out of time for that.

0:15:05

So, that was kind of the ground level of what later became Freedom Connector was this idea that you’ve got this broad base of people that want to connect with one another you know? The original idea was to do that for Ron’s Presidential campaign and then maybe something else, but they ended up not really doing that so we just kind of put that elsewhere, so that’s --

MICAH SIFRY: (Overlapping remarks) Yeah, that’s interesting in the same way -- I didn’t know that. And that’s very interesting because you know the truth is that you know, the Dean campaign near it’s end, there were people working on something called Dean Space you know, as if it were MySpace. And it was the same notion of enabling Dean supporters to connect to each other locally and that code went with the guys who went with Blue State Digital or created Blue State Digital, they then continued to work on it and built versions of it first for some groups in different states that were also looking for this sort of member-to-member network effect like Progress Now in Colorado. They also sold a version to the DNC.

And then why (sounds like: MyBo) -- you know, when the Barack Obama campaign hired Blue State Digital, it was -- they had this, you know, they had a rudimentary version of it, they kept working on it. But you know, sort of -- it’s interesting to see how the idea and the code travel. So, this was -- Freedom Connector really has its roots in the poll campaign.

MARTIN AVILA: You know, frankly the Tea Party Movement does as well. I mean, like Matt (sounds like: Kibbe) wrote about that beautifully in his book where the (sounds like: tar) fight was kind of the transition from Ron Paul’s campaign to a broader Tea Party Movement in a lot of ways.

MICAH SIFRY: (Overlapping remarks) And they talk to people in the Tea Party who would -- some of whom -- obviously there’s overlap and others sound like this was a completely new you know, step into political engagement. In other words -- you know (overlapping remarks) --

MARTIN AVILA: It’s a lot bigger than -- I’m not saying all Tea Partiers are Ron Paulers by any means, but it’s that way of -- it’s that engagement; going to rallies, doing sign -- that was a very big part of the Paul -- the fun of the Paul campaign was what we saw the Tea Party Movement doing (inaudible) again in 2009.

So, anyway from where I stand that was -- the chart fight was where that type of political activism both online and off went from where it was just kind of a Ron Paul thing to now it’s like, “oh, wow …”

MICAH SIFRY: Right. Let’s talk about Freedom Connector and this was launched a year ago at CPAC, right? That was the sort of --

MARTIN AVILA: Right, that was the (overlapping remarks) the launch -- that was the start of our beta and so we’ve been in beta for about a year -- well, a year exactly. And --

MICAH SIFRY: (Overlapping remarks) Connect.FreedomWorks.org if you’re interested.

MARTIN AVILA: Yeah, or FreedomConnector.com also. And yeah, so we’ve just been over the last year, you know, continuing to invite the FreedomWorks membership to participate, you know. We’re not a billion dollar organization, we don’t have a ton of money to go through you know, inside beta testing and alpha testing and all that kind of stuff.

So, what we do is we listen to the community and develop features and launch them and then ask people to give us feedback and we get a bunch of great feedback from these activists. And they’re really helping us right now build a final tool. Like it’s by no means complete, there’s a ton of things we want to add to it, but that’s why it’s so -- for us, it’s really valuable to just have it out there and say, “hey, this is a living, breathing system that we’re changing and we’re changing it to make it more useable to you. What do you want to add?”

And right now people are really asking us to add a system whereby they can submit links in a centralized location and those links can be distributed more broadly to the network and so we’re kind of having a lot of fun developing a news and link aggregating system and integrating that directly with the profiles. So, if you’ve got a campaign announcement that you have in Utah submitted to the campaign section and if it gets enough votes or has enough comments or things like that, it’ll then get distributed to the place you want it to be distributed to on the site.

So, it’s kind of got a Reddit dig integrated to you connector platform kind of thing, so I’m having so much fun with that. Because that’s again -- it kind of goes to this -- like FreedomWorks is really a cool organization to work with because they’re so committed to that decentralized model. You know, they don’t want to become the next Republican Party, they just want to facilitate whatever the grassroots wants to do.

0:20:13

MICAH SIFRY: I have a lot of questions about it. I mean, just to give people a little more background. So, launched a year ago it’s now got -- I’m looking at the site -- it’s got 167,000 users; nearly 7,000 groups formed on the site; more than 2,000 events listed; 600,000 comments. How many -- you know, how much activity is going on on a daily or weekly basis there? I mean, probably not every single person is --

MARTIN AVILA: No, no, I mean -- no, for us it’s -- originally we deployed it as an events tool. I mean, you know, and it’s kind of morphed into a discussion, link-sharing community. It’s hard to slap exactly how much activity there is. I would say we probably get between 20 to 30 percent of the membership is active on a weekly basis. It would be my -- I think the numbers they were looking at.

You know, it’s -- right now we’re in that -- I kind of looked at Linkedin was, you know? We check in with it. I mean I would literally go to my Linkedin profile once a month. And now I’m going to Linkedin more because of the continued ad features that make me want to go to it on a more regular basis.

And for us, originally it wasn’t designed as an everyday platform. It was designed as a “create your event and get people to RSVP and then connect to people,” and then go offline with it, really, was the original design was. And now as the movement is -- I use that to kind of describe the Freedom Movement at large, but as that’s changing and getting -- becoming more of the establishment, the needs for Connector to kind of become a more regular, daily, active thing where you can share things about the campaigns that you’re running, or the site that you’re starting. That’s where we’re going with it now.

So, that’s kind of the genesis of it. It wasn’t really originally designed as an everyday thing.

MICAH SIFRY: Was there any worry -- you know, I’m just imaging the type of response that lots of groups would have to the notion that you would put up a site that anybody can join and use for practically any purpose, right? I mean, wouldn’t FreedomWorks or whoever be nervous that the site could be taken over by whatever faction? I mean, isn’t there a fear of losing control of where it goes?

MARTIN AVILA: You know, I think that really kind of shows their dedication to the free market of ideas. There is always that check that you do whenever you’re deploying something like this. But if you’re upfront, that’s what it is and that’s what we’ve been from the start. This is an open platform, other than you know, bigotry or you know, adult (overlapping remarks) you know, things like that.

MICAH SIFRY: Do you guys have to keep an eye on it or it just does --

MARTIN AVILA: Oh, yeah, we have built in -- I mean, every content node, every piece of user-submitted content has the ability for someone to flag it for content like that. So, that gets centralized with the staff and they handle those things. So, it’s actually -- it’s been a very, very clean experience. I mean, you certainly get people that are hocking their food storage business you know, to 500 different groups. And you know there are people that are polite enough say, “Hey, this is not the appropriate use for the site, just for you to go around selling stuff.” But you know, generally a (inaudible) people will say, “oh, I’m sorry,” and they’re very, very, very cordial and I think you can look to the Tea Party Movement, like the rallies that they’ve had, you know, you don’t have arrests, you don’t have a lot of that offensive or destructive behavior.

And that’s really kind of translated to the FreedomConnect audience. I mean, yes, there’s heated arguments; yes, there are bad actors, especially online where you can create anonymous account. We do try to encourage people to use their real names and link up their Facebook accounts and that helps limit that sort of behavior, but it’s all and all been a really very, very clean and respectful audience that’s really focused on issues.

And sure, there are issues that are being discussed that you know, FreedomWorks doesn’t have a position on. You know, FreedomWorks doesn’t really have a foreign policy oriented organization, you know and some of our users are very, very passionate about that, and that’s fine. That’s what we want.

In fact, we’re designing the system, and what we want the system to be is to have the ability for anyone to deploy an issue that aggregates all the content throughout the site when people use the tags for that issue.

0:25:05

And what we’re going to do is implement a voting system where you can create your agenda 21 issue and ask all your friends to vote for it, and if it reaches a certain number of votes it becomes a national connector issue, and maybe even becomes a category for news to be distributed. Kind of like a sub-Reddit if you will on Reddit.

And you know, that’s not something that FreedomWorks is dedicated to their activists to let them have a voice and that’s truly trying to harness and give -- not really harness but give that de-centralized movement a voice to continue to hold elected officials accountable to those issues.

MICAH SIFRY: Are there restrictions on how it’s used because it’s sponsored by FreedomWorks because of their tax status or (inaudible) or C-3 or C-4 or all that?

MARTIN AVILA: Oh, yeah, of course. There’s, you know, there’s a FreedomWorks super pack, FreedomWorks America , I don’t interact or do anything with them because I’m working so much for the C-3 and C-4. And FreedomConnector is -- can’t host that type of content. They’re direct messaging those with -- there’s a lot of legal --

MICAH SIFRY: (Overlapping remarks) Right, so if somebody put something on the site saying, “Vote for so-and-so,” I mean, can users advocate for candidates?

MARTIN AVILA: You’re going to have to -- I think that’s one of the things that --

MICAH SIFRY: I mean, they look like they do.

MARTIN AVILA: (Inaudible) dealt with in the future. You know, it’s like -- I would -- my response to that when people ask me that is, is Facebook giving a contribution to Obama when someone posts something for Obama and you know, that’s the same thing we’re doing here. We’re just (overlapping remarks) it’s about us --

MICAH SIFRY: Exactly. You could argue that it’s the -- what is it -- the Safe Harbor Provision? You know, you’re not directly using the site to advocate for a candidate and it’s a platform for anybody else to advocate for all kinds of things. Yeah, I’m guessing that’s within the Safe Harbor.

MARTIN AVILA: Yeah, I’m not a lawyer, so (laughter).

MICAH SIFRY: Yeah, every now and then you have to consult one.

MARTIN AVILA: Exactly.

MICAH SIFRY: I want to go back -- we’re coming up on the half-way point and so I want to alert folks who are listening that we’ll start taking questions shortly.
So, you said something really interesting at the beginning about how you thought that this cycle -- that what’s taking place on the Republican kind of grassroots side of things is an expansion of you know, the kind of -- the base organizing itself in ways that are more sort of free of the control of the campaigns and that part of the reason why there hasn’t been you know, the usual coalescing around one candidate is you know, that people have these sort of independent nodes, right? And it isn’t just the Ron Paul people -- well obviously we’re all rallying around him, but you’re saying Tea Party people and now evangelicals also using online networking capabilities to kind of talk amongst themselves and in affect maintain an independent identity.

And I wish you would talk a bit more about that. I understand obviously why you know that makes sense in relation to Ron Paul, but you know, it’s less clear to me if it’s really true that it’s become that much easier for people to kind of maintain in independent identity and not just you know, fall into the need to fall behind a candidate.

I mean, there’s this real strong desire to find a candidate that you can back that you know -- I’ve seen the same thing on the left when you know, during the primary in 2008, very strong factions formed backing candidates, not so much staying apart from the candidates and kind of keeping themselves (overlapping remarks).

I don’t want to use the word “pure,” because it sounds you know, like standoff-ish. But you know, holding to their principles if you will.

So, you’re saying this is what you think is driving some of the ongoing disarray --

MARTIN AVILA: I don’t -- I mean, you know, look at the pro-life movement. I mean there’s so much anger towards Romney from those guys and it’s just really interesting to see how they --

MICAH SIFRY: Did you see the online piece of this mattering more? Because in the old days -- just to -- I’m going to press you on this a bit because it’s a really good point and you’re probably right. But in the old days what we had were you know, a bunch of king makers, lots of you know, national networks like the Christian Coalition and you know focus on the family and so on.

And you know, they did kind of coalesce behind candidates and their follower followed. And not you know, to some degree those groups are -- what you’re suggesting is is those groups aren’t as strong and their followers are now -- you know, in effect they’re --

0:30:22

MARTIN AVILA: (Overlapping remarks) They’re listening to their neighbors, they’re listening to their family members who’s sending them an email or Tweeting or posting a Facebook message reinforcing the principle.

And the conservative movement has a lot of different principled factions but most people in that movement are very -- they latch on to a couple of those and they’re very, very, very steady with respect to their dedication on that issue. And that does go above candidates and that’s -- at least in my experience. And --

MICAH SIFRY: More now than before?

MARTIN AVILA: I think more so because they’re seeing their friends, their family and the people that they share those principles with raise an issue. You know, “Hey, Santorum voted for this,” or “Newt Gingrich didn’t back … or is anti gun,” and that sets off alarm bells. And they’re like (overlapping remarks).

MICAH SIFRY: I’m a show-me guy, so is there -- I mean other than obviously people talking amongst themselves, is this what you’re seeing for example in the sort of -- the gist of the dominant conversations on FreedomWorks or are you seeing this on other places online?

MARTIN AVILA: I’ve seen a lot on Facebook and also on -- Connector, for example. Let’s (inaudible) means, Herman Cain, when he was -- we saw that Herman Cain bubble if you will before Herman Cain became huge and people were on the site, you know, loving Herman Cain, loving Herman Cain, loving Herman Cain and when the allegations came up, the conversation was all about -- and maybe I’m going the wrong direction with this, so correct me -- but the grassroots were really dedicated to, “well, let’s have proof of the -- this could just be Romney stirring up people.” And of course it spiraled out of control but what you saw was all those people shifting to Newt right while that was happening.

And it was kind of funny because Newt’s not really the --

MICAH SIFRY: But the way it’s seen on the site is very much -- it’s extremely granular. It’s not like you have -- well, actually I should change that. I mean, you do run a regular poll, right?

MARTIN AVILA: Yes.

MICAH SIFRY: I mean there’s some sort of leading (overlapping remarks) --

MARTIN AVILA: And there’s the ability for people to rate each piece of -- each comment rather than just respond to it. So, you see these comments and if they have 20 or 30 you know, upratings when someone’s like, “Hey, you know Herman Cain’s gone but we should consider Newt,” or “Ron Paul’s …” yeah, you can kind of aggregate those discussions with those upquotes and with the responses.

I think I got a little off track from what you were saying.

MICAH SIFRY: No, no. I mean, my -- I’m not totally disagreeing, I’m just saying you know, the people who, you know, for example who have studied the Tea Party Movement suggest that you know, it’s actually is -- you know, that the size of the grassroots base, the active grassroots base is not really that large. There’s a lot of people who are -- think of themselves as sympathetic or supporters and there’s plenty of media attention but in terms of finding the number of Tea Party groups, you know, that have meetings, that have lists, the number is less than 1,000. That’s still a lot of people, you know, by the way and by organizing themselves that you can have a big, big impact.

But I’m struck by the suggestion that what you’re saying is that the leadership sort of piece of this, the you know, just because the head of a big evangelical group might say, “let’s rally around …”

MARTIN AVILA: (Overlapping remarks).

MICAH SIFRY: Yeah, that that has very little affect. (Overlapping remarks).

MARTIN AVILA: Well look at -- here’s a perfect example. Chris Christy, everybody loved Chris Christy. And when he endorsed Romney, people were pissed. They -- the grassroots were furious. “I can’t believe he sold us out about this, sold us out to Romney,” “he’s an establishment guy, I thought he was the guy.” You know, I believe that Chris Christy suffered with the grassroots, a little bit of a political setback and the same thing with Tim Plenny, you know, he dropped out and everybody was like, “Oh, you know, he was a good guy,” you know, they weren’t attached to him but then they kind of saw him for what, you know, he’s an establishment guy, even though he was trying to be the anti-Romney, he went to Romney.

And you’re seeing you know -- and that’s -- I’m see that happen even down to the Congressional level, you know, someone like -- let’s look at -- I love Jeff Lake and Jeff Lake’s awesome. But you know, some of the grassroots guys are kind of like, well, you know, Jeff Lake supports Romney, right?

So, you know, it’s just -- things like that, that’s where I would point you in the direction to look of the “show me.”

MICAH SIFRY: Yeah, and the other argument. I mean I think this is absolutely valid. I mean the other argument that people make about why the races last as long as it is you know, other than the sort of -- this dynamic of “anybody but Romney” is 1) the debates, huge number of debates, they take a lot of time, and they skew the focus of the race to who’s got good debating skills as opposed to maybe grassroots capabilities.

0:35:46

You know, the SuperPac money which is enabled you know, candidates who normally would have dropped out after New Hampshire for lack of money, right?

MARTIN AVILA: Right, I mean there’s a lot of factors I just would contend that this is just something that maybe the establishment folks don’t want to talk about. And it’s not necessarily something that you can directly point you that has a statistic like how much money Sheldon Adelson has given Newt Gingrich, but it’s -- we all know that the conservative movement is moving online at a little slower pace than the left.

And I would contend that those discussions that used to just happen around the dinner table or at the lodge or at church are now happening on an on-going and constant basis. And that is strengthening the issue, principle groups to continue to be steadfast and then highlight the candidate’s weaknesses in a lot of different respects.

For example Ron Paul, he suffers a lot with the people who are really concerned with (inaudible) law and foreign policy and what -- it’s not something he goes around and talks about, but they really don’t like him and they’re very outspoken about why he -- Ron Paul’s dangerous in their minds.

So, and I don’t -- that’s not something that a leader of an organization would necessarily be able to do as strongly as what is happening right now.

MICAH SIFRY: Wow, well I’m going to take a break here for a second just to say we’re talking with Martin Avila from Terra Eclipse. If you have a question and would like to get into the conversation, the simplest way to do it is to hit *6 on your phone and then I’ll be able to unmute you and get you into the queue.

You can also Tweet using PDPlus and we’ll just take a pause for a second to see if anybody does want to jump in, but if not I’ve got plenty more questions for you, Martin.

MARTIN AVILA: Okay. And while we’re waiting for a second, I’ll just say all these opinions and things I say are my own, and I don’t represent FreedomWorks at all.

MICAH SIFRY: Yeah, that’s a good disclaimer, we should have said that at the beginning.

So, you know, I’m thinking first -- all right, let’s get off the Presidential race for a second. Where else do you see the sort of grasp of you know, enabling if you will, pushing power to the edges and enabling people to do more with each other.

First of all, where else do you see that happening on the conservative landscape and you know, where should we be watching in terms of its potential impact?

MARTIN AVILA: I am really excited about holding the media accountable. There’s a lot of anger and you saw it with Newt, right, the (inaudible). I am really interested to see and build a tool that will allow the grassroots to hold commentary and hold the media on all levels accountable to a different issue set. And I think there’s going to be a lot of energy behind this and I’m just -- it’s an experimental thing, but if we can provide a platform for that to happen on a broader base and not just do it for candidates, I think that’s going to be something that’s going to be really interesting.

Also, you know, from a technical standpoint, we’re looking at mobile, you know, keeping the dialogue going while you’re doing your errands or at work or whatever. So, we’re going to be going mobile from a technical standpoint with Connector.

But where you should look I think is on the conservative side, there’s a lot of -- and you see it on the left, too, but there’s a lot of frustration with the traditional media outlets and how they report on everything. I mean, what issues they’re covering and it’s really only happening from the bloggers and those bloggers are struggling to find a way to get out their message when they have the right message that the grassroots is eager for.

So, you know, sites like Politico just done really cut it for a lot of conservatives. (Overlapping remarks).

MICAH SIFRY: Do you worry though -- I mean there’s a lot of people -- you know, there’s no question that you know, the net enables more voices and so we have a much wider range of points of view now available and viable, you know, that people are making a living doing this.

0:40:39

But do you worry that there’s a chance that this ends up with more polarization, that it creates a situation where people listen to only the points of view they already agree with and -- I mean, that’s you know, I’m thinking of the larger affect.

I mean what is -- what do you think the -- where’s the balance point, where should it be?

MARTIN AVILA: I don’t know, I -- I don’t really worry about that all that much. You know, sometimes I’ll talk to someone or see a discussion where I’m like, “Well, you know, those people aren’t really opening their minds up to an alternate viewpoint.” I just don’t know if that’s -- it doesn’t seem to be the majority of everyday folks to me.

Like most people I think are -- I think extreme is always going to be there. But I don’t -- I think they’re an extreme minority and most people are thinking pretty critically and logically and I think the more information that you can get out to people the more that -- the better off we’re all going to be.

MICAH SIFRY: What about -- there are a couple other issues that I’m sort of curious -- your view on these.

So, we just saw a really interesting uprising on the internet if you will over these online piracy bills. Where were you on that and you know, I was struck that this seemed to be an issue that you know, kind of cut across the political spectrum, you know? Huffington Post went dark but so did Drudge Report, you know? Red State came out against it, you know as did Daily Coast.

You know, Patrick Raffini, noted Republic online operative, friend of ours, you know, was leading (inaudible) at the net at the same time, you know, groups on the left were also (inaudible).

So, what’s your view of that and also where do you think they -- you know, as someone who’s kind of watching the pulse of conservatives online. Was it as strong there as it was elsewhere?

MARTIN AVILA: Oh, absolutely. And that’s the I think the core part of what it means to be an American is liberty versus tyranny and that was pure just tyranny, big business corruption that was using you know, influence and lobbyists to try to get something across that none of -- that enough of us care enough about to take issue with.

I mean -- so I think when you have that situation when there’s -- when that choice is really clear, I think that’s when you get a good -- when you can see really clearly when bi-partisanship can be bad inside the Beltway and really good on the outside. You have all the -- you know, you cut across -- you know, you saw the insiders on the Republican side and you saw the insiders on the Democratic side pushing for tyranny and then you saw the rest of us you know, working to be free. And so that’s what it comes down to. And that’s an easy choice.

MICAH SIFRY: Yeah, what about the issue on online privacy and I’m -- I don’t want to ambush you here but I’m curious; what approach do you take like -- you know, user privacy and user -- in terms of data collection and -- I mean, I have a hunch that as people start to figure out just how much campaigns are not just collecting data on them, but targeting and to some degree manipulating that there could be a big backlash.

MARTIN AVILA: I’m not one -- (overlapping remarks). I am generally very against brokering of information. I really don’t like the fact that I have to be on Facebook to do what I do, and I think that’s the general sentiment that most people that I work with share.

I mean there’s certainly email lists that have to go out for communication purposes, but in terms of tracking peoples’ likes and dislikes and political leanings and all those sorts of things, I’m really hesitant and don’t like any time that that’s kind of talked about.

To me -- I mean, I know there’s a lot of monetization there but that’s not really where I put my focus professionally.

0:45:23

MICAH SIFRY: But you know campaigns are doing it, right?

MARTIN AVILA: Oh, yeah.

MICAH SIFRY: I mean, I’m not asking you to name names here, but you know both sides do this, right?

MARTIN AVILA: Yeah, yeah.

MICAH SIFRY: And that to some degree it’s considered the state of the art to be able to do it well.

MARTIN AVILA: Yeah, yeah. I just -- it’s a scary -- for me, you know, as I’ve, you know -- conservative libertarian that I am, I just -- that seems like a -- it just makes me uncomfortable and I know that’s the way it needs to go and I just -- I prefer that to create a platform that allows people to dive in when they want to dive in rather than reaching them when they don’t want to be reached.

And I would rather create that open platform for people to engage when they want to engage. That’s where my philosophy where I try to deploy technologies as much as possible rather than hitting people when they’re having dinner, you know?

I think as communication continues to become more and more a part of our life, I would hope that there’s going to be a point where people just get sick and tired of that kind of stuff just like they’re sick and tired of robo-calls and just like they’re sick and tired of direct mail. And they’re sick and tired of getting texts, unsolicited texts.

You know, those are all really bad things that we really hate and so you know, yes, it’s state of the art to be able to reach people and quantify what’s based off of Facebook activity what the political leanings are and those sorts of things.

But again, that’s centralizing data for the good old boys’ command and control structure that I’m just not really all that interested in, to be honest. I mean, like that’s -- I don’t know. It’s frustrating to some extent --

MICAH SIFRY: (Overlapping remarks) But you and I agree about this, I’m just curious just how much you think people are more broadly aware of what --

MARTIN AVILA: Of how much they’re being tracked?

MICAH SIFRY: -- yeah! And to what degree that we should make them more aware, you know? Frankly, one of the unique things about Personal Democracy and what we do is it is a place where folks of different political persuasions can sort of set aside the partisan disagreements and talk about the things we actually do agree about.

We’re all fascinated by how tech is enabling a power shift, right? And I think fundamentally we think that’s a good thing and then you know, there’s a lot of trust that as more people get to participate in the process, the results should get better.

But this is one of these cases where you know, big data, the ability to do things with big data is not in the hands of little people, you know? And it’s very --

MARTIN AVILA: It can only be in the hands of big people, I mean --

MICAH SIFRY: -- it seems it’s very expensive to be able to do these kinds of things. And technically folks are necessarily aware or worse, are seduced because it’s free, right? Hey, I --

MARTIN AVILA: That’s the beauty of Facebook, right? I mean that’s --

MICAH SIFRY: Do you ever find -- and here’s another question just related to conservative groups -- is there any pushback about you know, going online because the online space is seen as oh gosh, a little dangerous if you will.

I mean I recently did some -- ran across this in of all places Orthodox Jewish community where there’s a pushback against Facebook.

MARTIN AVILA: Yeah, it’s very prevalent, very prevalent, the distrust of Facebook. You know, things like Apple tracking your location on your iPhone, those are things -- people are not happy about that. There’s -- from the libertarian side to the evangelical mark of the beast people, you know? There is that distrust and that worry and then that knowing -- some people are into it -- but you know, some people who are even the least technical are more worried than people who are more technical (inaudible).

You know, people think -- would be ignorant of what’s going on are actually very like careful of how much putting --

MICAH SIFRY: But does Connector tell people about like what, you know, what data you may be collecting or how people can sort of protect their privacy?

MARTIN AVILA: You know, we -- we’re not really collecting all that much data, to be honest. You know --

0:50:00

-- you’ve asked me before about those kind of like data oriented questions and then that’s maybe why I’ve come up short for you on those because we’re really not focused on that.

And you know, we certainly want to know like just overall site health and use and those sorts of things. And we’re constantly kind of working on that. But in terms of like behaviors and you know, natural language processing and those sorts of things, we want to deploy those tools to make the site more useful, not necessarily for political gain because our political gain is based off of issues where we know people stand behind.

And it’s easy -- when you stand behind, on principle, when you stand on issues that you know people believe in, you don’t have to go through all that big data stuff to convince them that you’re doing the right thing. You just tell them what you’re doing and then you see if they stand with you or not and move forward.

I mean, it’s the guys -- and this is you know, you call me a critic, this is probably where I’m a critic -- you know, Lamar Smith needs big data. I don’t need big data. Tom McClintock doesn’t need big data, he needs an email list to communicate to people to tell them what he’s doing, but it’s the bad guys that need the big data.

MICAH SIFRY: Because they’re trying to be all things to all people.

MARTIN AVILA: Exactly. And they need to know what Bill believes in so I can tell Bill what I -- would I share with him and where I don’t share with him that he believes in, I need to make sure he doesn’t hear about it.

Rather than just say, “Here’s what I believe in, here’s everything I believe in, here’s everything I’ve done. Judge with me, stand with me, let’s go and do this.” That’s -- those are the people I like to work with, that’s the only people I can work with because I’m not one who’s going to put lipstick on a pig.

MICAH SIFRY: Well, actually it’s really interesting because what I’m hearing you know, just to sort of sum up our conversation, though I should just pause -- last chance folks if you want to ask a question, hit *6 and I’ll pull you in -- but what I’m hearing is that by -- when you enable people to participate first, right? You build the platform around enabling lots of member participation as opposed to building a platform that enables you know, just sort of a centralized campaign authority, whatever, to collect a lot of data and then sort of push out messages at people, right?

That the type of campaign or cause that will work better in this sort of network environment is one that has to be genuinely resonating with people and for you that’s the sort of principled, honest, take me or leave me, but this is who I am kind of message, right?

MARTIN AVILA: Exactly, that’s exactly right? And you know it’s an experiment, you know? That’s -- so is America so you know, it’s like we’re just constantly experimenting with that open transparency and honesty to be honest because I’m just -- that’s what we’re doing.

And it may or may not work and we may lose out to the big data guys because they can sell themselves to anyone in anyway but you know, I think the minority has won before and I think we will win the past -- win in the future.

MICAH SIFRY: Right. Well, there is this thing, organized minorities beat disorganized majorities.

MARTIN AVILA: That’s exactly right, and organized and passionate minorities and that’s what we are and that’s -- those thousand groups across -- God bless those thousand Tea Party groups across America because that’s exactly who they are and that’s okay if there are people afraid of Facebook. We can still win this.

MICAH SIFRY: Right, great. This has been great, Martin, thank you so much. We’ve been listening to Martin Avila of Terra Eclipse talking about how open networks can work to build up grassroots power on the right.

Check out the FreedomConnector.com if you want to see all of this in action and you can join and play around with the tools and once again we’ve spent another hour here talking on Personal Democracy Plus with movers, shakers, innovators, thinkers and doers in the place where technology collides with politics.

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