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Ben Brandzel

Ben Brandzel, an online communications strategist, was the advocacy director of MoveOn.org from 2004 to February 2007 and founded MoveOn’s Student Action. He worked on the Howard Dean presidential campaign in 2004 and is now working on the John Edwards for President campaign.

Josh Israel interviewed Brandzel on September 20, 2007.

As a bit of background, would you start with a sense of how you got to where you are? After graduating, did you go straight to MoveOn?

No. I did a few different things. I worked for Oxfam for a while. My first introduction to online organizing was through Oxfam. It was by way of the Oxfam America Collegiate Click Drive, which raised money for micro-credit programs around the world with college students.

Then I did a stint for the [Howard] Dean campaign, working on field in New Hampshire, seeing kind of where the rubber really hits the road up there. And then I did MoveOn Student Action to finish out the 2004 cycle after the primary. I founded and ran the student arm of MoveOn. And then in November of 2004, I was hired to be the advocacy director for the whole organization.

And that was where you stayed for how long?

Until February of 2007.

So you were pretty much with MoveOn for most of its growth into the organization it has become now?

Well, I wouldn’t say that. I mean, there was a fairly radical transformation that happened during and after the 2004 election, when MoveOn kind of first really normalized into a standing advocacy electoral presence in the progressive community. And I was there for that process. MoveOn started in ’98, so it had been around for a while by the time I joined.

I remember when it was Censure Move On. And it was an anti-impeachment organization of [both Democrats and] Republicans. What would you say it is now?

I would say it is a progressive, online multi-issue advocacy and electoral organization.

Roughly how big has it grown to?

3.4 million members.

Not a bad size.

No.

And there is a PAC [political action committee]. Is it a 527 or a 501(c) . . . ?

Not any longer. There was a 527 in the 2004 cycle. There hasn’t been one since. There is a PAC and a 501(c)(4). All of the political work is done through the PAC or the express advocacy or electoral work. The (c)(4) handles mostly media-reform issues and occasionally other projects—like when we did our hurricane housing project, which encouraged our members to provide temporary housing for Katrina refugees. That was the (c)(4).

But all of the electioneering and all of the traditional issue advocacy, like the Iraq work, all of that goes through the PAC. Part of what’s significant about that is that the PAC funding limits provide a maximum of $5,000 from any one individual per year. All of the funding comes from member donations. And the average donation, when I was there, was around $42. So it’s all very grass-roots driven. And that’s, of course, fundamental to the strategy and the approach; the only people that MoveOn is dependent on for funding are the membership whose agenda we serve.

Did MoveOn PAC get involved in presidential elections?

Oh, yes, very much so. In 2004 there was a massive effort to support [John] Kerry or to defeat [George W.] Bush, I guess, or both.

Did the organization endorse formally?

I think the organization did officially endorse Kerry. There was no endorsement during the primary, although there was an endorsement process. There was a vote of the membership. And the threshold was 50 percent for an official endorsement from the PAC. And no candidate got 50 percent, though Howard Dean did get the most and then followed by Dennis Kucinich, actually.

And neither of them ended up with the nomination.

Yeah. Well, neither one of them ended up with the endorsement or the nomination, ultimately. But that’s because neither one of them got over 50 percent.

Right. Do you imagine there will be a similar process? I know you are not connected officially anymore. But do you expect there will be a similar process?

Well, I can tell you what’s happened so far; they have done what I think is a really interesting “issue primary” process, where they have had these virtual town halls on issues. So far they have done Iraq and global warming. There will be one more on health care. And they have asked all of the candidates to speak to those issues. And then the MoveOn members vote to give their recommendation for which candidate has the best position on those issues.

In the first primary on Iraq, there were two different tabulations. One was of the entire vote count, in which Barack Obama won by about three points above John Edwards. And then in the second vote count for that first primary, which was the votes cast by people who attended one of the physical town halls — there were house meetings all over the country — and watched the presentation from the candidates. And among those people, John Edwards won by six points. And then in the second issue primary, the environmental one, or global warming more specifically, John Edwards won with actually more votes than Obama and Clinton combined.

And there is one more of these coming up?

Health care. I am not aware as to whether or not there may be a full endorsement later on.

Have all of the major Democratic candidates participated in this?

Yes. All of them — every single person, except for Mike Gravel — participated in the first one. And that was a member decision. You had to get, I think, 5 percent of the vote among the members to be invited. And then in the second one, all of the candidates participated.

None of the Republicans participated?

They were all invited, actually, but none of them, for whatever reason, chose to participate.

What would you say has been the most significant contribution that MoveOn has made as far as presidential politics so far?

Well, I think it has to do with providing an entrée for regular people to connect their kind of passionate, progressive activism with a direct influence on the presidential elections. MoveOn not only works to elect Democrats but works to make Democrats more progressive. And it’s very rare that you get to do both of those things at the same time as just sort of a busy person who isn’t a political professional and has just a little bit of money or a little bit of time to give. MoveOn kind of opens that door. And I think that’s a much more powerful route to social change than simply accepting candidates at face value without being able to push them in one direction or another.

Throughout this project we have talked to a number of people all across the political map. And virtually all of them have said that the Internet and blogs are totally revolutionizing presidential-campaign fundraising. Bob Dole, when we talked to him, commented that even as recently as ’96, when he ran for president, if you had heard the word “blogger” you would have thought it was some kind of disease. Can you sort of talk about the growth of online activism, and particularly online fundraising over the past few years?

Well, I probably don’t have anything new to say. The obvious truth is that it’s been explosive; 2004 was the first cycle in which small-dollar donations really came into play. And at the beginning of that cycle, people had no idea how serious it was going to be. Howard Dean really paved the way for that. And now it’s become a staple.

I mean, campaigns depend on online fundraising. Now I think the implications of that — I mean that fact pattern is obvious — but the implications of it are pretty cool, which is that there is both an ability to lessen dependence on big donors. John Edwards, for example, doesn’t take any money from registered lobbyists or PACs.

Is that true of some of the other candidates, too?

Obama, I think, has the same policy. The difference is, Edwards has had that policy his entire career. And Obama just adopted that policy. So money that he raised in his Senate campaign, which can be transferred to the presidential campaign, was not raised with those restrictions. And there is still plenty of it sitting around. But for his presidential campaign, I believe he has the same policy. Hillary Clinton does not. I do not know about the other candidates.

So the dependence on small-dollar donations online enables that sort of thing, because there is an alternative source. And, of course, being freed from dependence on special interest in the political process is beneficial if you don’t think the people with those concentrations of wealth and influence should be driving the national agenda exclusively, which I suppose most people wouldn’t.

The other benefit, of course, is that it empowers the grass roots, which means there is an incentive for candidates to strongly champion positions that have a great deal of popular support. And that’s important. I mean, take the Iraq war for example: There is clearly so much more opposition to it in the general public than there is the corridors of power in Washington, D.C., for a variety of reasons, part of which is that those corridors are dominated by financial interests that have a stake in what’s happening.

But also, political interests that are beholden to various narrow constituencies make them feel like they can’t take any risk. And their definition of risk becomes shrunk dramatically. It’s just a very bizarre environment. But out in the public, there is a pretty overwhelming and pretty clear desire to end the war. And the fact that that has not yet translated, despite Democratic control and despite overwhelming public sentiment for a very long time, [means] any meaningful decision-making in Washington to move in that direction is an indication of how important it is that people who are running for president don’t need to depend on insider establishment-types for their funding. They can take bolder positions against the war than you’ll see in Washington, because they only need the general population to be supportive of them in order to have what they need to win.

Does that also help them not have to veer off as much during primaries to . . . ?

Veer off?

Veer off toward extremes where certain interests might be, to be able to afford to pay for their campaigns?

Yeah. I think that you could look at it in a number of different ways. What I think it fundamentally does is liberate the candidates to get support from the community of people who believe in what they stand for. I suppose it could also encourage politicians to pander to popular positions that they may or may not personally hold. But generally speaking, it’s hard for them to do that. Because if there is any inconsistency in their record, that becomes pretty obvious. And they alienate whatever base they have accumulated around whatever positions they do hold and have held.

So I think the balance of outcomes falls on the side of simply connecting candidates with the base that supports their views. And the reason that was impossible previously is that there may be a base of people who support your views, but they may be only able to afford to give $50. And they don’t have time to go to a fundraiser. And they don’t have any inclination to put something in the mail.

Online fundraising changes all of that. It turns the base of supporters into a base of donors. And small donors add up. And that’s just never happened in that way before with such ease, with such mass feasibility. The other thing to remember, too, of course, is that it democratizes the whole playing field, in that it doesn’t take a lot of money online. Like direct mail may have a 1:1.2 investment-to-return ratio. So if you want to raise, say, $1 million on direct mail, you have to spend $900,000 or something like that, if you are lucky, if you are doing really well. So that means you have to have that much money up front to start with. And that already raises a barrier to entry for serious fundraising beyond the reach of most people.

But to raise money online, all you need to have is a website and the ability to take in contributions, which anybody can afford. I could. You could. Anyone could. And so if you have a message, and you have a way to get it out there through any number of means, debates and media or Internet, any way of getting it out there, you can take in the money that you need to compete in an election, both presidential or otherwise, without starting with tremendous built-in resources.

Dean is a good example of that. I mean, Dean didn’t have a lot of resources going into the presidential campaign and was therefore looked at as a joke. And in most cycles he possibly would have been, because he just didn’t have the amount of money it takes to raise the amount of money it takes to be competitive. The Internet kind of eliminates that first requirement. And that is a radical democratization, a flattening of the barriers to entry into national politics that has, I think, very good implications for democracy.

It’s very interesting that as the amounts of money that campaigns are raising is going up, you are saying the barrier to entry is actually lower.

Well, the barrier to begin. The barrier to finish may be going up. I mean, not maybe, it certainly is. But the barrier to get started has gotten lower. And I think that’s ultimately the more important barrier to worry about, because that’s the barrier that cuts people out before they have even had a chance to make their case to the people. And more people are donating more money to more candidates. At least you have the advantage.

I mean, I don’t think that’s a good thing. I think that the more that the process is awash in money, the more harmful it is, for a number of reasons. But if there is a barrier to even beginning the process that’s too high for most candidates to mount, then voices are silenced at the front end. If there is a barrier at the other end, to finish the race, at least it’s easier to make your case and see if the market will bear what you have to say. Ultimately, we need both barriers to be reduced pretty dramatically. But the Internet, at least, holds the promise of flattening the first one.

I gather the biggest expense for most presidential candidates — or at least major candidates, once they have gotten into the race — is television. And to fully reach a major ad market with a message, it costs millions of dollars. You said MoveOn’s membership is 3.4 million. And I am guessing to e-mail them a message probably does not cost MoveOn anywhere near what it would cost to get a TV ad in the smallest of media markets.

For sure.

Can online messaging bring down the cost of running a campaign?

Yeah. It doesn’t serve a comparable purpose in television advertising. Because to be subscribed to an e-mail list, you have to have a level of agreement and activism that excludes most of the voters in most of the places you are trying to reach. So to the extent that television advertising is about persuasion of new people and new audience and casual voters and all that, which is a very large percentage of its purpose, blast e-mails to subscription lists aren’t going to change that.

Are there online forum locations that can serve a comparable purpose for a lot less?

Well, sure. There is online advertising, which you can put anywhere and reach any audience. And then you can target it locally. And you can target it to any interest group based on the content of the website. And candidates are doing more and more of that, as are issue-advocacy organizations.

Online advertising is different, inherently, in a lot of ways than television advertising. And the most important way is just that it doesn’t take up all of your screen for a certain amount of time, standing in between you and whatever content you wanted to access. And that’s just because the medium doesn’t work well in that context. People won’t stand for it online and find ways around it online.

So, from a purely advertising standpoint, it has a different level of impact, and it’s hard to guarantee the same localized saturation. Because, in a lot of places, there is not as dense a web infrastructure that is clearly localized content, meaning: Let’s say you are trying to advertise in Des Moines. You know what television station reaches Des Moines and only Des Moines. There are some websites that are about Des Moines that are going to be trafficked 90 percent by Des Moines people. But there are many fewer people who are going to those websites than are watching television on the Des Moines station.

So there is a problem of scale in a lot of ways. And the ability to target online advertising by IP [Internet Protocol] address is still sporadic everywhere you can apply that, and how reliable it can be. So there are issues there. All of that being said, I still think that online communication can reduce the cost of the campaign, because it does replace other things.

It can replace direct-mail solicitation. It doesn’t always, but it can. It can augment a field strategy, saving money with a field strategy, if you are conveying messages and bringing people together in online forums and causing communication online that would normally have required the intervention of a field staffer in a physical location for people to gather. That can save costs. So there are various different ways that it can interface with and augment and reduce the cost of a campaign. And, of course, it brings in money that helps fund the other things.

Let me ask you about that. One of the big things the Dean campaign did that was very noticed at the time was sort of the online field operation with people all across the country going to meet-ups. You don’t seem to be hearing that much about that side of things in 2008 — or I guess 2007 for the 2008 race. Was it not that effective? Or is it going on and I just may not be seeing it?

Maybe it’s a combination. I think the jury is still out as to how effective those meetings were. A lot of the lessons that people took away from the Dean campaign were cautionary tales about the ability of out-of-state people to influence voters in New Hampshire and Iowa. And I think there has probably been less of an emphasis on that.

But the other thing is that, I think it’s happening this cycle in a different way. Meet-ups were monthly events that happened on a set day of the month in a set location in each region or each city. And it was also through this one site, meetup.com, an external site. And it wasn’t even started by the campaign; that was why [it was] on meetup.com and not on some Howard Dean tool.

This cycle, there is a lot more infrastructure out there or that the campaigns are able to deploy for forming groups and starting meetings. So there is a lot more individualized approach in different areas. There are thousands of groups for all of the candidates — Edwards, Clinton, Obama, and the others — that are all over the country, many of which are localized. And they all have their own meeting schedule. And they all have their own approach.

The campaigns have done a few big, national, coordinated things. House parties, the John Edwards campaign has done a couple of times, the Obama campaign has done at least once, maybe twice. The same thing with Hillary; I know she has done debate-watching parties a couple of times. So you do see these few big, national, coordinated events. Often they are quarterly. But mostly the action is going on in a thousand little bubble-up situations with local groups that are coordinating their activities online all over the country.

What do you see as some of the areas it’s permeated into the field? It’s permeated in an enormous way into fundraising. What do you see as sort of the next area that the Internet might revolutionize presidential politics?

Well, I think the only other big area left is communications. This is about sort of direct messaging of content to people. And we are already making a lot of strides there. I mean blogs are kind of the big communications vehicles. And the social networks, kind of in a similar vein, also have organizing properties.

YouTube to some extent?

Yeah. YouTube is a very good example. So communications are being revolutionized as we speak by online technology. I mean we have seen some grass-roots examples of that. Of course there is the famous “Vote Different” ad with Obama.

The 1984 [ad].

Right. So that’s an example of something coming up organically. But then the campaigns, of course, made their own. There is Clinton’s Sopranos finale spoof. The Edwards [campaign] has done some things around making pies with the advisers. I guess that was part of a fundraising campaign.

Dennis Kucinich actually has his own camera with him for filming YouTube clips. In the middle of the day, in Congress.

Well, there you go. That’s so funny. So yes, the campaigns are already using online video as a communications device. I mean, sometimes they hope it will result in fundraising. And they hope it will catalyze other specific activities. But really it’s communications. It’s putting a message out there that we hope persuades and informs people with the role that’s traditionally reserved for relating to the normal press media. And that’s more and more true all of the time.

The blogs are the other big outlet for that. They are primarily communication devices. Not a lot of fundraising comes out of the blogs, not a lot of organizing, not a lot of volunteering, but a lot of communicating, a lot of opinion-making. And campaigns are taking that very seriously now. The outreach to blogs is at the level that the outreach to the normal press rises to, in terms of staff support, retention, press releases, formalized relationships, and access for bloggers to candidates at events. Not exactly in the same way you would do with the press, but the same sort of standard of attention and care.

And the social networks are also creeping up in that column. It’s still harder to reach people at that scale at the social networks. But there are a lot of community spaces in the social networks that are topical or regional. And you can broadcast messages through the social networks.

The other way the Internet revolutionizes communications is that it empowers messengers in a much more multitiered way. I mean, to successfully communicate, to use the Internet as a communications device, to actually reach new people, you have to empower secondary volunteer messengers. You have to empower people who are going to swarm the blogs for you and write diaries and comments and recommend and sort of work the system to push your message out there.

The same thing is true with the social networks. And that is pretty unique, because in the normal aspects of campaigning, you don’t empower random people to be messengers for the campaigns. But you have to online. And people do.

Does it carry a risk?

Yeah. The risks can be mitigated. But yeah, there is a factor of trust. And it’s also a changing world: a world in which people understand that volunteer-conveyed messages in unmoderated forums just simply don’t have the weight of an official campaign position. So as long as there is kind of a reasonable standard out there of interpretation, and by and large there is, it seems to be OK.

You have talked a lot about what the Democratic candidates have been doing. At MoveOn, clearly, if only based on the turnout of presidential candidates so far at these town halls, it tends to be more on the Democratic side of things, I think it would be fair to say.

Yeah.

What do you think is going on on the other side? I gather that there is a general feeling that the Republican side has not had the same level of success in organizing online and fundraising online.

Yeah. That’s the consensus. I can’t even count the number of right-wing attempts to create “a right-wing MoveOn” that have been started. And none of them seem to have amounted to anything. My view, and others will give you a different view, is that there is a real grass-roots presence online on the conservative side of the aisle. But it’s mostly in the evangelical movement, the Focus on the Family, or maybe American Family Council. It’s one of these family . . .

American Family Association?

Yeah. It could be that one. It’s one of these things that has the largest right-wing e-mail list in the country. And that’s where a lot of the energy is. There are a few kind of quasi-equivalents that are sort of multi-issue, like RightMarch and Grassfire. They are both less than a third the size of MoveOn. But they operate in the same principle.

I guess there are a few reasons for it. Part of which is that opposition is an easier emotion to organize around than proposition. It’s easier to find consensus around what’s wrong and what’s outrageous. And we have been given so much that’s so clearly wrong and so clearly outrageous. The rise of online organizing had corresponded almost exactly with the most recent era of Republican domination, ’94 through 2006.

In that issue space, that general time in American politics, the half of the country — or depending on what number you want to give it — the percent of the part of the country perceiving the outrage, the wrongness, the injustice of what was going on around them was on the left-wing side of things. And that lends itself very, very well to explosive growth in online organizing.

“StayPut PAC” wouldn’t have the same kind of excitement?

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. StayPut.org.

“Status Quo USA.”

Exactly. People don’t sign petitions to say, “Attaboy.” They sign petitions to say, “Go to hell.” So the “Go to hell” side of things has had a lot more energy in the last 12 or 15 or whatever years. So I think that’s part of it. Part of it is that I think there is just more grass-roots energy behind a lot of the issues that we fight for. It’s sort of an issue of large numbers of common people versus smaller numbers of more connected and wealthy and powerful people.

Online organizing is purely a numbers game. I mean, it’s about how many people you have. There are just not as many people who are excited about tax breaks for the one percent as there are people who are excited about using that money to fund universal health care instead, just by definition.

So there is kind of a natural advantage that a populist agenda has in online organizing. And a populist agenda favors the interests of the multitudes, if you will, sort of defined as the left-wing agenda in the United States. So there you have it. And I think that’s kind of the two big things that I credit that to.

Do you think, should the Democrats take the White House in 2008 and maintain control of Congress, you will see more movements online on the other side?

Yeah. I think it’s fairly likely. I would be shocked if they didn’t take advantage of it right away. I am sure they will. But one of the things about Democrats is that we are far more prone than Republicans to attacking our own. So I don’t suspect that we’ll see much abating of grass-roots pressure on the left side of things once we have a Democratic president and Congress.