Cameron Barrett

Cameron Barrett's rollout of the new Wesley Clark blog confirms the news that the modern presidential campaign is, at the core, a software production house. The Clark Community Network is a fascinating and, I say, admirable piece of work. It's a very advanced exercise in simulating Wesley Clark's idea and ideal of communitarian democracy. It actually implements the Dave Winer mantra that it's not the candidates but the voters who should be blogging. (It's the same idea that Jeff Jarvis advocates for newspapers. That is, don't blog at your readers; rather turn your readers into writers by handing them the blog tool). Everyone's a blogger in the Clark space -- everyone who chooses to be. Of course everyone is a commentator, too -- their comments community-rated up, down or off the page. The campaign provides new tools, modeled on MeetUp, for Clark events. It adds a tool for fomenting Petitions within the Clark campaign network, and another tool for crediting Recruiters with people they brought to the party.