Origin Story & Startup Mode

February 2016, Newton, Massaschusetts:  #feelingthebern, contributing money ("click to donate $27"), watching MSNBC, reading & posting to Facebook, debating with friends who support Hillary, ...

February 19:  Over dinner, comment that the Sanders campaign looks like "movement organizing on steroids," wonder out loud about what comes after the election.  My wife comments, "this movement stuff is new to a lot of people, you know about local organizing, you should write a book about it." 

February 20, 2016, early AM:  Inspiration strikes:  Are the domains politicalrevolution.* available (you know, "branding").  Stumble downstairs to the computer to check.  Low and behold, they are - probably because of the premium pricetag attached.  Tossed and turned the rest of the night; in the morning, in a stroke of either genius or madness, charged $7600 on a credit card for politicalrevolution.net, .com, and .org.  Oh sh&t, now what do I do?!!!!   (more...)

February 22:  Attend Sanders Rally at UMass Amherst.  Take some pictures.  Start talking to people.  I'm not the only one wondering what comes next. How do we support Bernie if he wins?  What does the "Political Revolution" look like if he doesn't?  What's the #afterbern?  There's a book to be written about that, and we need more than a few Facebook groups to keep us connected; we need our own social network. 

February 24:  GOTV (Get Out The Vote) Phonebanking.  More pictures.  More talking to people.  More people who are asking "what do we do next?"

February 27, 2016:  Knocking on doors for Bernie.  Attend organizing meeting in Revere.  Start talking to campaign staff.  On the way home, stop at Boston HQ.  Send off email asking for press credentials.

March 1, 2016:  Super Tuesday.  Vote.  Ok... time to get to work on PoliticalRevolution.net.

Start building a basic web site.  Start working on a Kickstarter campaign page to pay for stuff.  

Forgot what a pain it is to build even a simple web site.  Back in the day, it was HTML, PHP, and maybe some perl.  More recently, built a few WordPress sites.  This one requires some more horsepower, Drupal seems the way to go - but it's like learning a new language:  Lots of modules, lots of options, lots of details to get right - spent a day getting a comment form to show up properly (either it doesn't show up at all, or it shows up right on some pages, but shows up twice, elsewhere - what am I doing wrong, or is this a bug?).

March 3:  Attended local book tour event - Jim Wallis and a panel talking about America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege and the Bridge to a New America, at St. Paul’s AME Church in Cambridge.  Big crowd.  It really is a "movement moment."  

March 6: Attended local Democratic caucus (Newton, MA), discovered that the local caucus just elects delegates to the State convention, which is completely independent of the National convention.  Separate caucuses will be held, by each campaign, to elect pledged delegates to the National convention.  Just sent in the forms that declare my candidacy to be a delegate.

March 8:  Draft Kickstarter completed - circulating for comments to a small audience.  Enabled this website - still under construction, may change radically, but soliciting comments and contributions prior to offical launch.

March 9:  Updated site.  Activated Kickstarter Campaign.  Attend Debate Watch Party.  Talk up the site, hand out cards.