Whose community?

Barack Obama is learning an important lesson about online community . His campaign created a social network and evolving online community of supporters called MyBO. The Nation reports that some Obama supporters are using MyBO to “to protest and pressure Obama.”

Many activists are outraged by the Senator’s recent announcement that he will back a controversial bill to grant the Executive more spying powers and immunize telephone companies accused of illegal surveillance….the protest group, “Senator Obama Please Vote NO on Telecom Immunity – Get FISA Right,” swelled to one of the ten largest campaign groups on Sunday.

This is why some candidate campaigns (like Kerry’s in the last presidential race) have avoided community in favor of top-down organizing. A community is its own thing: helpful though successful grassroots organizing may be, it can be a problem if your vocal, empowered grassroots constituent community disagrees with with the candidate.

One Democratic Internet consultant predicted that Obama’s reaction could reveal his commitment to meaningful engagement with supporters. “How Obama responds will tell us a great deal about both his willingness to listen to input from his supporters and what influence the MyBarackObama community has on the campaign itself,” said the operative, who wished to remain anonymous while working on another campaign. “In the meantime, this is a huge opportunity for Obama’s supporters to organize around an issue, not just the candidate, and take action beyond using their credit card.”