Liminal states

With a late rush, Get FISA Right, repeal the PATRIOT Act, and restore our civil liberties squeaked into the #5 position in the change.org’s Ideas for Change in America competition with 12285 votes!

Alas, even though our other endorsement Bob Fertik’s Appoint a Special Prosecutor for the Crimes of the Bush Administration picked up over 500 votes this morning, it appears to have fallen heartbreaking short by just 19 votes. Still, overall, wow, what a huge success for Get FISA Right — and civil liberties!

Just think about it: despite virtually no help from the progressive blogosphere or 501(c)3s, we more than held our own against some really tough competition: big mailing lists, political allies.* It’s an incredible validation of the power of our grassroots approach and social network advocacy. Yay us! And it’s yet another clear sign that no matter what they think in Washington and the mainstream media, Americans do see the Constitution and the rule of law as a priority right up there with health care, peace, sustainability, and drug law reform.

So thanks to everybody who was a part of this. Once again, I’d especially like to acknowledge Democrats.com and DreamActivist.org for including us in their last-minute mailings … it made a big difference. Neocons’ worst nightmare, indeed! Thanks also to Jason Rosenbaum of The Seminal for a big endorsement this morning. Within Get FISA Right, it was definitely a team effort, so thanks all around — with extra thanks to Thomas and Patrick who really stepped forward in the last 24 hours.

Of course, there’s still a lot to do. Most importantly we need to think about launching President Obama, please get FISA right. We’ll ask change.org if we can get it up on their site, and start working with MySpace as quickly as possible;** tactically, it’d be great to doing a media release combining Ideas for Change win with our inauguration video. It would be ideal to get this out on Monday; we’ve started on a draft here. And there’s a new change.gov project called Citizens’ Briefing Book; John and Craig are working on submitting an idea there and will have more to say soon.

For now, though, the first order of business: celebrate our success! Congratulations, all, and thanks once again!

jon

* For example, Department of Peace soared to #2 on Wednesday after a mailing from Dennis Kucinich.

** I’ve exchanged email with Ben Rattray of change.org and we’ll be talking after their event tomorrow, at which point I should have more details.