day protest, and so we knew that Jenny Beth Martin, Amy Kremer, and Debbie Dooley all loved the idea of a march on Washington. Other key local leaders started to respond with excitement and a willingness to help. Some of these first responders included Diana Reimer in Philadelphia, Robin Stublen and Tom Gaitens in Florida, and Toby Marie Walker in Waco, Texas. The march had passed from an idea to a vision we shared with thousands across the country. There would be no going back.
O N THE M OVE
I N PREPARATION FOR AN official march announcement, we built a new Web site at 912dc.org for citizen organizers to use as a resource for logistics and as a place to meet up with other activists in their area. It was nothing fancy, but it did deploy important peer-to-peer networking functionality that helped eliminate FreedomWorks as the middleman in connecting local organizers trying to meet like-minded folks in their local communities. In practice, peer-to-peer networks create a multiplier effect that allows for exponential growth of local grassroots communities.
We used our Web site to sign people up to participate in the march, but the most important aspect it served was as a portal for a coordination of disparate people and their local knowledge. A great example of this was the organizing of local buses. Organizers from around the country would put down deposits on buses and then recruit riders to join the caravan and share costs online. On September 7, for instance, Suzanne from the Woodlands, Texas, posted: âWe have started registrations for a second bus, so we still have space available. The bus leaves Thursday 9/10 at 10:30 A.M. and returns on Sunday 9/13 at 11:00 P.M .â
Buses were organized this way all across the country, from Burlington, Vermont; from Montana, Idaho, and South Dakota; from Palm Beach Gardens and Jacksonville, Florida; from Bloomington, Evansville, and Fort Wayne, Indiana; from Portland, Maine, Joplin, Missouri, and Travers City, Michigan; all over Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia; Zanesville, Ohio, Oklahoma City, Ephrata, Pennsylvania. Seemingly every state had caravans formingâbuses were coming from all over the country, self-organized on our site and countless others.
We even had a delegation coming in from Hawaii. They had to fly, of course. Judging from their enthusiasm, however, they would have swum across the Pacific Ocean to participate on September 12 if necessary.
As we monitored the online chatter, we saw something new and special emerging, taking root and growing into something unexpected. In a word, this was going to be big. Publicly, we downplayed the numbers; better to be a pleasant surprise than a bitter disappointment. Internally, however, we talked about the possibility of breaking 100,000 people. We expanded our sound system to accommodate the big crowd. We also added more Port-a-Johns. To accommodate the expanded demands of the growing crowd, we created a fund-raising message at 912dc.org asking participants to pitch in. A donation of $45 would help pay for a foot of security barricade needed to manage the crowd during the march and around the stage. A Port-O-Let could be sponsored for $185. The JumboTron was funded in $1,000 installments. People who were coming and others who could not but still wanted to support the march quickly pitched in, allowing us to expand the facilities for the expected crowd.
T HE S INCEREST FORM OF F LATTERY
L EFTY BLOGGERS HAD GOOD fun with our fund-raising strategy, particularly as it related to on-site bathroom facilities. But at this point they had nothing left to throw at us except nastiness, smears, and name-calling.
The Democrats sensed that the momentum was on the side of those who were rising up in defense of liberty. They were getting anxious, and their nervousness led to mistakes. On August 18 former Clinton cabinet secretary Robert Reich called for a countermarch the following day, September 13, telling
O N THE M OVE
I N PREPARATION FOR AN official march announcement, we built a new Web site at 912dc.org for citizen organizers to use as a resource for logistics and as a place to meet up with other activists in their area. It was nothing fancy, but it did deploy important peer-to-peer networking functionality that helped eliminate FreedomWorks as the middleman in connecting local organizers trying to meet like-minded folks in their local communities. In practice, peer-to-peer networks create a multiplier effect that allows for exponential growth of local grassroots communities.
We used our Web site to sign people up to participate in the march, but the most important aspect it served was as a portal for a coordination of disparate people and their local knowledge. A great example of this was the organizing of local buses. Organizers from around the country would put down deposits on buses and then recruit riders to join the caravan and share costs online. On September 7, for instance, Suzanne from the Woodlands, Texas, posted: âWe have started registrations for a second bus, so we still have space available. The bus leaves Thursday 9/10 at 10:30 A.M. and returns on Sunday 9/13 at 11:00 P.M .â
Buses were organized this way all across the country, from Burlington, Vermont; from Montana, Idaho, and South Dakota; from Palm Beach Gardens and Jacksonville, Florida; from Bloomington, Evansville, and Fort Wayne, Indiana; from Portland, Maine, Joplin, Missouri, and Travers City, Michigan; all over Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia; Zanesville, Ohio, Oklahoma City, Ephrata, Pennsylvania. Seemingly every state had caravans formingâbuses were coming from all over the country, self-organized on our site and countless others.
We even had a delegation coming in from Hawaii. They had to fly, of course. Judging from their enthusiasm, however, they would have swum across the Pacific Ocean to participate on September 12 if necessary.
As we monitored the online chatter, we saw something new and special emerging, taking root and growing into something unexpected. In a word, this was going to be big. Publicly, we downplayed the numbers; better to be a pleasant surprise than a bitter disappointment. Internally, however, we talked about the possibility of breaking 100,000 people. We expanded our sound system to accommodate the big crowd. We also added more Port-a-Johns. To accommodate the expanded demands of the growing crowd, we created a fund-raising message at 912dc.org asking participants to pitch in. A donation of $45 would help pay for a foot of security barricade needed to manage the crowd during the march and around the stage. A Port-O-Let could be sponsored for $185. The JumboTron was funded in $1,000 installments. People who were coming and others who could not but still wanted to support the march quickly pitched in, allowing us to expand the facilities for the expected crowd.
T HE S INCEREST FORM OF F LATTERY
L EFTY BLOGGERS HAD GOOD fun with our fund-raising strategy, particularly as it related to on-site bathroom facilities. But at this point they had nothing left to throw at us except nastiness, smears, and name-calling.
The Democrats sensed that the momentum was on the side of those who were rising up in defense of liberty. They were getting anxious, and their nervousness led to mistakes. On August 18 former Clinton cabinet secretary Robert Reich called for a countermarch the following day, September 13, telling
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