MoveOn.org gives me chills. Chills!

How do you get 3 million people to sit down together and talk? And how do you do it in such a way that everyone has an equal voice? And if everyone has an equal voice, even the wackos, how can you ensure quality discussion? Just ask MoveOn.org.

It's unreal. The people behind this group are amazing. What they've started today (chills!) is a campaign within its membership where the goal is to determine what questions to ask the six candidates running for the chair of the DNC. Those candidates will be presented with the top questions as selected by the 3 million memebers of MoveOn.org (join here) .

Here's how it works: Any MoveOn.org member can submit a question which is then posted, with your full name and city/state, to the public boards. Anyone can read your question and rate it 0 to 5 stars and also choose whether they agree or disagree with the question. At the end of a 2 day period (mostly likely a frenzy of voting and rating) the top rated questions will be delivered to the six candidates who will then no doubt feel much obliged to answer the questions (as powerful and as popular as MoveOn is). The candidates' answers will then be emailed to all members of MoveOn.org for much public scrutiny.

This blows my mind. What it all means is that for the first time in history any individual has equal access to a group of people who traditionally have been inaccessable. MoveOn.org is essentially power grabbing and reclaiming the Democratic Party (the people's party) from the elite. But instead of a selfish or greedy power grab, the organization is doing it not just for it's members, but because of it's members.

Amazing. This is a new kind of democracy in action. It is transformative and true nature is almost incomprehensible. We are talking about something totally new. The leader of the democratic party has never been selected by actual democrats, but by the people who control the democratic party. But now, thanks to MoveOn.org, the people, the real people, get to have a voice. And I can't believe, I mean I really CANNOT beleive that I get to be a part of it.

Note: When I started writing this post at 11:41 am there were two questions posted to the ActionForum available for rating. It is now 12:11pm and there are 144 questions available for rating. Wow.