 So, we're here at the Internet and Politics Conference at Harvard University with the Berkman Center for Internet Society speaking with Chris Rabb. Chris Rabb, tell us, where are you from? I'm from Chicago. I live in Philly. And what's your interest in this topic, Internet and Politics? I'm addicted to the Internet and I'm obsessed with politics. I was invited here. I know a bunch of folks who are associated with Berkman Center as well as other participants. It's a great crowd. And this is a great moment, I think, in American political history to talk about the convergence of the Internet, new media politics and civic engagement, to get kind of a diverse, ideologically and vocationally diverse group of people together to talk about issues in ways that I don't think are adequately discussed in corporate media and other settings where you can have practitioners, academics, technologists, activists. So this is a pretty textured and in-depth conversation about what just happened with the presidential election and what are some of the consequences and impacts real or envisioned on our country and our electorate. That raises an interesting question because a lot of people are talking about how momentous this election was and the role that the Internet played in Internet and technology. But has it really made a difference or what's the truth behind the hype, as it were? Well, I mean, you would think that more people will have come out to vote. It was not a watershed victory for democracy in terms of the percentage of people who could and should be voting, you know, who actually came out to support one candidate or another. The victory, while electorally impressive, was not as significant as many people think it could or should have been. I daresay that if it wasn't for the economic meltdown that we could still be counting the votes today. And I also think that it wasn't so much the specific technologies that made this a transformative campaign or election season, I should say, but the masterful integration of technology and innovation more broadly writ by the Obama campaign. And I think it was really the integration of now fairly mature technologies because some of these things existed four years ago, but only a very small subset of Americans knew about it and were actually had adopted them. So I think it was the right campaign at the right time with the right mix of tools and the right message and political landscape, I guess you could say. Where do you think the role of internet in politics will be in the next 10 years and where would you like to see the role of internet in politics be? Well, I guess I'd like to get it to a point where we have incorporated the internet and other technologies so seamlessly into society and into our daily lives that we reference it like we reference home phones. We don't consider the home phone a landline technology anymore because it's so basic, it's so ubiquitous where talking about the internet is like talking about air or water where it's just ensconced in everything we do. I like it to get to that point in 10 years time, it's entirely possible if there's vast broadband access, there's a democratization of these tools and access to them and the institutions that support them, but 10 years from now, who knows, it's so hard to look that far forward, but I will say that maybe within, by the end of the first, certainly the second term that Obama serves as president, that we may see a radical adoption of technology by government and by future campaigns that will astound us today perhaps and be very socially acceptable at that point in time, but because it's, you know, every 18 months, you know, you're seeing something just phenomenal. So I don't know if we're going to, if that technology, that integration of technology will change politics structurally, ultimately I think that goes a lot deeper than any one set of technologies and I think that has more to do with campaign finance reform and electoral reform than anything else. Those are the only two things that the next president radically reforms, then I think we're going to have a much richer and more representative democracy because we're still controlled by corporate media and the majority of Americans can't and don't vote. So I think if we change both of those things, well, it'll improve the quality of the information we receive in terms of media's content and will allow more people to be involved in more ways in the electoral process and civic engagement more broadly. So we've got the great new technology, but we still have some of the same old issues pervading today. Ultimately, it's like what Marshall Ganz said, you know, you can have all the tools you want, but if you don't have the trained carpenters, right, and the carpenters don't have a blueprint, you know, so what, you have this nice shiny tool, and you're just banging against the side of your head, you know, so what, you need all of the parts and put together within a strategy with the proper resources. And you yourself were a candidate for public office? Were you yourself a candidate for public office? Well, not presently, but I am a public official. I'm a half step above dog catcher in Philadelphia. I'm a Democratic committee person. I represent about 540 Democrats in my neighborhood of Mount Erie in Northwest Philadelphia, and I have a serving my first four-year term. Congratulations on that, and I wish you luck in the next step above dog catcher that you go go towards. And this is Dan Jones for the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and I appreciate you talking to us. My pleasure. Thanks.