Monday, September 23, 2002

Tara Sue Takes Aim How one woman's lonely campaign for Congress got adopted by the Net by Jason A. Lefkowitz (jlefkowitz@forumone.com) If you asked the average citizen to tell you where important things were happening in American politics today, odds are that not many would point to Guilford County, North Carolina. Far from the halls of power in Washington and the big-city machines of New York and Chicago, and even farther from the bustling country-within-a-country that is California, Guilford County up to now has been known more for its furniture industry than for any claim to political innovation. In the last few weeks, however, something unusual has been happening in sleepy Guilford County; something that may point to a fundamental change in the way Americans -- as participants in online communities -- choose their representatives. Like most fundamental changes, this one is starting slowly, building momentum as it goes, striving to reach the tipping point where the possible becomes the unstoppable. If it does – if the tremors build to an earthquake, and the creaky edifice of the System starts tumbling down, brick by brick – it will herald a power shift of a kind we have not seen in this country in many decades. With that build-up, you might expect that the standard-bearer of this phenomenon would be a John Kennedy in utero, waiting to woo the world to his way of thinking. Or perhaps your mental image is of a new Richard Nixon, a hard-bitten campaigner who drives forward with grim determination. These are the types of people we expect to find at the heart of a political movement; people driven by public ambition or private demons, people with an inner fire that leads them, for whatever reason, to drive themselves in directions the average person never goes. Occasionally, though, someone turns up who is the antithesis of that stereotype -- someone who is catapulted by events from the ranks of everyday citizens into the stratosphere. These are the people like Abraham Lincoln, who in the space of a decade went from being a country lawyer of little repute to a national political figure, and Harry Truman, whose dogged determination in rooting out corruption in the World War II war effort started him towards two terms in the White House. These are not the class presidents and student government functionaries that everyone expects to see grow into practiced baby-kissers. They are called to greatness instead by the demands of their times. Today, in little Guilford County, another such figure is emerging. This time, however, it's a figure that would have been unimaginable in the time of Lincoln or Truman: a twenty-six-year-old mother with no political experience, running under the banner of a fringe party. And yet, something is coalescing around this young woman, something remarkable and unimaginable in a world without the online communities we live in today. Her name is Tara Sue Grubb, and she's experiencing something truly new in our politics – a kind of national movement whose caucus exists only in packets flying silently through the ether. And yet another to research (i need to create a To Do category)...   3:01:06 PM