MoveOn.org Redefines Art of Activism, Fund Raising
Berkeley-based Web site claims 850,000 members, becomes virtual powerhouse

by Josh Richman

Capitol Hill phones are ringing off their hooks today.

Sign Up Now!

MoveOn.org is hosting a Virtual March on Washington, a national campaign to flood every Senate office with antiwar opinion; at least 120,000 callers are scheduled down to the minute from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and at least 80,000 faxes are being sent.

This virtual march, backed by a Win Without War coalition of which MoveOn is a member, is the latest flexing of MoveOn's organizational muscle. In less than five years, the site has emerged as a leading engine of activism, claiming 850,000 members capable of staging nationwide events and raising vast amounts of money at the click of a mouse.

From their neatly kept Berkeley home, Joan Blades, 46, and Wes Boyd, 42, preside over a Web site which has become a bona fide political movement.

"This group of people is incredible," Blades said. "They just want to do something, and if you give them an opportunity they think is meaningful, they'll jump at it. We're doing our best to identify what those opportunities are."

Blades and Boyd in 1987 founded Berkeley Systems, a software firm which made a name for itself with its "After Dark" screen-saver series -- remember those flying toasters? Later, the company produced the popular online interactive game show "You Don't Know Jack." Blades and Boyd eventually sold Berkeley Systems to another company.

They launched MoveOn in September 1998 as an online petition urging Congress to censure President Clinton and, well, move on. More than half a million people signed, but the real eye-opener was that many also pledged campaign money to Democrats through its political action committee.

In fact, by July 1999, MoveOn's PAC had raised $350,000, the first time in political history anyone had raised six figures via the Internet. The money kept coming, about $2.4 million total in the 2000 election cycle and almost $4 million in the 2002 cycle.

As MoveOn became a fund-raising powerhouse, so too did it become an unprecedented organizing tool, quickly and efficiently uniting individual citizens into a unified, roaring voice. More than 35,000 people signed an online petition and more than 20,000 called Congress last year opposing Vice President Dick Cheney's unsuccessful energy plan. In 2001, 30,000 signed a petition supporting the successful McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill. And a 1999 gun-control petition got 60,000 signatures in one week.

But Blades said no MoveOn campaign has gained as much momentum as the antiwar effort. Almost 700,000 people signed a petition to world leaders under the guidance of MoveOn Peace, a wing of the group formed when Eli Pariser merged his 9-11Peace.org with MoveOn last year.

Last Aug. 28 and again Jan. 21, MoveOn organized in-person visits to almost every Congressional office in the nation to voice opposition to war in Iraq. Local participants in January's action brought 65,000 online petition signatures from California to Sen. Dianne Feinstein's San Francisco office.

MoveOn also last month put out a call for money to buy a New York Times ad urging more time for United Nations weapons inspections. "We wanted to raise $30,000 or $40,000 -- instead we raised $400,000," Blades said.

With more money than expected, MoveOn.org instead remade the famed "Daisy" television ad created by Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 presidential campaign to paint GOP rival Barry Goldwater as a trigger-happy extremist. The ad -- showing a girl plucking petals from daisy while a missile launch countdown sounds off, ending in a nuclear mushroom cloud -- aired in 13 cities. And when MoveOn sought extra money to air the ad once more in Washington, D.C. during the Super Bowl, donors sent $50,000 in a day.

This month, MoveOn.org crossed swords with media giant Viacom. It took MoveOn.org just two hours to raise $75,000 for signs reading, "Inspections Work. War Won't" on billboards in four major cities. But Viacom's outdoor advertising division -- the nation's largest such entity -- at first wouldn't sell space for the campaign, claiming MoveOn had failed to meet payment and advance-notice guidelines.

"They said no, and then a couple of days later they said yes," Blades said. "They said it was just a misunderstanding. I don't know if it was a misunderstanding or they got so many phone calls... but the ultimate result is the billboards went up."

Antiwar sentiment has swelled MoveOn's membership quickly in recent months, Blades said, denoting "a very broad concern."

"It is a very strong parallel between our first petition (regarding Clinton) and this one, in that we have a very strong sense there is a disconnect between what is going on in Washington, D.C. and what the people of the country are thinking and feeling," she said.

Whether by virtue of the clarity of its message, or by virtue of its "virtual" rather than face-to-face communication, MoveOn.org so far has managed to avoid the kind of rifts plaguing other national antiwar efforts. For example, International ANSWER, a driving force behind recent rallies, has seen accusations of anti-Semitism and hidden political or social agendas blemish its antiwar message and cause some people to steer clear.

Blades said cyber-organizing requires "a certain clarity of communication," perhaps creating less fear that the core message is being co-opted. And its accessibility can't be beat.

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