If Obama et al truly felt that closing Gitmo was a priority, the news would be packed day after day with stories from the prison, humanizing the prisoners, and introduction of one legislation measure after another, all to drum up support (just like gun control). But that just isn't happening, which makes me conclude it's a lack of effort for whatever reason.

In your experience, the ground that you did lose, was it because of lack of support? Could you have tried again and how? (I don't have any political experience, so I'm kind of curious)

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I worked on election integrity. Stuff like opposing internet voting, touchscreens, purging the voter registration databases, etc.

When we lost it was because we were a day late, a dollar short, outgunned, exhausted, ignorant, naive, internal strive, etc.

It's important to remember that our opponents have essentially unlimited resources. They also have the long view. You won this time? No biggie. They'll be back. They're happy with incrementalism, and will convert those inches into yards into miles.

A few years ago, remembering the prior overwhelming opposition to internet voting, they suspended the rules and fast-tracked the legislation. So no public hearings. The deed was done before we even noticed. This is why interest groups hire lobbyists; activism is not something you can sustain on a casual basis.

I will try again. Not quite done recharging my batteries.

Meanwhile, I'm working on better advocacy tools. So that future me and other activists have better data, tools, resources. A bit like the open government stuff from Sunlight Foundation. But more like the commercial legislation information systems that big lobbyists use.

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Some non-political friends wanted to know how to get involved. The key is to show up.

I encouraged them to pick their local city council meetings and just start showing up. (Many are televised or available via web.) Just being present will change their behavior. And there's absolutely a current local issue that you have an opinion on. So once you figure out what's what, you should testify.

Obama is not an amateur.

Absolutely.

I make no defense of Obama, or any other elected. I just want to understand the game better, to play it better. So I'm more curious what it'd take to close Gitmo.

Not my issue, so I haven't looked. But key policy makers (blocking no votes) would have to be identified and moved. And that would take sustained years long local action, eg me and 100 of my friends camping in my Senator's or Representative's office. Ditto probably 40 other local groups. Hard to pull off.

Sen. Henry Waxman's book The Waxman Report relates how his office has worked on some issues for decades, what it takes to move the needle. Very pragmatic, so in a way very optimistic.

I'm currently chewing through The Politics of Attention, which melds Stephen Jay Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium with social influence (power ranking). The basic idea is that policy makers have limited attention and stuff changes all at once when an issue rises above the noise.

Yeah, Obama doesn't have to do any of this. Maybe the "sustained years" part for some issues, but that's the limits of commonality between your tools and Obama's.