The Clintons Get Their Village
By Steve Kettmann|
08:30 AM Oct, 20, 2006
Back when he was president, Bill Clinton never had much time to explore the myriad possibilities unfolding on the internet, but the interest was there. A White House election night party in Nov. 1998 was moved at the last minute to an aide´s office, where a fascinated Clinton had planted himself in front of a computer terminal and refused to move.
Now Clinton will be among 80 "opinion drivers" taking part in an issues-oriented online community called Hotsoup that launched Thursday. He'll be joined by his wife, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, and a diverse group including cycling champion Lance Armstrong, rocker Jon Bon Jovi and Bush aide Karen Hughes.
"You know Clinton," said Hotsoup editor in chief Ron Fournier, a veteran political reporter who first covered Clinton in Arkansas in the late ´80s. "This is the kind of thing he is going to eat up."
In other words, Clinton, like many opinion leaders, is always eager to have communication be a two-way street. He can get his message out by appearing on Larry King, but he wants to hear from people around the country who have spent time developing their own ideas. The key to the community will not be big names like Clinton, but thousands -- possibly millions -- of unknowns eager to engage at length.
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http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,71980-0.html?tw=wn_index_4><
http://www.hotsoup.com/home.aspx>I'd suggest a good topic on this site would be Grover's Norquist theory that bipartisanship is similar to "date" rape.