The articulate XMission CEO Pete Ashdown, who ran for US Senate in 2006 against Orrin Hatch, was March's charismatic speaker. Without a political background, and as an introvert more comfortable behind a computer, the decision to run was quite a process, said Ashdown. Finding out that no democrat, again, was going to challenge Hatch, he soon learned to be an extrovert and organized a clear platform for his campaign.

One reason Ashdown ran for Senate was his concern whether our voice was truly heard by those representing us. Because even as a prominent businessman, Ashdown felt that he was not being heard by Hatch.

Another reason Ashdown ran is that he believes anyone with innovative ideas and determination, instead of just the very wealthy, should be able to run; after all, the common person more represents the majority.

In his business, Ashdown's procedure is to ask if a certain business decision would be good for his customers, employees, and community. If not, and if the decision would only benefit him, he would choose the more humanitarian decision over the profitable one.

Using a similar philosophy to run his campaign, Ashdown generated Democracy 2.0; this originated from the ancient Greeks and philosophers like Aristotle who believed that "in a democracy, the poor had more power than the rich because there were more of them, and the will of the majority reigns supreme." The Greeks had a rudimentary definition of democracy, not quite complete or refined because in no period of history did the poor ever reign supreme.

The next stage, said Ashdown, was Democracy 1.0; this is "a bunch of rich, aristocrat white guys at the beginning of our country getting together to write a document to say what Democracy 1.0 would be."

"So what do we have today? Do we have Democracy 1.0?" he asked, "No, we have Democracy 1.090538 and on down the line." In software terms, this would be "a hairball where small fixes and adjustments are applied to an original idea, but over time, the result is something large, bloated, and just almost unworkable."

During his campaign, Ashdown met many people who were constitutional literalists, a group who believed in living in a republic and not in a democracy. Ashdown agrees with them. However, a republic should not be sending "someone to represent us who has the wisdom of a king" and to make decisions without the people. Instead, a republic should be a representative of democracy making decisions based upon the advice of the American people. "This is not happening," Ashdown said.

But he has hope; like supporting revolutions. Quoting Thomas Jefferson: every generation needs a new revolution. But this does not necessarily mean guns and warfare and battling against the aristocracy. Instead, a revolution can be subtler, such as stripping away or breaking down certain barriers.

Barriers:

For example, an early barrier of the US was a barrier or tyranny that was dissolved by the Constitution. In the 19th century was a barrier of slavery whose abolition was initiated by one person who started a small revolution.

Ashdown related how his ancestors had crossed the plains to Utah in extreme hardship, many dying during the trek. Today, technology and people like Henry Ford and the Wright brothers have broken the barrier of mobility.

Years ago if one wanted to make a feature film, Ashdown said you would need 20 million dollars, a good script you would need to sell to the studio, and have access to a studio to break this barrier of entry. Today with technology and a few thousand dollars, someone with talent could make a film and give it to e.g. Sundance. Again, another barrier is stripped away.

The same with publishing when 100 years ago, a write would need a publisher and a printing press. Now with computer technology, the publishing barrier is dissolving.

The barrier of communication has taken a phenomenal, unsurpassed leap with technology. When he first used the Internet twenty years ago, Ashdown said he was stunned when he received a response from Australia in seconds. Right then and there, he realized that the Internet would change the world's communication forever.

This new technology modifies the barriers of business too. For example, when his parents had an international importing business of kitchenware from Finland, business communication was laborious and took a long time. Now one can easily build an international business just by going to eBay.

The last barrier to fall is government, said Ashdown. How do we dissolve the barrier of money, communication, and representation? He sees this as Democracy 2.0.

Breaking the Barrier of Government

Much is coming together allowing us to break the barrier of government, said Ashdown. For instance, we have an "open source" movement from which has generated, for example, the free web browser Firefox and Daily Kos, a blog of political analysis from a liberal perspective.

Said Ashdown, "What we have [had] is a monolithic center where the author controls everything about their book, everything about their piece of software, and they dictate it to their users." For instance, if you are a Stephen King fan and have a great idea for him, it would be solely up to him whether to use your idea. This procedure is the same with Microsoft about a Windows program. If there is a new Windows program out, and you didn't like a feature about their last one, you could write a letter, petition them, and maybe they'll listen and change, but it would be up to them to make the ultimate decision.

With open source, that is reversed where everyone works on a project, and anyone is able to contribute. In other words, there are fewer or no barriers. If Ashdown was a software programmer who wanted to contribute or add a feature to Firefox, he could do so without permission.

In a broader sense, the same goes for the popular online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, where anyone can contribute. Admittedly, there can be problems. But Ashdown said that Wikipedia also has incredible strengths citing, e.g., that when hurricane Katrina attacked, one could get much more up-to-date factual information about what was happening on the ground because people on the ground were actually writing it rather than news organizations filtering everything. Wikipedia is a central project with no monolithic control.

In government where it is dictated to us what we need, like the school vouchers, Ashdown thinks this tradition can be turned around to be an open government where citizens are more empowered to be part of the decision making process. When he was running for Senate, part of his campaigning was expressing his belief that it was arrogant for anyone to go back to Washington and tell people that he or she is an expert in everything. For instance, Ashdown is knowledgeable in technology and balancing budgets and so on, but he needs help in everything else. Thus, Congress should be appealing to the American people for help rather than ignoring us.

Continuing on, Ashdown observes that government is going through a paradigm shift. Whereas in the past we used a model of competition to get ahead, a model of collaboration is becoming more prominent where the support of thousands of people is gaining strength rather than the usual interest groups.

These are the kind of ideas that Ashdown writes in his own blog.

He is encouraged that some conservatives are also blogging and welcoming commentary from the public. For instance, sponsor of the voucher bill Steve Urquhart has a blog. The Utah Senate puts information online and accepts public commentary, although when Mike Leavitt was visiting the Utah Senate, and Ashdown asked if he was flying here on a private jet, his question was deleted.

While blogging still has an overriding control, Ashdown is encouraged by the Wikis, which do not have an overriding control. Wikis are hyper-transparent where if he makes a comment and somebody takes it out, that audit trail is apparent to everyone. People could write in and ask why that comment was removed, and what the justification was for removing it. "Certainly there is vandalism that deserves to be removed," said Ashdown, "but something that's unbiased and straight-forward deserves to remain, and what we see on large sites like Wikipedia is that there are more people interested in seeing it work rather than tearing it down."

For his campaign, Ashdown set up a Wiki of his own where he explained how he was going to craft his policy and campaign. Although he thinks he has some pretty good ideas on a number of topics, he wants to hear what people are interested in, get their questions, and hear their comments and criticisms on his ideas. To him, it's not just a matter of the one side of the political spectrum hiding behind a door trying to come up with policy but it's a matter of all Americans working together to come up with policy. In a book called "The Wisdom of Crowds," the author's thesis is that it not only takes a large group to come up with solutions but also a diverse group.

Because some people think that Wikipedia has a liberal bias, some conservatives have set up their own Wikipedia called Conservapedia. Their bias is apparent; if you look up Bill Clinton, the highlights of his career are his liaison with Monica Lewinsky, never winning 50%+ in an election, White Water and other tawdry information. It remains to be seen, Ashdown said, what would happen if additional information were suggested for Clinton.

Nonetheless, this dialogue encourages Ashdown who believes that liberals and conservatives--all Americans--should have a voice. On his own Wiki, he was surprised when he observed that not only were Americans writing in but also people from around the globe like Australia, Germany, and England. Ashdown discovered that people everywhere have similar frustrations with their own governments, who also feel locked out of the deacon making process. When they told Ashdown that they wished there was someone like him running for office in their state and in their country, he told them that they probably have someone just like that sitting right behind their keyboards, and that they should encourage that individual to run for office.

Thus, Ashdown is working toward breaking down government barriers with technology where public input is welcomed and by showing people that they could run for office too. You don't have to have millions of dollars to run, he said. He, in fact, spent only about $300,000, minimal compared to other campaign races around the country, yet he received a higher percentage than about half of the losing Democrats.

Ashdown concluded with a quote from Thomas Jefferson found inside his memorial in Washington DC.

"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

Said Ashdown, "That in my mind is progress. And that's what we should be doing in our government."

Side Note:

Ashdown said he is committed to running for US Senate again. He is committed to federal office and federal issues like education, energy policy, and access to government.

--Sarah Smith