I believe it was at SXSW Interactive 2005, that I was on a panel exploring the future of democracy, deliberative, direct and digital. As we explored the role of political parties, the idea of institutional memory came up, and it seems as if the Internet is changing the way we maintain institutional memory.

In 2003 and 2004, I was a volunteer in Gov. Dean’s presidential campaign. I established many close friendships during that time. When Gov. Dean decided to end his presidential bid, many of us reached out to each other online. We dealt with our grief about seeing the person we thought would best lead the country leave the race. We talked about what Gov. Dean’s delegates should do, and whether we should still vote for him in the primary, or if not, whom we should support.

We vented our frustrations about the sort of campaigns other candidates had run. We complained about the media, and most importantly, we sought ways to remain together to work on the issues that were important to us.

During that time quite a few mailing lists and websites formed. Sometimes there were conflicts between people from different groups. After all, we were all people that had cared passionately about Gov. Dean and the issues he stood for, and we cared passionately for how things would be handled afterwards.

People looked created different legal entities, 501(c)3’s, 501(c)4’s, State PACs, Federal PACs, 527s, and so on. Dean for America shut down, and a new organization, Democracy for America emerged.

I wasn’t involved with the Kucinich campaign in 2004, but it seemed like a similar process happened there, and out of it the Progressive Democrats of America emerged. PDA and DFA had a lot of similar goals and looked at ways to work together, me, and many of my friends ended up getting involved in both.

Now, it is 2008. This time around, I was a Sen. Edwards supporter. He has now suspended his campaign, and I’ve been invited to join two mailing lists of Edwards supporters, in addition the dozen or so I had been on during the campaign. I’ve been asked to participate in various online sites and hear discussions about other ones yet to emerge. Like in 2004, I, and all of us, wait to hear what Sen. Edwards will suggest we do going forward.