Gov2.0 Summit, part 2

Updates: oldest first | newest first

• 1:19 p.m. #

  Craig Mundie of Microsoft asks: What is government data good for?

  Some would be good for accountability. Some would be good for services. Some is just good to know, like census data.

• 1:23 p.m. #

  O'Reilly: What's the infrastructure that's needed for wifi, cloud computing and whatever comes next?

  Mundie: Demand for connectivity will drive a lot of innovation. "It will be possible to get more advanced wireless techniques than are currently available in the mobile space to provide more data."

• 1:25 p.m. #

  Looking for lessons from Microsoft's rise, dominance and current challenges, O'Reilly asks: What's next? Do we have enough competition?

  Good point from O'Reilly: "Platforms take a long time to get adopted."

  Mundie: At the time technologies "appear" in the public eye, they've usually been going under the surface for a decade or more.

• 1:27 p.m. #

  O'Reilly: The PC revolution, and then the internet, were revolutions of decentralization. How can we do that with government and physical infrastructure?

  Mundie: Look at energy and conservation. Can we simply replace what we use now with a zero-carbon alternative? Unlikely. But maybe there's a future for a kind of distributed power grid. Microsoft has software that helps homes measure energy usage, distributing conservation.

  "Ease of use empowers individual action," as O'Reilly sums it up.

• 1:31 p.m. #

  Moving onto GIS, Jack Dangermond of ESRI will talk mapping and geospacial information.

  "How can we actually geospacially enable the whole Gov2.0?"

  Today, geo data is abundant, and it improves much of what we do, he says. "It's a kind of new information infrastructure."

• 1:32 p.m. #

  There is no One Map where all geospacial data can be brought together.

  Look at web services where we can bring together different sources of data. FTP "is a little bit of a barrier" to people who don't know what they're doing.

• 1:35 p.m. #

  Looking at a map of the Station Fire in LA County, we're seeing new layers on top of civic, topographic and science maps.

  Jack Dangermond: "We're not just viewing maps. We're doing spacial analysis, dynamically."

  "In Katrina, it took weeks to bring all the government data together...The result was a catastrophe."

• 1:41 p.m. #

  Dept. of Transportation has a map of stimulus spending: http://arra-gis.dot.gov/

  "This is actually DoT's spin of how they spent Recovery information."

  "Maps are cool. What's behind maps is data services that can be serverized."

• 1:45 p.m. #

  Rapid fire time again, this time on maps. Andrew Turner is first.

  "People care about place." What's nearby? Is it safe here?

• 1:47 p.m. #

  "Location gives common context" to the layers we have from other data sources. But much of the data we have isn't spacially linked.

  GIS is moving from map-centric to user centric: What do users here need?

• 1:48 p.m. #

  Combining maps with collaboration, we get rapid response systems like Twitter Vote Report, which was replicated to some degree in Afghanistan's recent election.

  "Where the government needs to step up is looking out for restrictive licensing." Government's role is making sure data is available, and that's a positive freedom, not just staying out of the way.

• 1:52 p.m. #

  Robert Greenberg is next, talking about Virtual USA. How do we respond to catastrophic events?

  One of the biggest problems: Government, now, doesn't have the means or the culture to share data. This is, in part, what led to the Katrina fiasco.

• 1:55 p.m. #

  Virtual Alabama is the earliest example. It started after Katrina when the governor couldn't get access to the data his state had paid for.

  It's built on Google Earth Enterprise, but the biggest challenge was getting everyone--counties and others--to release all their data.

• 1:57 p.m. #

  Now, Alabama has incredibly granular data--floor plans and neighborhods, before and after pictures--available almost instantly. They can hand this to FEMA in an emergency.

  Each agency has its own data. "They're using it for their own purposes, but those purposes also serve Virtual Alabama in an emergency."

• 1:59 p.m. #

  Viper in Virginia was the next big thing. Now, these local efforts are filtering up to Virtual USA.

  States are "not only sharing their best practices, but sharing their code."

  "The job of DHS is to stitch this together."

• 2:02 p.m. #

  Mikel Maron is now talking about OpenStreetMap, which seeks to create a free and open map of the world. One of its early projects was mapping Palestine.

  The UN, other governments are now donating data.

  "It's gone from something of a crazy project to a very serious project."

• 2:05 p.m. #

  It started in Bethlehem. Engineers spent three weeks walking the city, dealing with security and other local issues, like streets that were one-way for Palestinians and two-way for Israelis.

• 2:06 p.m. #

  Here's the Gaza map. All of this data is open.

• 2:08 p.m. #

  Last of this rapid-fire round: Dave Warner, a neuroscientist, who works on sharing data with people in difficult places.

  "I am dangerously over-educated," he says. "I'm going to swerve in a lot of lanes."

  Big question: "How do you get the humans to play well together."

• 2:10 p.m. #

  "Things happen in place and time. That's the important context for humans." That's why geospacial data is important.

• 2:11 p.m. #

  DW started what's now known as the "Beer for Data program."

  "You give us data. I buy you beer." One of the most successful data programs in a war zone.

• 2:12 p.m. #

  Beer for Data got DW 1.5 terabytes of data about Afghanistan. This formed the basis for a lot of recent election monitoring.

  Kids were going to polling sites in Jalalabad and give data in real time.

• 2:14 p.m. #

  Hal Varian is now talking to Tim O'Reilly about measurables.

  First, government agencies are quite good at collecting data. Some are good at getting it out there. One of the first areas for improvement is getting machine-readable data.

• 2:17 p.m. #

  Q: Google figured out that sometimes the highest bidder isn't the ad you want, especially if the second-highest will be clicked three times as often. How can the government learn from that? And do it in real time?

  A: One thing we can do is now-casting, understanding what's happening right now and figuring out what's important.

• 2:20 p.m. #

  Look at Cash for Clunkers. It was caught somewhat by surprise, because the government couldn't understand real time demand. Maybe better data would improve that.

• 2:22 p.m. #

  One advantage to having a federal system: "You've got 50 experiments going at once." The federal government can learn from what works at the state level.

  The federal government is always going to be a little slow, just because of the scale of the problem (any problem).

• 2:23 p.m. #

  O'Reilly: What about resistance to now-casting and data sharing? And what if the system goes awry, as the stock and housing markets did before the crash?

  Varian: If Google comes alive, the governor of California will revert to his old Terminator role and take care of the problem.

  More seriously, we need transparency to understand what's happening within algorithms.

  O'Reilly: Isn't that the argument behind making Google's ad system more transparent?

  Varian: "We are making it more transparent." Google will release some of its tools and make more data available than it has.

• 2:27 p.m. #

  O'Reilly: A lot of the most interesting Gov2.0 experiments are going to happen at the local level. Right?

  Varian: Sometimes, we need to break problems down into smaller problems. Fixing the IRS data system is one example. Some things are too big to fix all at once.

• 2:30 p.m. #

  O'Reilly: How do we measure if the stimulus is working?

  Varian: Look at local unemployment situation, claims for jobless benefits. We know where the money is being spent.

  Related: We could have used Google Trends to see the spike in interest in Cash for Clunkers. When people want to know, search trends show it.

• 2:34 p.m. #

  This is almost Rumsfeldian: "Now-casting is about knowing what we know," says O'Reilly. It turns out, we know a lot. We just don't know how to find it.

• 2:35 p.m. #

  Good audience question: What about data integrity?

  Varian: "In general, we can trust government data, but the issue is, it's revised." And as we move toward real time data, those updates will come more frequently.

  But what about spam and abuse? "Sometimes the bad indicators are useful, too," Varian says. If people are getting hit with credit card ads, there's a reason.

• 2:38 p.m. #

  Something close to my heart: Talking about data in education. Brad Jupp, an adviser to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, will talk about how they use data for good.

• 2:41 p.m. #

  In 1990, we had something like 6,100 kindergartners. In 2008, we tried to find out how many of those 6,100 students had received a bachelors degree.

  It was about 820 BAs, which probably about normal for the country, Jupp says.

• 2:43 p.m. #

  "What are we going to be able to do to create Government 2.0 if we have citizenry 1.0."

• 2:44 p.m. #

  Part of the effort to get good data into and out of education is changing the conversation from top-down or bottom-up education.

• 2:46 p.m. #

  Part of the problem is that there's no single source or system of data. Students are tested at different grades, by different groups, and we measure in different ways.

  "All we have in our current assessment system...is a crude understanding of what students know and can do."

  We test basic math, reading, maybe a little science.

  "These are not the kind of skills students need if they're going to be college ready and career ready."

• 2:48 p.m. #

  Jupp helped implement a pay-for-performance system in Denver.

  This kind of system was only possible when data was available on student and teacher performance, Jupp says.

• 2:50 p.m. #

  Maybe we don't need to advance students all on the same cycle (ie grades) as we've done since agrarian times. Maybe with better data we can do better assessment and pay teachers in a smarter way.

• 2:51 p.m. #

  "We need your commitment to help us as a sector advance."

  Education also needs public confidence. "There is a public sense that we can count of our own children the best. But for other people's children, we have to let them fend for themselves."

  There is a public tolerance that, for other people's children, just going through the school system is good enough. "Place your confidence in those students so you can see in them the same confidence you see in your own children."

• 2:54 p.m. #

  Moving on, Honest Signals: Low hanging data ripe for predicting, with Sandy Pentland.

  Today, demographics drives commerce and government. Identity is codes, scores and stereotypes. "If a bank did that, you'd call it redlining. So why does the government work that way?"

  "We have to look at behavior, not just place of resident."

• 2:57 p.m. #

  "You're not a number. What you are is a relationship built over time."

  An example from security clearance: "If it's not that important, they'll ask for your birth certificate. If it's important, they'll talk to your friends. If it's really important, they'll find the people you knew when you were six years old."

• 2:58 p.m. #

  Cell phones have access to a great deal of useful data here. Your phone knows where you are, where you've been, who you're close to, who you talk to.

  Yes, that sounds very Orwellian. We can make it anonymous and still get useful data.

• 3 p.m. #

  If you do the analytics, you can predict what people are going to do. Just look at the flow of the people and ask, "Where are people going?"

  Looking at tribes in San Francisco: "Although they are in the same part of the city and the same demographics, they don't have the same activities."

• 3:04 p.m. #

  Even with anonymous data, we can use movement patterns and tribes to prevent ID theft. "If I identify myself as one of these people," it's easy to see when the pattern changes.

  Similarly, we can better manage public health by knowing which types of people interact, and who isn't being served.

• 3:08 p.m. #

  You do need to deal with privacy.

  "What I've been advocating is a system where people own their data, have rights to their data, much more than we have today."

• 3:08 p.m. #

  This is a bit like "building a nervous system for humanity." All we're doing is asking, "Where are the people, and what are they doing." Then build services on that.

• 3:09 p.m. #

  Another favorite of mine: GapMinder.org. Ola Rosling will talk about seeing data over time.

  This app "is like a socioeconomic world map."

• 3:13 p.m. #

  "Don't think of countries as being similar just because they're in the same geographic area. Sub-Saharan Africa is all over the place."

  Rich countries and poor countries also don't necessarily fit together.

  "A static image is lying, because the world changes."

• 3:15 p.m. #

  "When you see this data, I hope it imports some humbleness." The world changes vastly and quickly.

• 3:17 p.m. #

  There are three layers here: Technology to manage data, data itself and visualizing it, telling stories with that data. Those can be loosely coupled.

• 3:19 p.m. #

  If we can cut the cost of actually retrieving the data and normalizing it, we can do great things.

  Now, you can create GapMinder-style motion graphs within Google Spreadsheets. But you need long-term data.

• 3:20 p.m. #

  Washington, DC, is actually an extreme outlier in infant mortality (it's relatively high) among rich countries.

• 3:23 p.m. #

  One thing that's tough with the US: There's no centralized bureau of statistics. Much of the data is freely available, and mandated to be so, but no one is in charge of aggregating and normalizing it.

  Instead, it's done by commercial outlets. "It's very hard to democratize these clean data sets."

• 3:24 p.m. #

  Rosling was behind Google's new search feature: local population and unemployment rates. The data isn't perfect, but it's a start.

• 3:26 p.m. #

  Next steps, getting data out and standardized. Agencies spent so much time and money getting and managing data, they don't want to give it away. It's their baby.

  Now, "you can copy that baby."

  How?

  Step 1: Allow bulk downloads.

  Step 2: Think about an API.

  Step 3: Figure out a public UI, but get the API first, because that's more important.

  "Yes, you lose control."

• 3:31 p.m. #

  And, we're back. Bev Godwin is here to talk about government web development:

  After Katrina, the first thought was to just put up every bit of data available. But that wasn't useful. "People don't care about mold damage when they're trying to find their loved ones."

  Eventually, people "checked their organizational egos at the door" and figured out how to describe and share data. Why couldn't this happen before?

• 3:51 p.m. #

  There are now new media directors across the government, and this has become an active community that meets and shares information, Godwin says.

• 3:53 p.m. #

  Mark Drapeau and Laurel Ruma are back, talking about next year's big Gov2.0 Expo. Yesterday was a preview.

• 3:57 p.m. #

  Peter Koht is back. This is a repeat of yesterday's presentation, which I wrote about here.

• 4:01 p.m. #

  Next, Merrick Schaefer of UNICEF. Following up from yesterday.

• 4:05 p.m. #

  Now, Jeff Nigbur of the Utah Department of Public Safety. He spoke yesterday here.

• 4:17 p.m. #

  Rita King is speaking now. She talked about using virtual worlds to create dialog yesterday. You can read my liveblog here.

• 4:18 p.m. #

  Another Californian representing: Melissa Jordan is talking about BART. Her talk yesterday was logged here.

• 4:20 p.m. #

  Our next group deals with journalism, as it is and as it could be: Steven Berlin Johnson, Monica Guzman and Hal Roberts.

  Bonus quote from Johnson: "Government 2.0: Triumph of the nerds."

• 4:28 p.m. #

  Johnson: One of the best things a city can build is sidewalks. "A sidewalk is a platform."

  Thinking about newspapers, "we're interested in the heroic investigative reporter." What's going to happen to that civic function?

  "Can we build, in a sense, a government infrastructure and an amateur civic infrastructure, to have those eyes and ears."

• 4:30 p.m. #

  "The Seattle PI is one of the most interesting experiments in local news." The paper disappeared in March, but the newsroom remains online.

• 4:31 p.m. #

  Guzman: "It's like no newsroom I've ever worked in."

  Now only 20 people, down from 180. "There's a sense that everyone does everything."

  Also, "we can't cover everything." They have to decide what's most important and what needs to be promoted and curated.

• 4:32 p.m. #

  There is one staff photographer, so everyone needs to know how to take pictures.

  "Anytime we put up a database, it just takes off. People online like to have raw data. They like to play with things. They like to be their own reporters."

  "Sometimes it's just facilitating."

• 4:34 p.m. #

  "Investigative journalism arose as something of a luxury."

  "While there might be a loss there, there's also incredible potential for gain."

  There is good info out there to enable people to do their own investigations.

• 4:35 p.m. #

  Johnson's big thing is describing media as an ecosystem, which I think is a good metaphor. It's about encouraging the flow of information between different levels of professionalism.

  Seattle, as Guzman notes, has a rich and vibrant ecosystem of local bloggers and forums in its diverse neighborhoods.

  "At Seattle PI, we definitely recognize...that all these levels are very important."

• 4:37 p.m. #

  This growing ecosystem is making it easier for local blogs to be taken seriously, make money, get public data and records.

  "Any news organization has to recognize the value of this ecosystem," Guzman says. "I'm glad to see those walls fall between media."

  "It's just one big happy family."

• 4:38 p.m. #

  Hal Roberts is part of the MediaCloud project at Harvard's Berkman Center, which helps answer vague questions like "What is the media covering" with actual data.

  "Our role in this ecosystem is to be the layer on top of the media," Roberts says.

• 4:39 p.m. #

  For example, they mapped what countries get mentioned in major news sources. The BBC is the most global, by that measure. Talking Points Memo tends to be pretty US-centric.

• 4:40 p.m. #

  Johnson: So, seeing all this data, what don't we know?

  Roberts: "Computationally, it's very hard to track individual stories as they're rising and falling." MediaCloud would also like to become an open platform to spread the work around and repeat less (the code is already available).

  "Our goal here isn't to just answer the half-dozen questions that we think are interesting."

• 4:46 p.m. #

  Same question to Guzman: What don't we have?

  Guzman: "Crime stats." People want to know all the assaults that happened on their block. Also traffic.

• 4:47 p.m. #

  I just check Everyblock, and crime data doesn't appear to be available in Seattle.

• 4:48 p.m. #

  Johnson: Maybe this is a new role for newspapers. Get data out, make it available and intelligible and let other people manipulate it.

• 4:49 p.m. #

  Guzman: Everyone at Seattle PI is learning databases, starting with Caspio. "It's only going to get more important."

• 4:50 p.m. #

  Next, a couple local guys: Kojo Nnamdi of WAMU talking to Macon Phillips, the White House director of New Media.

• 4:53 p.m. #

  "Macon, you've got to settle a bet I've just lost." Basically, how'd you get here.

  MP: "The president makes a lot of speeches, but there's only one Gov2.0."

• 4:54 p.m. #

  Good question: "Will the title of your job change?"

  Phillips: "Never say never, particularly in this field which is by definition constantly changing."

  "The capacity we have now is unprecedented." The White House can be a "contributor to innovation" in government.

• 4:56 p.m. #

  Phillips' goal is to "ultimately work myself out of a job." A good web operation has lots of people doing other things, and using the web to communicate.

• 4:57 p.m. #

  The new media director's job is, first, to amplify the president's message. This is a political job.

  Second, it's to open up the White House. "There's been some great strides to open up government."

  Third, figure out opportunities for the public to participate in government.

• 4:58 p.m. #

  Q: Is this different from what you did on the campaign?

  A: On the campaign, there were really clear objectives based on years of campaigning. "We looked at the new media program as a way to raise money, as a way to move message, and as a way to motivate voters."

  Being in government is "a new space." They are still figuring out the best use of time.

  Biggest challenge: "Our team spends a lot of time looking at broad opportunities in government to change the ways we do business, but we're also beholden to the day to day communications of the White House."

• 5 p.m. #

  Making the argument is very much a part of the White House new media team's job. They tell stories and connect with constituents, but the politics is very much ingrained.

• 5:02 p.m. #

  Q: How do you keep up with technology? How do you decide what's useful or important?

  A: "Thankfully, half the people in this room have my email address and aren't afraid to tell me what they think...This community loves to talk."

• 5:03 p.m. #

  Q: Isn't this a steep learning curve?

  A: There are cultural challenges to the loss of control, the loss of hierarchy. "We're demonstrating progress in that, but we have a ways to go."

• 5:05 p.m. #

  Phillips: There's an "input/output problem" of governing. There are only so many people in the White House. They're looking to develop engagement tools, but it's still overwhelming sometimes.

• 5:08 p.m. #

  Nnamdi: Could we get a national Apps for Democracy contest?

  Phillips: Absolutely. Open source is one of the highest forms of civic engagement. "It's really exciting to think we could tap a community that has a history of innovation for altruistic reasons."

• 5:10 p.m. #

  Phillips: We need more traffic from inside the building. We need to eat our own dog food.

  Nnamdi: How much is security an issue?

  Phillips: "I've never been in a job with as much security." That said, "there's also a problem with perception of security." Much is done because it is perceived as unsafe.

• 5:13 p.m. #

  Beth Noveck, the deputy CTO, is up next to talk about "wiki-government."

  Three major values drive the way the White House and open government work: transparency, participation and collaboration.

• 5:15 p.m. #

  "It's not just rhetoric. It's not just these visionary concepts that the president has articulated of these major values."

  There is, she says, a culture shift in government. It's about "change informed by these values." This is informed "by a deep trust in the American people to solve the great problems of our time."

• 5:17 p.m. #

  Part of this is about letting people have input early, to "create policy informed by expertise outside of the government."

  Transparency, participation and collaboration are part of a "coordinated policy" of open government.

• 5:19 p.m. #

  There's a need to overcome doubts: "Can I run a contest? Can I engage in public problem solving?"

• 5:22 p.m. #

  Open data creates new economies, Noveck says: When the US Patent Office opens its data, it should inspire more inventions. Not just because it's the right thing to do.

  Noveck: When we can work with Apple iTunes U, when we can work with states, when states can coordinate and put their content up online, then when there's a swine flu outbreak we're ready.

• 5:24 p.m. #

  "What about the way government gives out grants?"

  In FY09, the government has already given out billions in grants, but it's not an open process, Noveck says.

  "We're going to be looking to you to help us," she adds. "We're looking for the ways to do this."

• 5:25 p.m. #

  "Why does any of this matter?"

  "We have to look at new ways of working that allow us in government to take advantage of the expertise...that people across web2.0 networks are working."

  "To share our collective brain, if you will."

  "We have to work together if we're going to solve the problems of our time."

• 5:27 p.m. #

  Final talk, one I've been looking forward to (there are a lot of those): James Fallows talks to John Podesta about Diplomacy 2.0.

  "With two guys like this, they can go anywhere and talk about anything," Tim O'Reilly says in introducing them.

• 5:29 p.m. #

  Podesta will interview Fallows, then Fallows will interview Podesta. Seems fitting.

  Fallows is recently back from three years in China (which is where I found his blog), so he'll be talking about public diplomacy.

• 5:31 p.m. #

  Podesta: Talk about how Hillary Clinton's State Dept is using new media for public diplomacy. "Do you actually see a noticeable change?"

  Fallows: "The tools being used by the administration now are very different, but I'm a skeptic of how well it's being received." Most of the impression Chinese get of the US is from old media--movies, TV news.

  That's partly a function of language, partly of censorship.

  "Old media still tell more of America's story than new media yet do."

• 5:34 p.m. #

  Podesta: There have been problems in the White House just talking to the American people, both technical and cultural. What about the rest of the world?

  Fallows: The role of the English language in the world is something to marvel at." Twenty years ago, French was critical. "Now, anytime you see two people talking to each other not in their native language, it's in English." That's a huge opportunity.

• 5:36 p.m. #

  Fallows: If you were really going to engage the Chinese in Chinese, you'd have to give up control. You have to let someone run a website without knowing what they're saying (unless you also speak Chinese).

  Podesta: I could roll with that. But he notes that he runs a very new media website and provides cover for others. It's hard, he says. "You have to have faith and trust in people to let them do what they need to do."

  Fallows: Doing a lot of military reporting, there's a theory that people have to know enough to carry out the mission without supervision. Empowering locals is maybe the step the US can take.

  Podesta: Would that work?

  Fallows: Part of the image of the US is a speech the president gives, US movies. But another part is the hundreds of impressions from people who visit the US.

• 5:40 p.m. #

  Podesta: What about the use of new media abroad, as in #iranelection? Does the US government have a role to play in that?

  Fallows: The power of the US by example and as a force.

  Here's an example: People are constructing maps of environmental damage in China, and the Chinese government has started allowing that to happen.

• 5:42 p.m. #

  Podesta: There's been a lot of criticism of what Google had to do to get into China. Thoughts?

  Fallows: "It's obeying Chinese law. You can still get broader results from Google than you can in Baidu or other Chinese competitors."

  (He also mentions a huge airport in the middle of Beijing, which I've flowing into. It's odd.)

• 5:43 p.m. #

  Podesta: Some governments are going to blame the US government no matter what. "If the US government gets directly involved in promoting tools of freedom, does it have a responsibility to those dissidents?"

  Fallows: "To the greatest extent this can be a non-US government effort..." It should promote openness, but direct involvement is tricky.

  Podesta: Asked Jack Ma: Do Chinese customers object to blocking of pornography or censorship? He said no one noticed until Green Dam.

  Fallows: "Today's China is controlled, but not in the way Americans would think of if they're not there." Also, there's so much more information available than there ever was before.

• 5:46 p.m. #

  So, Fallows taking over the interview now. Let's talk about health care. "The process seems basically the same" as it was 15 years ago.

  Podesta: "The commonality is in the 1.0 world, where you brought a gun to the town hall and you were sending a clear message."

  More, last time reform was defeated by old media, news and advertising. Now, rumors are being spread (and countered) on the internet. The debate is much more spread out.

  On the opposite side, "There's much more capacity and ability to get real information and find out what the stakes are."

• 5:49 p.m. #

  Podesta: "When there's a lie, it's hard to catch up with the lie. It goes around the world very fast."

  Fallows: Is it possible all the web 2.0 tools make us more parochial?

  Podesta: "In some ways we're going back ot the way of the founders where the media is very partisan and the debates are much more personal."

• 5:50 p.m. #

  Fallows: "China was slower to embrace Obama," in part for racial reasons, but then he was seen as a new beginning. But now we're retrenching. Are we stuck?

  Podesta: Yes. Well, maybe not. "I think we're in for an intense period of debate and really fighting for the direction of the country. If Obama's policies are successful, maybe we'll see that calm down."

  Looking at Briton, Podesta notes the Tories went hard right after Blair won and became marginalized.

• 5:54 p.m. #

  That's the day's session folks. More tomorrow. Thanks.