Commentary - Mary Katharine Ham: Just go to Don’t Go!

But instead of simply standing by while Madame Speaker shuttered the place and went off on a nationwide book tour for “Know Your Power,” Republicans stuck around to bring attention to the power problems of the American people.

Pelosi refused to allow a vote on offshore drilling before adjourning the House for August recess. George Stephanopoulos of ABC News tried valiantly on Sunday morning to discern why, but judging by the excerpts of her book, it’s because she’s entirely confident in her ability to solve the energy crisis with her inexhaustible supply of cliches.

Pelosi no doubt counted on being mostly in the clear once she avoided a vote, trusting that either everyone would head home for recess or that her adjournment would prevent any Republican protests from being caught on tape.

The C-SPAN cameras in the House are controlled by the actions of the House, and are shut off automatically once it is adjourned. No private cameras are allowed to film inside the chamber.

Once Republicans decided to stick around, she might have been assured that the great tree of dissent would fall in the woods with no one to hear it if it hadn’t been for a couple of ‘Net-savvy congressmen and staff members who were bound and determined to get the message out.

Reps. John Culberson, R-Texas, and Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., took to Twitter—a micro-blogging tool that allows friends to share short messages with a network of friends—to describe the uproar in the House:

From Hoekstra: “Thanks for tweeting with me. Thanks for new technology. Real shame Speaker turned off lights, mikes, C span. Our voices can’t be shut down.”

Eric Odom, Patrick Ruffini, and Allen Fuller, all New Media lights on the Right, harnessed the energy by organizing the movement under the tag “#dontgo,” so that all the messages on the subject could be searched and aggregated.

“Don’t go until you’ve done your jobs,” said Odom, of the inspiration for the name. “Don’t go until you’ve solved some problems.”

As momentum grew on the House floor, fiery speeches were made (captured by Culberson on cell phone video and broadcast on qik.com), and Republican congressmen kept flooding back in, #dontgo became the No. 1 subject on Twitter. Liberal group MoveOn.org took notice and launched an attack to spam the #dontgo tag with irrelevant messages, which garnered more attention for the movement.

All the spam made #dontgo No. 1 on Twitter again, pushing it above such dominant subjects as Paris Hilton, iPhone, and Dark Knight.

“To MoveOn, and all those organizations, I say bring it,” Odom said. “Keep helping us.”

Since its birth on Twitter, the Don’t Go Movement has moved beyond the specialized technological tool and onto its own Web site, where it can grab more grassroots activists.

Over the past two days, Dontgomovement.com has seen a traffic surge of about 60,000 people, and added 21,000 names to a petition to tell Madame Speaker to call the Congress back for a special session.

Could Don’t Go be the movement that finally inspires grassroots conservatives depressed by years of overspending?

Columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin referred to it as the “new gathering place for conservative activism.”

And, the group has plans to move beyond just energy policy in August. As Patrick Ruffini wrote on the technology and politics blog, The Next Right:

“House Republicans’ stock is undervalued. The Democrat-controlled (but Republican occupied) Congress has a 9% approval rating. The Dems won seats they should not have in 2006. 1992 was also a change year, and yet Republicans then managed to pick up 10 seats.

“#dontgo is positioned to be the event that at last restores Republicans to where they should be in the House. Don’t lift the boot from Nancy and Steny’s neck. Let’s keep this going.”

Bolstered by the polls and significant momentum, it doesn’t look like anyone will be going or moving on from this cause anytime soon.

Mary Katharine Ham is online editor of dcexaminer.com.