Matt Bai, who sometimes gets it and sometimes doesn’t, mostly gets it in this Times magazine piece on YearlyKos:

Politicians know that politics is, by its nature, a tactile business. New technology may change the way partisans organize and debate, and it may even spawn an entirely new political culture. But at the end of the day, partisans will inevitably be drawn to sit across the table from the candidates they support or oppose, just as votes will still be won and lost in banquet halls and airport hangars and all the other seedy, sweaty stalls of the political marketplace. Online politics can’t flourish in the virtual realm alone, any more than an online romance can be consummated through instant messaging.

That’s because politics, like dating, is as much about the experience as it is about the winning or losing. Whether we’re talking about the reformers of the progressive era or the immigrant ward leaders of the urban heyday, 1960’s antiwar protesters or 1980’s religious conservatives, new political movements have always evolved, ultimately, into thriving social networks. We have seen the beginnings of this online with the “meet-ups” for Howard Dean and the house parties organized by MoveOn.org. As these social circles congeal, their members will inevitably want to share hugs and handshakes with their political leaders, too, rather than merely threads and diaries. The advent of television didn’t change this visceral aspect of choosing our icons, and neither will broadband. As Blair Kamin, the Chicago Tribune’s architecture critic, noted in a recent article about pro-immigration protests, the Web doesn’t replace the public square; it drives people to it.

All of this suggests that for all the philosophizing about the meaning of online campaigns and the passing of the 20th-century political model, this next iteration of American politics won’t really look so dissimilar from the ones that came before. Just as the liberal social activists of the first television generation overthrew the urban bosses who had ruled the Democratic Party, so, too, the Gina Coopers of the world, a decade from now, may very well be running for Congress, managing campaigns and lobbying for legislation. This is as it should be. Technologies change and movements flourish, but the essential process of American politics endures. And those who lead the most consequential revolts against the status quo never really vanquish the party’s insider establishment. They simply take its place.

The advantage of the internet is, we can share information and mobilize actions more quickly across a broader network. The danger is when people think signing on-line petitions is a substitute for (instead of an adjunct to) real political engagement. It perpetuates, maybe even exacerbates, the tendency of American citizens to confuse watching politics with actually playing the game.

I’ve given this little speech before, but if you’ve never attended a meeting of your local school board or municipality, well, shame on you. Democracy is not a spectator sport.

For years, I’ve watched most of my liberal friends turn up their noses at the suggestion that they run for office. “Politics is so dirty,” they’d say. “And it’ll stay that way if people like us can’t be bothered to get involved,” I’d reply.

Not to mention, it leaves the important decisions of society to people you don’t trust and can’t stand.

So on this Memorial Day weekend, ask not what your country can do for you. (I think you know the rest.)