I'll preface my comments by saying that, like you, I'm no longer working in the government 2.0 realm though I'm still an active observer.

Like TheMadHatter, I don't think there's an easy answer. Unlike him (her?), I don't think the answer lays in the political arena. There are too many interest groups and individuals with a clear agenda who would seize the opportunity to hijack the agenda no matter how many safeguards are put in place. The vocal minority of the politically-charged citizenry would always skew the results, I'm afraid.

I think the area with the most potential is in policy development. You're not necessarily going to get a representative sampling of the population but you will attract engaged and informed citizens (and I would think fewer of the agenda-driven types, though I stand to be corrected on that. I just don't think policy is as sexy as politics to many).

Start where there's an established practice you can build on.

There's an opportunity to build on the practice of public consultations by moving things to an open, online forum. The Globe's policy wiki experiment was a good first step but for it to really be meaningful I think it needs to be connected to policy makers.

Good question, though. I hope you get some more input from the folks working on the inside.