Late in the evening of October 23, 2004, I coined the term Blogosphere Day. At the time, I was directing the online campaign in PA-08 for Ginny Schrader (D-Blogosphere) and was trying to do anything possible to hype her campaign. Little did I know what would become of a two minute entry on dkosopedia.
To be perfectly honest, I'd forgotten about it until it showed up in the National Journal just as Tim Tagaris and I were plotting on when to kick of the online fundraising for Paul Hackett. The rest, as they say, is history.
Today is Blogosphere Day, and we have chosen to celebrate Act Blue. Apart from channeling over $16,000,000 to Democratic candidates in 2006, about five times as much in direct contributions to Democratic candidates in than any other PAC, one of the things I most like about Act Blue is how it started small. Act Blue was not an operation that lined up several large progressive donors before its launch, but rather simply a great idea that a few enterprising, grassroots progressive activists decided to undertake on their own. As a result of their efforts, now anyone can raise money for whatever Democratic candidates they like, now the blogosphere can quantify its direct fundraising contributions to Democratic candidates, and now Democrats have been able to help eliminate their long-standing financial deficit against Republicans.
Act Blue is very much the sort of innovative, but underfunded, idea BlogPac is looking to fund in our ongoing Progressive Entrepreneur Contest. For those of you who missed the original announcement of the project, here is a reminder of the prizes, rules, and how to enter:
You can see the rules for this contest, including how to submit an entry, by clicking here. The five winning projects will receive up to $5,000 directly from BlogPac, a featured post here on Open Left, and a fundraising letter to our email list. The winning entries will be decided by our panel of judges, which include representatives from some of the most influential, enterprising organizations in our movement: Gina Cooper of Yearly Kos, Susan G of Dailykos, Adam Green of MoveOn.org, Jane Hamsher of Fire Dog Lake, Justin Krebs of Living Liberally, Ben Rahn of Act Blue and, of course, Matt Stoller and Chris Bowers of BlogPac. Given the panel of judges, even submitting an entry to the contest guarantees that your idea will be reviewed by a wide variety of progressive, “open left” leaders who can help it take flight!
Almost any project is open to consideration in this contest. It can be national, regional or local. It can focus on media, culture, social networking, direct action, research, elections, messaging and much more. It can work to expand the audience of progressive radio, book more progressives appear as commentators on cable news networks, or find ways for progressive bloggers to have access to health care. It can produce strategy guides for grassroots activists run for party office, train a new generation of activists in civil disobedience tactics, or help produce a progressive documentary. The only requirements to be considered for the contest are as follows:
The project on progressive infrastructure, not public policy. This contest is not trying to pass or propose specific legislation, but instead to build upon the architecture of the progressive movement.
The project cannot have received more than $25,000 in donations / revenue in the past calendar year.
Sending a description of your project, how it will help progressive infrastructure, how much money it needs, and how it will use that money to blogpacinfrastructure@yahoo.com.
Already, we have received more than two-dozen submissions for the contest. Keep them coming! There are a lot of good ideas out there in the progressive blogosphere, and we want to help those grassroots innovations get the support they need to really blossom. The deadline for submissions is 10 pm eastern on Tuesday, July 24th. That means you still have five days to enter, but it is best not to put these things off to the last minute.
I wanted to pass along this great announcement from the People for the American Way Voters Alliance.
We've made a commitment to support the infrastructure of the online progressive movement, and there's no better way to do that than supporting ActBlue," said People For the American Way Voters Alliance President Ralph G. Neas.
"And there's no better day to announce our partnership than Blogosphere Day. The power of ordinary Americans working together for change should never be underestimated. We're helping to build the infrastructure so that Americans can use that power to support progressive candidates, and elect the officials- Democrats, Republicans and Independents - a great democracy deserves.
I've also now posted a giant summation with quotes from all of the participants in Blogosphere Day here on the ActBlue Blog.
(Another Senator joins in on Blogosphere Day, this time, Chris Dodd. - promoted by KTatActBlue)
Today, Senator Dodd issued the following statement on Blogosphere Day and supporting ActBlue:
Today is the fourth annual Blogosphere Day and the netroots are coming together to support ActBlue. I congratulate ActBlue for their continued success as the online clearinghouse for Democratic action. They have helped Democratic candidates around the country and at all levels of government raise over $25 million since 2004.
Yesterday, blogger Matt Stoller wrote, "ActBlue is a representation of what is great about our country, that the principles of diversity, openness, transparency, and collective action can and do work." I couldn't agree more. ActBlue has set the ground for Democratic growth nationwide, by removing traditional barriers that have limited political participation.
ActBlue has enabled the Democratic grassroots to come together and effectively support Democratic success -- their work deserves wide recognition for its value.
As a candidate who has benefited from ActBlue's work, I'm proud to donate on Blogosphere Day in support of ActBlue's continued efforts to provide tools that enable all Democrats a chance to succeed and help turn America "blue."
Yesterday the Dodd campaign pushed back on Bill O'Reilly and Fox News for their smear of DailyKos. The outpouring of support was greatly appreciated. I have a write up of it on the Dodd Blog, but don't want to clutter the Open Left diary list and I thought this was more important.
Democrats have trouble being Democrats because of their fear of not being able to raise enough money. For over a quarter-century (as long as I've been involved in politics), I have seen one Democrat after another say to me that they have to be careful in what they say, cautious about going too hard after special interests even when the voters in their district overwhelmingly supported the progressive position, because they couldn't afford to alienate potential money contributors.
Now, there's no doubt that some of that attitude is actually an excuse, that some of these Democrats were just cautious by nature, or that they really were sympathetic to the drug companies and the big oil and insurance companies. But I also believe that part of it was very real, that worrying about how to raise the ungodly amounts of money that politicians need to raise does contribute mightily to the modern Democratic Party's biggest political problem: its culture of caution.
The only way to ultimately solve this at the federal level is to enact a public financing law for congressional campaigns. But absent that happening, a new PAC has given us the most important new weapon for overcoming big money that we've ever had: ActBlue. ActBlue allows small donors to organize themselves to raise real money for progressive candidates. With money, especially early money, driving so much about political campaigns today, from a candidate's credibility with the MSM to the perceptions of whether the campaign should be targeted by party committees and national PACs; from the ability to attract quality staff to the ability to do effective early targeting, polling, analysis, and research- early money is essential. And ActBlue allows regular folks, rather than just special interests, to organize themselves and get in the game. It allows all of us to influence how campaigns are perceived, and how well they are organized. Today, on Blogosphere Day, please give directly to ActBlue to allow them to keep building and expanding their ability to help all of us. Supporting ActBlue directly, allowing them to expand their reach, will do more to strengthen progressive politics than any other contribution you could make.
(Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois joins us here at Open Left and at Daily Kos with a message in support of ActBlue and Blogosphere Day! - promoted by KTatActBlue)
Today, on the 4th annual Blogosphere Day, I'm proud to join with you to celebrate democracy at its very best: Americans from coast-to-coast joining together, thanks to the power of the Internet, to change the direction of our great nation.
I'm a believer in the power of progressive blogs, and I've blogged about the need to build and fund the progressive blogosphere. Messages coordinated and distributed by blogs play are playing an important role in changing the debate in Washington; helping us fighting back against the right-wing narratives pushed out by the White House and carried by the press.
I've also watched the blogosphere rally together to support key candidates against incredible odds. You don't have to look any farther than my new colleague, Jim Webb, to see what a difference the blogs have made in Washington. The progressive blogosphere -- and ActBlue, which sent nearly $1 million to his campaign -- played a critical role in his upset victory over Sen. George Allen in Virginia.
That's why I'm happy to join with many others today in saluting ActBlue, an engine of the online progressive movement. ActBlue enables Democrats from all across America and all walks of life to work together, pooling their enthusiasm and financial support to elect candidates who share their progressive values. In the past three years alone, ActBlue has sent $25 million to 1700 Democratic candidates from more than 200,000 individual contributors, a critical factor in our ability to take back Congress in 2006.
When I entered the 2004 Presidential race, it was with the support of tens of thousands of Americans organizing online (and later translating it offline) to create a movement to change America. It opened my eyes to the power of the internet. Through message boards, email, blogs, etc., the barriers to entry to participate in the ongoing discourse that is democracy had been lowered, and millions of Americans joined in the conversation.
Some of the "guardians" of our political discourse have bemoaned this development. I welcome it. The netroots have opened up the table to new players, enriched our political discourse, and dismantled long-standing barriers to participation in media and politics. How can anyone deny these are positive developments in a democracy?
(Tim has played an instrumental role in both this and past year's Blogosphere Day. No better way to kick it off than with a message from Tagaris himself. - promoted by KTatActBlue)
Happy Blogosphere Day!
It seems like yesterday I was constantly clicking refresh while watching Ginny Schrader's fundraising numbers shoot through the roof on ActBlue.
Or 2005, as I sat in my Ohio apartment, talking on the phone with Hackett campaign staff while Bob Brigham noted the different blogs and institutions raising money for the OH-2 Special Election.
Or last year, at Ned Lamont's campaign headquarters, as your outpouring of support propelled the campaign to an unlikely primary victory.
But today, I didn't make a contribution to an individual candidate -- I made it to what is probably the most valuable piece of progressive infrastructure out there: ActBlue.
I recorded a short video talking about why I gave my $50 to ActBlue this blogosphere day, and I hope you'll join me in making this years' festivities even more exciting than the past three. -- Tim
STATE BLOGS
