Uniting for impact

Semi-related update (blog family business). Take a peek at the Blog Family Birthday Calendar to see how many birthdays are coming up. I know I'm going to need some help remembering. Also, check out the page with Our Intentions, and let me know if there are any additions you would like me to make. Finally, if you click the bumper stickers on the upper left hand side of this page, it will take you to this link. Just wanted to mention that I've added a couple things there recently, like links to the Disabled Americans for Democracy Cafe Press store, and also a link where you can buy Diana in northern VA's book.

Have you seen this?

"Blog pioneer maps political strategy for 2008"

The blog pioneer the article is about is Jerome Armstrong. For anyone who needs a quick filling-in about who he is...

Armstrong is an evangelist for Democratic Internet activism, the founder of the blog Mydd.com, an alumnus of the Howard Dean campaign, and the co-author of a new book called Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics.

He coined the word "netroots" to describe a 21st century version of the grassroots, door-to-door, union-local politics that used to work so well for the Democrats in the last century.

I encourage people to read the whole post, as well as the comments, but in a nutshell, he's decided that Mark Warner is going to be his guy in 2008, and he, like Markos Moulitsas, is cool with what the party did to Paul Hackett.

So, as far as I can tell, both co-authors of "Crashing the Gate" were polite enough to close the gates behind them once they got in. They've *become* part of the establishment. What I'm trying to figure out is how the "little fish" bloggers can find an effective way to band together and have impact similar to that of Daily Kos...


...and to be enough of a presence and real, viable source of support so that future Paul Hacketts couldn't be so easily pressured out of races--knowing that they'd have us to turn to.

Daily Kos has become such an institution that many of the big name politicians now post diaries there. It has, for a lot of people, become synonymous with "Democratic blog". And the bigger it gets, the more "gravity", or pull it has, and the bigger it's *going* to get.

I certainly admire people who are pioneers, and appreciate their contributions. But more and more I realize these guys are not playing on the same team as me. So again, the question is, how do we unite with the people who *are* on our team in such a way that we can have a real impact.

**UPDATE: floridagal has a diary at Booman Tribune, An opinion about Crashing the Gate and the MSNBC article posted earlier and in it she references what she posted on this blog earlier this week about that book.

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