Celebrating Blogosphere Day

Written by: Karl-Thomas Musselman on Jul 19, 2007 5:21 PM EDT

There is something special about this year's 4th Annual Blogosphere Day and I'd like to ask you to be a part of it with me.

Blogosphere day is a tradition of online activism that has seen candidates like Ginny Schrader in PA-08, Paul Hackett in OH-02, and Ned Lamont in the Connecticut Senate primary rise to national attention. Each year on July 19th, one of these campaigns has been the focus of the online community in conjunction with fundraising through the ActBlue portal.

According to DFA Chair Jim Dean:

Blogosphere Day celebrates the core principle of Democracy for America-- using collective grassroots power to effect political change.

Historically, the day has seen the netroots community coalesce behind emerging Democratic talent and propel progressive candidates to the national spotlight. This year, we recognize our friends at ActBlue for the instrumental role they play in that process.

ActBlue empowers individuals to fundraise for their selected candidates. In just three years, over $25 million has been raised for over 1700 candidates from over 200,000 donors. Those low dollar donations helpled Democrats retake majorities at the federal level and in state houses across the country in 2006. By helping ActBlue build and hone their infrastructure, we can ensure that thousands more progressive voices get heard in 2008 and continue our Democratic sweep. Please celebrate Blogosphere Day by contributing to ActBlue today.

This year the online community has given back- investing in ActBlue to allow for the development of online fundraising infrastructure to help candidates up, and most importantly, down the ballot. The tools and resources we've developed at ActBlue are changing Democratic politics, making it more, well, Democratic by allowing anyone to be a funraising and advocate for a campaign or slate of candidates.

I get to see this first hand every day in working with state level campaigns and online communities since I work at ActBlue. Being a steering committee member of Democracy for Texas as well, I have greatly enjoyed efforts to bring DFA and ActBlue closer together as our goals are very much in sync. In fact, I'll be in Orange County, CA this weekend as part of the DFA training there, talking about online fundraising! And the DFA community has already given over $5000 to 2007 Grassroots All-Star Charlie Brown via ActBlue.

I look forward to our continued success, both as ActBlue and DFA. If you feel that our efforts are noble and that our fiscally lean operation at ActBlue is worth your investment, I ask that you contribute via the link below which will credit Blog for America's collective efforts.

http://www.actblue.com/page/ab?refcode=DFA

Together we will work towards a more Democratic America from the bottom up.

Tags: