Cheryl R.

Name:	Cheryl R.
Location:	Tucson, AZ
Where I blog:	AuditAZ DailyKos Blog for America Bill Moyer's Journal Organic Consumers Association

My Experience in progressive politics:

I was always interested in politics but became super active in 2003 when I joined Howard Dean's campaign: fundraising, donating, visibility, phone banking, blogging, furnishing the local Dean office, etc. At the same time I took an 11-week study course on corporate personhood. I got to meet Howard at the 2003 Presidential Debates in Phoenix and worked night and day after that to help him win the Primary. I even donated to Truth & Hope to run radio ads in Vermont after Dean had suspended his campaign!

Since then I have volunteered for local, state and national progressive candidates from everything to city council to Congress and helped numerous progressive organizations, being a founding member of many. I have been a senior adviser, campaign manager, website developer and all around grunt worker too. I easily spent 8,000 hours in the past 5 years on activist work. I also do work with local and national organizations in addition to charity work. My work is not just in electoral politics but in sustainable living, environmental issues, election integrity, violence abatement, immigration and economic development.

My personal volunteering highlight:

There have been so many from meeting Howard Dean and Bill Moyers for the first time to meeting all the great activists from Blog for America--with whom I was corresponding for years before meeting in person. The Peace March in DC in 2005 and the Women's March for Life in 2004 were spectacular because I was able to hook-up with so many Deaniacs/Kossacks.

If you force me to pick one though, it would have to be in 2003 when Howard Dean used something I told him in his stump speech, immediately following my conversation with him. I really felt heard.

Steps I've taken to combine on-line and off-line action:

As much as I like to chat online, my work is a lot more extensive offline and I see the online tools as a way to connect, share resources, organize, and segue the two communities. My online activity since 2003 has greatly expanded my offline work, as well as my activist network. Democracy for America had a huge role when it was still the Dean campaign because I met so many great activists across the nation with whom I still communicate on a weekly basis and organize. In fact, many of my online activist pals have become good friends and in 2005 we took a month long trip across the upper Northeast together!

Why I want to attend Netroots Nation:

I have been trying to attend one or two activist training/conventions per year on my own tab since getting involved in the Dean campaign. The experience is invaluable on a lot of levels, but most importantly to me, to revitalize since doing a lot of activist work can really burn you out. Hooking up with fellow activists is replenishing and as important as the education and resources one gains. I haven't traveled in a year due to health/finances, and attending Netroots Nation is a needed respite.

This year in particular I really want to attend not only to spend time with the C for D group, BFAers and Kossacks, Arshad and other staff members, but Fran Vincent and the great Austin group is hosting. Their work on the 2005 DemocracyFest was spectacular. How could I NOT want to attend?

What I want to get out of Netroots Nation:

Networking with like minds, sharing resources and knowledge, learning new prospectives on current issues, taking tools back to help in my local activist work like I have done in the past when attending such events. I work and train other activists which I hope expands the movement one person at a time. These activist conventions are very empowering, especially when one has been dealt a lot of defeats against the machine.

What is a progressive activist:

The operative word being "progress", a progressive activist is someone who actively works in their local community and on a national scale to create long-term solutions to our societal problems in an egalitarian manner in which all people and their rights are respected. Band-Aid approaches and short-term thinking are not part of the true progressive vocabulary, because we see and work toward the larger picture as Howard Dean did with the 50-State Strategy (which is already paying off dividends).

How I think blogs fit into the progressive movement:

I don't think that Bush would have the 28% approval rating he has now or that 90% of the issues that are finally making it to the newsrooms of the MSM would have happened if not for blogs. In 2003 we were all insulted as "Kool-Aid kids" who were too busy drinking our "lattes and driving our Volvos" to have a smart opinion. The phenomenon that started with Howard Dean in 2003 has created this new equal playing field.

Barack Obama is now the benefactor from the hits Dean and his supporters took. We were ahead of our time in many ways and have brought in millions more bloggers, doing all kinds of excellent reporting and organizing on behalf of progressive issues. We (bloggers) created the community with the use of technology that has empowered the apathetic to go out and do something! Democrats have the best chance of taking the Presidency this year with a strong candidate in Obama and a huge grassroots movement.

How I think Democracy For America fits into the progressive movement:

Dean for America is where it all started. Howard truly was the internet candidate and that expanded into blogs like DailyKos getting huge exponential growth with many other bloggers that we long-timers recognize when we blog.

The core people from the beginning of DFA really took the words into action. From organizing the first blogger convention in 2004 from just a few of us tossing ideas around on the BFA blog (thanks Jessica!) to all the wonderful creativity that JC and Demetrius shared, the grassroots contributions are endless. So many went on to run for office and win (Rep. Marcia Moody) as well as become campaign leaders on other candidate's campaigns. DFA made progressive organizing fun and meaningful for a lot of people by providing that community way back when no one understood who we were or our power to change. The success of 2006 Congressional candidates to Obama's success can be attributed more than anything to the millions of activists who never give up.

Last but not least, DFA provides exceptional training and it is good to see Arshad move up within the organization. I took the training in Sierra Vista in 2006, and it was excellent.

In 10 words or less, create a bumper-sticker slogan against John McCain:

McCain's jive? Stealing taxpayer billions since Keating Five!