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While Americans remain focused like a laser on the utter personal tragedy wrought by Hurricane Katrina, the thinkers at the America Abroad section at TPMCafe already have begun to ponder the public policy implications of that tragedy.

Juliette Kayyem of Harvard University broached the subject first in a post she dubbed "The War on Katrina." "Consider this a marker for what seems to be of importance as we analyze how we did in confronting this tragedy," she wrote.

Kayyem first noted that while the response to the hurricane proves that mass evacuations are possible, officials must make sure they are "equally distributed." "How to inform segments of populations that simply may not have access to information (unlike those reading this blog) is a definite struggle -- whether because of economic, language or other reasons."

Next on the Kayyem's policy list: natural disasters as public-safety issues. "We are no longer talking about levies, but talking about looting," she wrote. "The federal presence early on is essential; no city ... can deal with this."

Third, she wondered whether the consolidation of emergency-response units into the Homeland Security Department a few years ago was the right course to take.

Kayyem's brainstorming prompted two additional questions from Bruce Jentleson of Duke University: 1) Where is the federal government spending its money, and could different budget priorities have forestalled much of the damage in New Orleans? And 2) has the "overdeployment" of National Guard troops to Iraq impeded the disaster relief here?

Lee Feinstein of the Council on Foreign Relations addressed some of the same issues as Kayyem and Jentleson and offered a few pointed observations. He noted, for instance, that "given the advance warning about the magnitude and force of this storm, the apparent lack of preparation and coordination of relief and recovery efforts is harder to explain."

And of the "shotgun marriage that is the Department of Homeland Security," he asked these questions: "Will or can an agency focused on withstanding and preventing a foreign terrorist attack provide the same high-level attention to natural disasters or domestic challenges? What does the lack of preparation for recovery and rescue after Katrina say about the DHS' readiness to manage the consequences of a catastrophic terrorist attack?"

UPDATE: A contributor at RedState.org challenged the left's argument that more federal spending in New Orleans could have prevented the damage from Katrina.

"The left would have us believe that the Bush administration purposefully underfunded the levees, and that this underfunding directly caused (or at minimum, contributed to) the catastrophe in New Orleans," the anonymous poster wrote. "This is wholly false. The idea that the White House and Congress should have magically foreseen a [Category 4-5 hurricane] coming down almost head-on onto New Orleans, and should have therefore increased funding for the levees, and that doing so would somehow have stopped this tragedy, is absurd."

Posted by at 05:03 PM | Comments (0)

President Bush is always in the sights of liberal bloggers determined to attack their nemesis for sleights both real and imagined. But August has been a particularly brutal month in the blogosphere for the leader of the free world.

A woman named Cindy has badgered Bush for most of the month outside his ranch in Crawford, Texas, in a vigil against the Iraq war. Now bloggers are rallying around a hurricane named Katrina to attack the president yet again for his extended break away from Washington.

AMERICAblog has led the charge, posting a series of increasingly pointed criticisms of Bush. John Aravosis is so aggravated by Bush's response to the disaster that he even chastised the Democratic Party for staying "silent about Bush's deadly vacuum of leadership."

BushTracker.net noted that Bush's current "vacation" amid disaster is not his first. "While the Indonesian tsunami hit near the holidays last December (making time off a little more logical), it took Bush several days to even make a statement about the suffering."

AMERICAblog harkened back even further, to a manmade disaster: the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. "So who else is having flashbacks to president MIA from 9/11?" Chris in Paris wrote in a reference to Bush's delay in returning to Washington then. "As the city of New Orleans struggles with looting, lack of police and equipment, Bush is nowhere near and is resting in the midst of chaos."

Both AMERICAblog and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos posted a photo of President Bush pickin' and grinnin' with country music star Mark Wills. "Good to see Bush has gotten on with his life," Moulitsas wrote. "He's gotten good at that."

At The Huffington Post, meanwhile, Robert F. Kennedy said the hurricane is the result of global warming, and he blamed that global warming on the poor leadership of men like Bush and Haley Barbour, the Republican governor of hard-hit Mississippi.

GOP Bloggers said such attacks are to be expected from "infantile" liberals: "Liberals have an infantile need to blame President Bush for everything that goes wrong in the world. This includes natural disasters, and Hurricane Katrina provides a fresh opportunity to blame it on global warming."

The aftermath of the hurricane also is a hot topic on conservative blogs, but they are focused on aspects like supporting relief efforts and stopping the looting.

Posted by at 09:19 AM | Comments (0)

Politics is a lot like football, and holding elective office, a lot like coaching. One day you're the goat who blew the big game with that final play call; the next day, you're the hero who led the team to a championship win. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., knows the feeling well after this week.

First Thune was the whipping boy for liberal bloggers overjoyed that South Dakota was set to lose Ellsworth Air Force Base in the latest round of base closings.

They were thrilled by the prospect not because they loathe Ellsworth AFB or South Dakota but because they despise Thune, the man who ousted Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle. And they were thrilled because Thune had said during last year's campaign that he would be in a better position than Daschle to save the B-1 bomber's home base because of his ties to President Bush.

The fact that conservative columnist Robert Novak cited the news as evidence of Thune's dimming star made the episode more delicious. The setup was just too perfect. How could the bloggers not gloat?

So gloat they did, starting with the ever-popular Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos, who took joy in seeing Novak, a target of the left all summer long, "cry over Thune's diminished star."

"[H]e's been made a fool by his own president, has proven his impotence to the [South Dakota] voters, and has likely lost 6,000 mostly GOP-leaning jobs in western South Dakota," Moulitsas wrote of Thune. "Not bad for a first-year senator."

Proud Liberal noted how quickly Thune's fate had changed: "The main theme of the Thune campaign ... was that Thune would be a more effective voice for South Dakota since he is in the majority party and he has/had a close relationship with Bush. Now, a mere 8-1/2 months into a SIX-YEAR term, that all seems like ancient history."

Fortunately for Thune, the storyline changed just as quickly in his favor, when the commission that picked the bases for closing reversed course on Ellsworth. The joyful jabs from liberals became ancient history, and conservative praise for Thune punctuated the blogosphere.

"The Democrats gloated when it looked like Ellsworth would be closed," Paul Mirengoff wrote at Power Line, "but now Thune gets the last laugh." GOP Bloggers added: " During his campaign against Tom Daschle, Thune said his relationship with Bush would help keep Ellsworth open. Well guess what? John Thune was right."

And in an allusion to Daily Kos' dismal record of endorsing political candidates, Little Green Footballs said mockingly: "Big oops, Kos! So what does that make -- 0-for-17?"

Moulitsas also addressed the issue after Ellsworth's salvation. Rather than give Thune any credit, though, he said someone "took pity" on the senator, and then Moulitsas took a poke at Bush for not protecting other bases dear to the hearts of Republican lawmakers. "That's what happens when you have an incompetent running the joint," Moulitsas wrote.

The takeaway for folks in the political game: The blogosphere is full of armchair quarterbacks, and their specialty is taking the lemonade you make from lemons and dumping that bittersweet concoction right square in your eyes.

Posted by at 11:34 AM | Comments (0)

That is the career path some fellow bloggers envision for Scott Ott, the conservative voice behind ScrappleFace and the author of "Axis of Weasels."

Their praise came this week after Ott penned the response that Ott's fans think President Bush should give to grieving mother and anti-war protestor Cindy Sheehan. She wants Bush to explain why her son, Casey, died in Iraq, and Ott gave Bush some free communications advice.

An excerpt: "Mrs. Sheehan, everyone dies. But few experience the bittersweet glory of death with a purpose -- death that sets people free and produces ripples of liberty hundreds of years into the future. Casey Sheehan died that freedom might triumph over bondage, hope over despair, prosperity over misery. He died restoring justice and mercy. He lived and died to help to destroy the last stubborn vestiges of the Dark Ages."

True to his fictional form, Ott presented the response as Bush's addendum to an "internal White House memo." But bloggers gave Ott his due credit.

Michelle Malkin said Ott's post "puts the focus back where it belongs" -- on finishing the work "thus far so nobly advanced" by American troops. And Common Sense for America noted that while Bush's response sprang from Ott's imagination, it should be real.

Jeff Harrell of The Shape of Days first raised the prospect of ScrappleFace getting a serious day job. "Get this guy a job in a press office, soonest," he wrote. And Lorie Byrd of PoliPundit took that idea a step further: "He should be writing for the president."

The writing "is eloquent and moving and thought provoking," Byrd wrote, "and I wish it had been included in the president's recent speeches. Excellent work, Mr. Ott."

Ott charges $3,000 per appearance to deliver his own speeches, so he knows the market well. Is anybody in the White House reading?

Posted by at 11:22 AM | Comments (0)

District of Columbia Mayor Anthony Williams launched his blog nearly two weeks ago, and it will be an interesting experience to watch. Although Williams has not offered any substance so far and has taken some constituency heat for largely ignoring the blog since its Aug. 15 opening, the two entries he has written indicate that Williams grasps the benefits of blogging.

First of all, the mayor said he is the one blogging. "While I'm proud of District government's communications staff," he wrote in the first post, "I believe that a blog can serve a useful purpose in connecting me and the citizens I serve." Consistent with that statement, the blog allows comments -- which is how Williams quickly learned that some people apparently will not tolerate superficial, once-a-week entries.

Second, Williams seems to appreciate that a blog is more than just a venue for regurgitating "blase press releases" and other content on his broader Web site.

"Generally speaking, I will try to be cogent and consistent," he wrote this week. "By this I mean: first, providing you observations you can't find elsewhere in over 100,000 pages of the Web site; and second, stating the same -- take your pick -- distinctive or disgusting comments, regardless of the audience and the circumstances. You should know my position on an issue, whether you agree with it or not."

Williams' staff also has been quick to implement suggestions about the blog from readers. More than one reader, for instance, called for posting comments in the traditional, reverse-chronological order. That change has been made.

And the mayor is just as quick to give his blog-related advice to his online audience. "[T]he blog is not a service request line. ... [I]t would be really helpful if you would call 727-1000, or write dc.gov," Williams wrote. "Get a tracking number. And if the service isn't helpful, let me know by sharing with me your tracking number. Giving me information on what, where, why and how is helpful. Making an expressive but not very helpful comment on ignorant public officials or employees isn't."

Finally, the mayor deserves praise for demanding accountability and civility at his blog: "I don't accept anonymous entries and apply other commonly accepted standards of decency."

I will check the blog periodically to see how committed Williams is to using the technology effectively, but the early signs are encouraging. The capital city's blog may well become a good model for other public officials inside the Beltway.

Posted by at 11:15 AM | Comments (0)

First came the PLAN, and now comes the Agenda -- the Agenda for Justice, that is.

The group is another piece in the "netroots" puzzle aimed at reshaping the Democratic Party. It launched a public Web site today, a little more than a week after the official kickoff of the Progressive Legislative Action Network. The Agenda for Justice is "dedicated to supporting community groups, labor unions and grassroots activists working on behalf of progressive policy," and it has a blog to help further that mission.

PLAN technically has no blog of its own, but founder David Sirota blogs at his own site and for The Huffington Post.

Chris Bowers of MyDD plugged both groups in a lengthy post about why the Democrats' return to power "will be led not by the policy wonks, long dominant within the party, but instead by the unsung and unappreciated hacks."

He also gave his reasoning for why that movement must start locally. "We are going to need an alternative agenda that has not only a practical appeal but an ideological one," Bowers wrote. "We are going to have to start implementing this agenda at the local and statewide level because right now we simply can't implement one in Washington."

Posted by at 04:13 PM | Comments (0)

The controversy surrounding the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame has lost much of its cache in the blogosphere, but Rep. Rush Holt will be doing his part to revive it come the first week of September.

The New Jersey Democrat will be the guest blogger at TPMCafe the week of Sept. 5. TPMCafe founder Josh Marshall said Holt will discuss the Plame case and a series of pending "resolutions of inquiry" that would compel the White House and key Bush administration agencies to release information on the case.

Posted by at 12:53 PM | Comments (1)

I have added several blogs to the list on the left in recent weeks, and I wanted to make note of those I have not mentioned in previous posts. Some of the blogs are new to the Internet; I just learned of others through my contacts and wanderings in the blogosphere. Here are the newcomers:

Blogger Relations Blog: Issue Dynamics Inc., a firm that specializes in public relations and Internet strategy consulting, is the brains behind this blog. It's a spin-off of the "blogger relations" practice IDI formally launched in June. The unit helps companies create, participate in, monitor, and advertise on blogs.

Environmental Economics: The goal here is "the dissemination of economists' views on current environmental and natural resource issues." The lead bloggers are Tim Haab of Ohio State University and John Whitehead of Appalachian State University. One of the many listed guest contributors is Matt Clark of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Facing South: Published by the Institute for Southern Studies, the blog is the liberal organization's latest tool for grassroots activists, community leaders, scholars, policymakers and others working "to build a better South."

The Has Been: Bruce Reed writes this blog for Slate, and I guess that is "has been" as in former domestic policy adviser to Bill Clinton. But Reed still has a decent day job as president of the moderate Democratic Leadership Council -- well, not a great job in the eyes of Markos Moulitsas at Daily Kos.

Just Democracy Blog: Advancement Project, a civil rights organization, launched this effort last week. The mission of the blog is twofold: to draw attention to the project's "core work" on issues like voting rights and to experiment with ways of advancing the debate about racial justice.

Mystery Pollster: The editor's name is not the mystery. The blog is authored by Mark Blumenthal, a partner in the Bennett, Petts and Blumenthal firm who has been doing polling for Democratic candidates for nearly two decades.

Reasoned Audacity: Blogger Charmaine Yoest is a senior fellow for the Family Research Council and helped coordinate bloggers who attended that group's Justice Sunday II in Nashville 10 days ago. She also works with the Center for Military Readiness and National Council for Adoption.

Posted by at 12:40 PM | Comments (0)

Mark Tapscott of the Heritage Foundation's Center for Media and Public Policy was so inspired by the weekend document dive into the records of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts that he hopes bloggers will tackle federal spending bills and regulations next.

The coordinated document search by bloggers across the country "is significant for many reasons, not the least of which is that it illustrates what can be accomplished via the concentrated power of bloggers as journalists," Tapscott wrote at Tapscott's Copy Desk. He then argued that citizen journalists should be corraled to take equally thorough and critical looks at the work product of elected officials and bureaucrats.

"Having the actual text available to the blogosphere before the final vote on that outrageous transportation bill, with its 6,500-plus pork-barrel projects, might well have forced major amendments to the measure or perhaps even a public outcry that could have forced a complete rewriting," he said. "At the very least, public understanding of what Congress is doing would have been much better."

Tapscott left open the idea of what to call such an effort, but "blog slog" is a natural fit. The term already has an apt definition -- "the activity of social networking and blogging together in a combined environment" -- and the traditional meaning of "slog" also perfectly describes what it takes to review the work of the federal government.

Posted by at 04:25 PM | Comments (1)

The Sunshine State could become the first battleground between two blawgmakers -- well, make that one former lawmaker who blogs now (ex-Rep. Joe Scarborough) and one lawmaker whose press staff currently blogs for her (Rep. Katherine Harris).

Harris has been leading the Republican pack for the GOP Senate nomination in Florida next year. But because she is lagging Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson in the polls, Republican Party leaders have been trying, unsuccessfully, to recruit another candidate.

Their latest target, according to AP, is Scarborough, who is currently a talk-show host with strong ratings for MSNBC. He said he has discussed a bid with GOP officials and has not yet ruled out a run.

If Scarborough were to join the race and voters were to cast their ballots based on who has the best blog, Scarborough would win easily. For one thing, he actually writes his blog, while Harris' deceptively named "Katherine's Blog" is authored by her staff, albeit as if she were writing.

But Scarborough's blog also is more engaging. Though his posts are irregular at best, he tackles some hot topics with the kind of barbs you would expect of a talking head. Take this snippet from his most recent entry on new U.N. Ambassador John Bolton: "[T]he charges against Bolton were always pathetic. We learned Mr. Bolton had once slammed a phone on the hook. Another testified that Bolton ran down a hall and shoved a document under a fellow diplomat's door! Egad! This man is a beast!"

The softball fare at Harris' blog, by contrast, consists of humdrum posts about economic figures, House floor action and the like. Not many voters will be inspired by the banter they find there.

Bloggers, meanwhile, already are commenting on the prospects of a Harris-Scarborough match-up. The early analysis at PoliPundit: "Frankly, I suspect Bill Nelson is smiling. If Scarborough runs, we'll see a contested GOP primary, in an expensive state, involving two regional types of candidates -- thereby draining resources away from the real campaign in the fall."

UPDATE: Scarborough announced over the weekend that he will not challenge Harris for the nomination, The Pensacola News Journal reports.

Posted by at 12:45 PM | Comments (0)

Some folks love to root through other people's trash in search of unrealized treasures, and now that "dumpster diving" tradition has an intellectual equivalent online: bloggers who are rooting through the boxes of documents on Supreme Court nominee John Roberts.

The documents consist of 5,393 pages from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and are from 34 folders identified by Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee as files of particular interest, according to U.S. Archivist Allen Weinstein, whose office released them last week. The library posted electronic versions of some of the documents, and on Friday conservative blogger Hugh Hewitt invited his readers to "adopt a box of Roberts documents for careful review and analysis."

"My guess is that most of these scribblers have never used an archive before and don't know how to look," Hewitt wrote in an earlier post about journalists digging through the boxes. So he decided to prove that "citizen journalists" can do the job just as good or better. Now a whole crew of volunteer bloggers is trying to make sense of the Roberts documents before he is ever grilled by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Radioblogger is keeping a master list of the effort -- a project he dubbed "one of the first ever blog directories of Supreme Court analysis."

The document divers are clearly wary of liberals who may be looking for even the flimsiest evidence to attack Roberts. Mark Tapscott of Tapscott's Copy Desk, for instance, said there is "no bad news in Abortion 1," the first box of documents, but he issued a warning about "one sentence that liberals might construe as being critical of the 14th Amendment." And after examining Roberts' comments on the laws of war Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters posted a commentary slugged "The Coming Smear In Box 31?"

Morrissey also reviewed a box related to "the arcane but politically potent issue of home rule for the District of Columbia" and concluded that "given the proximity and the sensitivity of D.C. home rule to the Senate, it could provide for some inside-the-Beltway debate in the upcoming hearings." Dafydd ab Hugh, another blogger at Captain's Quarters, examined more documents related to the issue.

But the documents do not appear to be yielding many valuable insights into Roberts. Phrases like "no blockbuster revelations" and "seems to be pretty tame" are commonplace in the blogger critiques available so far.

Posted by at 08:33 PM | Comments (0)

Ohio Gov. Bob Taft pleaded "no contest" last week to four misdemeanor ethics charges, and now leading bloggers in his own Republican Party are urging him to resign.

The criminal charges stemmed from Taft's failure to disclose the details of golf outings, sports tickets, meals and gifts he received from lobbyists and businessmen. He issued an apology for his actions, as ordered by the judge in the case.

But an apology is not enough for either RedState.org or GOP Bloggers. Both blogs urged Taft to resign.

The "point of view" issued by RedState's directors said Taft's problems reflect a Republican establishment in Ohio that "has lost its way. ... The Ohio Republican Party has a great history, and it should stand up for the principles of the party by tossing Governor Taft before he does more damage. Without new ideas and fresh energy, the Ohio Republican Party might just meet the fate of the Republicans in Illinois or the congressional Democrats in 1994."

The time-to-go post at GOP Bloggers conveyed a similar message. "Well, he's one of ours and we were willing to give him every benefit of the doubt -- but now that he's plead no-contest to several criminal acts, it is time for Governor Taft to act in the best interests of the people of Ohio and resign the governorship immediately. ... [He] cannot be an effective force in the government of Ohio because he cannot command any loyalty and his besmirched honor prevents the rest of Ohio's political establishment from being identified with him."

An article in The Blade of Toledo, however, suggests that the effort to get Taft to resign will be a tough sell to Ohio's GOP establishment. Many county chairmen for the party do not share that opinion, the paper said.

Posted by at 03:56 PM | Comments (0)

Rep. Major Owens is not happy about U.S. policy toward Haiti, and he took his gripes to The Huffington Post earlier this week.

Owens recalled that in this year's State of the Union address, President Bush cited the spread of freedom as one of his goals. But then Owens blasted the Bush administration for not applying that principle to Haiti, a troubled country only 600 miles from American soil.

"For the rest of the world, freedom is Bush's primary export," Owens wrote. "But for Haiti, this White House regime has boldly dumped an epidemic of terror."

Owens' post includes a rap poem titled "Napolean's Revenge." Rap poems may well become the New York Democrat's signature in the blogosphere. He included another one called "Apologies Are Real Cool in his first appearance at The Huffington Post last month.

I'm an enlightened redneck and country music fan from West Virginia, so I'll leave it to someone more qualified than me to critique Owens' work as a rapper. But by all means, critique away in the comments section. I'd love to hear what you have to say.

Posted by at 03:23 PM | Comments (0)

The blogger who co-founded Democracy Project is now embarking on a journalistic project for the American Enterprise Institute. Winfield Myers is the new managing editor of The American Enterprise magazine.

The demands of the new job will keep Myers from blogging in the future. "Mostly, it's a matter of time: I just can't pull off so many commitments simultaneously," he noted in his "Bowing Out" post today.

"While we've never tried to enter the upper echelons of the blogosphere -- frankly, we never had the time to post 'round the clock -- we have had some notable successes," he added. "From Condoleezza Rice cartoons to the FEC's efforts to limit Internet speech, on to the truth about Gitmo, Rathergate in cultural context, and the ongoing efforts to spread democracy to North Korea and the Middle East, we've covered a wide variety of topics."

Myers is not the only Democracy Project contributor with Washington ties. Earlier this year, COO Brent Tantillo started work as the counsel and legislative assistant for education issues to Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo. Tantillo is still blogging for Democracy Project.

Posted by at 03:17 PM | Comments (0)

Conservative blogger Hugh Hewitt penned a column for the conservative Weekly Standard today. Now conservative bloggers are going gaga over all the praise Hewitt heaped on his compatriots in the center-right blogosphere.

The liberal blogosphere had similar experiences last week upon the release of a report about the growth of the "progressive blogosphere" and earlier this week upon the launch of the Progressive Legislative Action Network.

Who said the blogosphere is an echo chamber?

If you want to read what conservative bloggers are saying about Hewitt's column, go to Captain's Quarters, La Shawn Barber's Corner, Power Line and Tapscott's Copy Desk.

Hewitt also has a follow-up post on the tag-team reporting of bloggers who are investigating the funding scandal surrounding the liberal Air America Radio. Michelle Malkin, one part of the duo, links to Hewitt's post.

Hewitt's column is definitely worth a read, by the way, as is his book "Blog: Understanding the Information Revolution That's Changing Your World." The book helped shaped the philosophy behind Beltway Blogroll and earned a mention in my opening column, "The Power Of The Blog."

Posted by at 04:51 PM | Comments (1)

An elected official in San Francisco who has a blog is irate over the actions of a one-time political ally who now runs an online news site. And now the spat between Supervisor Chris Daly and San Francisco Sentinel founder Pat Murphy is part of the public record because Daly has requested an investigation into Murphy's efforts to raise money for his publication.

The San Francisco Chronicle has the details on the fight. Daly also issued a press release on his site, and on his blog he lamented Murphy's change of attitude about Daly.

Although the Sentinel is not technically a blog, Allison Hayward of Skeptic's Eye, an expert in campaign finance law, comments on the potential legal implications the complaint has for bloggers. "If a political blog has a fundraiser," she wrote, "is it a 'political fundraiser?' That appears to be the argument here, and is a point with obvious weaknesses."

Earlier this year, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors enacted rules that require people who produce campaign communications, including those on the Internet, to register with the city. The move came just after a blog swarm against the Federal Election Commission for weighing similar rules. The San Francisco board ultimately decided to exempt bloggers from the law.

Posted by at 12:46 PM | Comments (0)

The Progressive Legislative Action Network, one of the groups on the blogroll to the left, officially launched this week, and David Sirota, the brains behind the network, celebrated the event with entries at his own blog and at The Huffington Post.

The goal of the group is to push progressive legislation in every state. It's the policy equivalent of the 50-state political strategy espoused by Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. John Edwards, the 2004 Democratic candidate for vice president, is the keynote speaker for the Seattle kickoff of PLAN.

The effort has captured the attention of various blogs, including Facing South, MyDD, Schweitzer for President and Swing State Project.

Posted by at 05:15 PM | Comments (0)

Andrew Raseij wants to be the next public advocate of New York City, but this week the tech-savvy Democrat is an advocate of a different sort. He wants more politicians to "get it" when it comes to incorporating technology into the way they work, and he is using his bully pulpit as the guest blogger at TPMCafe to work toward that goal.

Raseij, a founder of Personal Democracy Forum, has a blog at his campaign site, and he is befuddled by how few politicians are using such tools themselves. His first post at TPMCafe lamented the fact that John Edwards preceded Raseij as a guest blogger on the site but did not have a blog during his failed presidential campaign -- and that Edwards still does not appear to be the voice behind the blog at his One America Committee. And Raseij wondered aloud about what might have been "if John Kerry had actually participated in a real conversation with his supporters."

"[S]omething hugely important and exciting is happening on the Internet, where people are connecting along common concerns and using new technology to empower themselves to identify problems, offer solutions and force the system to respond," Raseij wrote. "How much longer should we wait until we get some politicians who get it?"

He closed with this prediction: "The political party that figures this stuff out wins."

Posted by at 04:47 PM | Comments (0)

The unexpectedly strong showing of Democrat Paul Hackett in Ohio's Aug. 2 special House election has Democratic bloggers pumped about their party's political prospects. But an increasingly bitter battle between the Democratic "netroots" and the Washington establishment over the party's political strategy and policy priorities could undermine such efforts.

	"Every Republican should be on notice," one Dem blogger warns. "But so should the Democratic establishment."

The upstarts who believe that every GOP seat should be contested have had their fill of campaign "experts," especially those at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and right now they are attacking their own party as harshly as they do the enemy.

"Every Republican should be on notice," said Bob Brigham, a blogger at Swing State Project who traveled to Ohio's 2nd District in the last days of Hackett's race. "But so should the Democratic establishment."

The netroots have a bold vision that is based on the 50-state strategy of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, the party gadfly whose 2004 presidential campaign ignited the fire within the belly of the liberal blogosphere. John Kerry doused Dean's flame in that race, but the "Deaniacs" are true believers in his often-liberal ideology and unconventional thinking.

Their determination to fight everywhere, and to use in-your-face, sometimes vulgar rhetoric about the war in Iraq and the GOP "culture of corruption," was apparent immediately after Hackett's defeat. At TPMCafe, blogger Josh Marshall invited readers to name vulnerable Republicans. The query elicited several typical responses, like incumbents who won with 55 percent of the vote or less in 2004, but the tone of the comments suggested a passion for unrestrained political warfare.

One reader calling himself "Electoral Math" pointed to a blog-published list that identified the House races won by less than 20 percent. That kind of spread is unlikely to prompt many bets from the DCCC or any other Washington-based campaign group, but the reader saw reason for confidence. "A 12-point swing takes every seat on that list," he wrote. "A more modest six-point swing takes 29 out of 47."

Nebraska Democrats, meanwhile, already have adopted a 93-county strategy. And a New Jersey group called the Blue 7th PAC is targeting Republican Mike Ferguson, who won 57 percent of the vote in 2004. No Democrat is in the race yet, but that doesn't matter to the PAC. It has a Dump Mike Blog and on Saturday will host an old-school political event with a netroots twist: a picnic to raise money for an unknown candidate.

Brigham is part of a similar effort in California. He is the treasurer of the new Leave No District Behind PAC, which organized quickly after Hackett's loss in Ohio. The PAC will send a campaign manager, field director, finance manager, communications director and scheduler to the 48th District, a heavily Republican seat recently vacated by now-Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox. All five people worked together in Ohio.

Brigham said the district is "the reddest of the red" and features an expensive media market. "Instead of betting on 30-second ads, we're going to bet on a team of passionate individuals." There is no candidate for now, but he said, "Forget the candidate; we have a campaign to win."

MyDD also is pushing hard to generate enthusiasm in California's 48th, and Daily Kos is showcasing the race, too. Both of those blogs, as well as Brigham's Swing State Project, played significant roles in driving money and volunteers to Hackett after the blog swarm began in Ohio.

Brigham added that many top-notch bloggers are within an hour's drive of the 48th and could be key players in that battle, just like the Ohio 2nd blog and others were from the outset of Hackett's race. "I'm hoping to see one of those in every district," he said.

Brigham, whose profanity-laced tirades against the DCCC and Chairman Rahm Emanuel are becoming legendary, condemns the Democratic establishment for not sharing the every-state, every-district mindset and for saving its money for late-campaign television ads. "Instead of war-chest stockpiling," he said, "campaigns need to invest on the ground, in the people."

But DCCC communications director Bill Burton defended the committee's work. He said Democrats now have more than 30 candidates to contest GOP-held House seats in 2006 -- 10 times more than the same point in 2003 -- and the DCCC "has broken records every quarter" of 2005 in fundraising. "What's realistic," he said, "is us expanding the playing field, which is exactly what we're doing. ... We think that we can really be competitive in a lot of GOP districts."

Burton also said numerous bloggers, including ArchPundit, Seeing the Forest and Sisyphus Shrugged, remain on good terms with the DCCC. "It's an ongoing relationship and a successful one," he said.

The DCCC has reached out to Brigham and other influential Democratic bloggers. Executive Director John Lapp posted an entry at MyDD the day after Hackett's loss, and Emanuel held a conference call with bloggers a week later. DCCC blogger Jesse Lee even tried Brigham's rhetorically brutal tactics in a defensive post at The Stakeholder -- one that he later softened.

But both Brigham's response to Emanuel's conference call and Seeing the Forest's agreement with Brigham's take show that the rift between the Democratic netroots and the political establishment remains wide. "I'm holding out hope for Emanuel. I'm waiting to be inspired," Brigham wrote. "But nothing leads me to believe that the DCCC realizes the importance of investing early and running full campaigns."

If necessary, Brigham added in an interview, the netroots are ready to take the fight to the GOP front lines themselves, with the help of groups like Democracy for America, MoveOn and Project 90, an initiative of former Dean campaign worker Walter Ludwig to recruit Democrats for races in Republican-dominated districts.

"The DCCC is not the only game in town when it comes to fighting for congressional districts," Brigham said. "It's no longer just the official wing of the party that fights."

Posted by at 08:06 AM | Comments (1)

Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a slain soldier in the Iraqi war, is getting all kinds of coverage -- both pro and con, in both the mainstream media and on the blogs -- for her ongoing protest outside the Texas ranch of President Bush. Her friends include two members of Congress who have made appeals on her behalf in the blogosphere.

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., posted an item at Daily Kos earlier this week. The entry included the text of a letter from Conyers and several other lawmakers that asked Bush to meet with Sheehan. "We have no illusions that the intercession of members of Congress will change the president's mind more than Cindy can," he wrote, "but we think it is important for all of us to show our support for Cindy ... in whatever way we can."

And Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., added his thoughts at The Huffington Post yesterday. "If we weren't watching this tragedy unfold in Texas with our own eyes, who would believe that a sitting president who had ordered soldiers off to war would not meet with the grieving mother of a fallen hero?" he wrote, failing to mention that Bush met with Sheehan once before. "Who could imagine that America could turn so cold and callous in a searing hot and dusty place?"

Former presidential candidate and Sen. Gary Hart, D-Colo., also shared his thoughts on Sheehan's crusade at The Huffington Post, and so did Sheehan, who called this "George Bush's Accountability Moment."

UPDATE: Via The Huffington Post, two more House lawmakers have added their voices to the chorus of support for Sheehan. Here are excerpts of what they have to say (and links to their full blog postings):

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif.: "The Republican majority in Congress has put party before country, refusing to ask any of the hard questions about the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, because those questions could damage the Bush administration's already weak credibility. By seeking answers to these questions, Cindy is simply doing the job that Congress should have already begun but has failed to."

Rep. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.: "One of the greatest concerns I have about [officials in] the Bush administration is their unwillingness to discuss issues with people whose positions are different than theirs. The president should hear firsthand from a woman whose views reflect those of tens of millions of Americans who believe that we have got to begin bringing our troops home as soon as possible."

Posted by at 04:11 PM | Comments (0)

John Conyers of Michigan, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, has led the charge against legislation to renew the anti-terrorism law known as the USA PATRIOT Act, and he is not taking a break during the August congressional recess.

Yesterday he pointed readers of ConyersBlog t