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August was a bad month for congressional incumbents, and September already is looking to be equally tough on lawmakers who face intraparty challenges.

Just this week, Democratic bloggers started swarming against Rep. Albert Wynn of Maryland and for his Democratic challenger, Donna Edwards. And up in Rhode Island today, the latest poll puts Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee far behind challenger Steve Laffey, who has the support of conservative bloggers. The tally has Laffey at 51 percent and Chafee at 34 percent.

Both states hold their primaries Sept. 12.

The Rhode Island poll results triggered a flurry of blog commentary today. Moderate Republicans see a Laffey win in September as a sure loss of a Senate seat for the GOP in the fall, and Democratic bloggers eagerly expect the same result.

GOPProgress lashed out at The Club For Growth, a Laffey ally that has used its blog to both promote his candidacy and attack Chafee.

"The Club for Growth is doing a fantastic job of forcing a split within the GOP, which is leaving Republicans fighting Republicans, instead of Republicans -- united -- fighting Democrats," GOPProgress editor Liz Mair wrote. She also called attention to GOP electoral squabbles in Colorado, Michigan and Nevada.

Balloon Juice argued that the contest in Rhode Island merits the same kind of attention that the media dedicated to the fight between Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman and Ned Lamont in neighboring Connecticut earlier this summer. "Some days I wonder whether many in the news media personally identify with Lieberman so that his defeat is theirs," Tim F. said of the unequal treatment of the two races.

Democratic bloggers at MyDD and Swing State Project rejoiced at the poll results from Rhode Island. The latter predicted that "a Laffey candidacy will be a windfall for Democratic nominee Sheldon Whitehouse" and the national Democratic Party, which then could direct more financial resources to other Senate races.

But conservative bloggers appear ready to fight in Rhode Island and to force Democrats to do the same. The Club For Growth and RedState helped Tim Walberg defeat moderate GOP Rep. Joe Schwarz in Michigan earlier this month, and now the two are firmly behind Laffey now. In the Rhode Island battle, RedState published a podcast with Laffey today, and club blogger Andy Roth, borrowing a page from RedState in the Michigan race, has been listing 20 reasons to dump Chafee.

If Laffey wins the primary, his candidacy could become a test case for gauging the electoral power of the conservative blogosphere to prevail in a general election, just as Lamont's candidacy is for the liberal blogosphere now that Lieberman is seeking a rematch as an independent.

Posted by Danny at 06:05 PM | Comments (0)

Technology has a tendency to take root unevenly across the nation, and that is proving to be true with the political blogosphere, too. Political blogs are virtually unheard of in many states, but they are becoming a powerful force in others.

Virginia is an example of the latter, and The Virginian-Pilot has the proof in a laudatory editorial published yesterday. Here is an excerpt:

Last Friday, former Gov. Mark. R. Warner dropped by RaisingKaine.com to answer questions and drum up support for Jim Webb even as future gubernatorial hopeful Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling was preparing to give a speech in person to a bipartisan gathering of bloggers in Martinsville.

The former governor and future presidential candidate's "live-blogging" came a couple of days after Sen. George Allen's campaign started working with the proprietor of the state's most powerful conservative blog, VaConservative.com to hire a blogger and develop a blog "strategy" for the Republican's Senate campaign.

On Saturday, Attorney General Bob McDonnell addressed the same crowd of bloggers Bolling had the night before, followed by U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, John Brownlee.

The newspaper noted that some people are not too excited by the prospect that the influence of political blogs in the state will continue to grow. They lament blogs' "penchant for fierce partisanship and fact-free opinionizing."

"But judging the blogosphere by its worst members is like judging The New York Times by Jayson Blair, a foolish oversimplification," the editorial concluded. "Over time, blogs will be judged by readers. Those who keep their facts straight and their analysis honest will thrive, while others will wither into obscurity. In the meantime, the more voices that are part of Virginia's debates, the better off we all are."

Posted by Danny at 09:23 AM | Comments (0)

Democratic bloggers have invested as much or more of their rhetorical energy into attacking lawmakers in their own party this year as they have Republicans.

Their first target was Rep. Henry Cuellar in Texas' 28th District. Bloggers backed former Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, only to see him go down to defeat in the March primary.

Their biggest obsession since then has been Democratic Senate candidate Ned Lamont in Connecticut, who defeated Sen. Joseph Lieberman in the Aug. 8 primary. Blogs also played a role in the House primary defeat of Georgia Democrat Cynthia McKinney to Hank Johnson the same day.

So who's next on the list? It might be Rep. Albert Wynn, D-Md. He is facing a spirited challenge from Donna Edwards, and MyDD's Matt Stoller both took up her cause and trashed Wynn on Friday. Stoller called Edwards "an extremely principled and savvy progressive," and he labeled Wynn "a terrible congressman," "a villain" and "a terrible politician."

Stoller argued that an ugly scene at a debate between the two last week might indicate that the race is at a turning point in Edwards' favor. "Well, Donna Edwards now has an opening, and a real shot at a victory," he said. "The race is competitive, and if she can raise her ID enough she can take Wynn down."

His arguments persuaded one reader unimpressed by the "Lieberman-esque Wynn" to toss his financial support toward Edwards. That reader happens to live in the congressional district and also held open the possibility of volunteering for Edwards. Two other readers said Stoller's post prompted them to make donations of $25 and $100 to Edwards.

She already is on her way to being the next Lamont. The question is whether Wynn will become the next Lieberman. Maryland voters will decide Sept. 12.

UPDATE: Jonathan Tasini of New York wishes he were the next Lamont, but so far, the New York Post reports that the netroots have not taken up his cause in Tasini's challenge to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. (Hat tip to Instapundit.)

UPDATE II: Stoller made official his crusade against Wynn and for Edwards. Americablog, Daily Kos, Eschaton and Firedoglake promptly joined the crusade, so the swarm once again is in full attack mode.

Edwards also won the endorsement of The Washington Post.

Posted by Danny at 08:15 AM | Comments (2)

TPM Muckraker got an aide to Sen. Ted Stevens to acknowledge that the Alaska Republican is behind the "secret hold" on legislation designed to combat pork-barrel spending by federal lawmakers.

Cox Newspapers also did a story today on the disclosure and Stevens' reason for the hold. He said the anti-pork bill needs a cost-benefit analysis on the grounds that it could increase bureaucracy.

Mark Tapscott, whose vision triggered the blog swarm over the secret hold, ridiculed Stevens' explanation. "How about we do a cost-benefit analysis of Stevens' tenure in the nation's Capitol?" Tapscott said of the senator whose love of pork has animated bloggers for months.

Stevens' aide also said this to Cox Newspapers: "Senator Stevens has always preferred to handle this at the staff level or member to member. He doesn’t like running to the blogosphere or the media. ... Going to the blogs and the media with these concerns is not the way we have ever operated.”

The gentleman from Alaska might want to reconsider that approach in light of what has transpired the past two weeks. This is the information age, and people aren't content for their elected representatives to keep information to themselves or their aides.

Posted by Danny at 04:23 PM | Comments (0)

Every August, lawmakers leave Washington for relaxing summer vacations, taxpayer-funded junkets abroad, low-key field hearings and high-dollar fundraisers. In even-numbered years, the few incumbents whose jobs are threatened have more hectic campaign schedules, but for the most part, lawmakers don't have to answer tough questions in the month whose name is linked to external triumph and internal peace in the Roman Empire.

Not so this August -- at least not for the 100 unfortunate souls who happen to hold U.S. Senate seats when bloggers across the political spectrum are in a feisty mood. Those bloggers are hot and bothered not by the temperature and summer humidity but instead by the time-honored Senate tradition known as the "secret hold," and they are doing their best to break that hold against policymaking accountability.

The procedural hold in this case is on a bill that would create a public, searchable Web site of all federal grants and contracts in an effort to deter pork-barrel spending in lawmakers' states and districts. Senate tradition allows senators to place such holds anonymously as a way to delay or prevent floor action.

The year-old blog-inspired Porkbusters brigade took up the cause against the current hold several days ago, with Instapundit as one of the leaders. In recent days, the moderate Republican blog GOPProgress and the liberal TPM Muckraker have joined the fight.

Other blogs either involved in the effort or that have plugged it include Captain's Quarters, the Center for Citizen Media, The Club For Growth, Craigblog, Daily Kos and the Sunlight Foundation blog In Broad Daylight. "Here's a no-brainer, zero-cost, pure people-power issue for Democrats to latch onto for November: Get rid of this 'secret hold' crap in the Senate," SusanG wrote at Daily Kos.

Writers and readers of the participating blogs are calling senators and demanding to know whether they are behind the anonymous hold, and the bloggers are tallying the lists of denials and remaining suspects. As of yesterday, they had narrowed the list of suspects to less than a half-dozen (differences exist in the lists on each blog).

"I think we will see the unmasking next week," said Mark Tapscott, the editorial-page editor of The Examiner and the blogger who on Aug. 16 first invited his online colleagues to tackle the issue. "And between that and the coming revelations produced by our earmarks project, the blogosphere's capacity to influence major policy directions in Congress will be clearly established."

The issue also has spurred two laudatory posts by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., at his VOLPAC blog. "This is a moment for participatory democracy in action, an unprecedented cooperation between Senate leadership and the blogosphere to pass a bill," he wrote.

Blogger Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters also put questions about the hold and the bill directly to Frist on Tuesday when he was in Minneapolis, and Frist publicly praised the work of bloggers again.

"The first step is to put it out there so people can read it," Frist said of the legislation. "Probably only 10 of 100 people have read it. But when we get back [to Washington next week], people will know about it because you all have done such a great job with it."

Other bloggers, including Robert Bluey of Capital Briefs, previously vowed to hold Frist himself accountable for following through on getting the anti-pork measure to the floor. But Kathryn Jean Lopez of The Corner remained skeptical (at least she was last week, before the outcry against anonymous holds crossed partisan lines) that anything good will come of the latest blog swarm.

"I have my doubts anything will happen -- and gauging the mood of some Senate staff yesterday I didn't notice optimism but the same-old-Senate realism in the air," she wrote. "Bill Frist could have made some news yesterday; instead he just used the blogosphere to expand his misleadership."

Whatever the outcome on exposing the hold against the anti-pork bill, blogger Tim Chapman of the Heritage Foundation warned his conservative colleagues against scrapping the hold in general. He said it has proved to be a valuable procedural tool for stalling many a liberal bill and pointed to a pro-hold speech by Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions, a leading Senate opponent of pork.

"[W]ithout a hold, the bill goes to the Senate floor and passes with unanimous consent for fear of opposing a politically popular piece of legislation that is often either not constitutional or further bloats the federal government," Chapman wrote. "In this case, unamous consent is often anything but. It is more like unanimous ignorance."

CORRECTION: I've fixed the text to credit Jeff Sessions, rather than Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona, as being the lawmaker who made the speech in favor of anonymous holds. Flake has been a key House player in the fight against pork. Thanks to two readers for noting my error in the comments.

Posted by Danny at 04:13 PM | Comments (5)

The greatest failing of candidate blogs is that they are not personal enough. Most politicians are too guarded -- too political -- to truly adopt the spirit of candidness and transparency that makes the blogosphere special.

The Phoenix nailed the mindset of most politicians who blog in a piece that dubbed them "ploggers." They shamelessly and ineffectively use their blogs to make plugs rather than engage voters and constituents. "[A] blog is supposed to be personal, especially when it comes to whacking around your ideological or electoral opponents," the paper said.

Some politicians are starting to get it, though, and Republican Mike McGavick, a Senate candidate in Washington state, is among them. He scored some points in the transparency department this week by posting a puportedly tell-all blog entry that details his failures in life -- a marriage that ended in divorce, his subsequent role as "part-time dad," his arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol, his role in running an attack political advertisement, and his difficult decision to lay off employees at the Safeco insurance company.

"My pledge to you is one of authenticity, civility and transparency," McGavick rote. "I take responsibility for my actions and my decisions, but it's up to you to decide if what I offer outweighs my shortcomings."

Some skeptics questioned the genuiness of the open letter to voters. One commenter, for instance, scolded McGavick for including at the top of the letter a gripe about current character attacks against him. Allan Batchelder said that "disingenuous" paragraph suggests that McGavick still doesn't "get the point. You defend yourself by attacking your opponents? Isn't that what you've just accused them of doing?"

From The Roots, the blog of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, predictably made a similar argument by criticizing a television ad McGavick currently is running against Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell. And McGavick's campaign just as predictably defended the ad.

But others both appreciated McGavick's honesty about his mistakes and praised as an astute political move his decision to air them himself on the campaign blog.

"McGavick's open letter was undoubtedly as edited and re-edited and politically calculated as any other campaign communication," said Mary Katharine Ham of the Republican forum Townhall.com, "but this is a different kind of message. It really does come across sincere and refreshingly Washington-outsider. If McGavick's campaign is aiming to tap into some of that anti-incumbent sentiment, I say he did a good job of setting himself apart. I think it will probably play well."

Real Clear Politics was both critical and laudatory of the blog entry. "McGavick ruined the confessional mood by declaring that the disclosure wasn't a 'campaign tactic.' It clearly was a tactic -- and probably a very smart one at that."

But RCP added this dead-on warning: "The only way this can hurt McGavick is if there is something else in his background that turns up between now and November 7. Then, having gone out of his way to confess to voters 'the worst and most embarrassing moments' of his life, McGavick would look doubly bad -- and he would pay for it dearly at the polls."

Seattle Times political reporter David Postman, on the other hand, proved that most journalists just can't help but be cynical. At his own blog, Postman suggested that McGavick chose to make his confession by blog rather than to the press because he wanted a "softer opening" to the story and that he downplayed the only "unreported" news -- the DUI arrest -- by putting it second in the list of mistakes.

"McGavick has chosen an unusual strategy in trying to protect himself from negative stories and attack ads," Postman said. "I hadn't heard anything about his DUI before, but the rest of McGavick's list are not secrets and he certainly has gotten questions on all of them before. He clearly is making a preemptive move

Posted by Danny at 07:27 AM | Comments (0)

I'm home in West Virginia this week as the family sorts through the belongings of Grandpa Tumblebug, and I found a wall-hanging that perfectly captured his philosophy of life. It's a souvenir from Zanesville, Ohio, in the heartland of America.

Here is what it says:

If you want your father to take care of you -- that's Paternalism; if you ant your mother to take care of you -- that Maternalism; if you want Uncle Sam to take care of you -- that's Socialism; if you want your comrades to take care of you -- that's Communism. But -- if you can take care of yourself -- that's "Americanism."

Posted by Danny at 07:15 AM | Comments (0)

Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast this time last year, and the damage stretched all the way to Washington, here the devastating storm wreaked political havoc on the Bush administration. A trio of Democratic politicians took to The Huffington Post yesterday to mark the anniversay of the storm by chastising President Bush anew or proposing more solutions to problems that remain.

Here are excerpts of what they had to say:

-- Sen. Russell Feingold of Wisconsin: "I have put together a few different ideas into one bill, building on really good work on housing issues by some of my colleagues in the Senate. ... It includes housing vouchers to help make rents affordable for the lowest-income people and families. It also makes housing like the Katrina Cottages -- which are more like homes and less like trailers - more -- available to those who want them. ... And finally it allows [the Housing and Urban Development Department] to handle temporary rental assistance programs from here on out, instead of [the Federal Emergency Managment Agency], which isn't equipped to handle housing issues like these for the long haul."

-- Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts: "One year later, hundreds of thousands of families from New Orleans and the gulf are still without jobs and unable to return to their homes. One year later, the administration has used less than half of the $110 billion in federal aid approved by Congress to help people rebuild their lives. One year later, families in New Orleans are still waiting for trailers to live in and for demolition and clean-up crews to clear their neighborhoods so they can rebuild their homes. One year later, half of the city's hospitals remain closed and less than half of the New Orleans public schools plan to reopen this fall. One year later, the levees are no safer than the day Katrina hit."

-- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California: "Last week, House Democrats formed a Waste, Fraud and Abuse Truth Squad. ... They will conduct oversight of the Bush administration's handling of taxpayer dollars, giving the Golden Drain Award to those who fail to provide meaningful oversight or hold the administration accountable despite documented instances of waste, fraud and abuse. Last week, the Truth Squad released a detailed report highlighting the financial mishandling and corruption that has marred the recovery process, dedicating the first Golden Drain Award to the president's Hurricane Katrina contract process."

Conservative bloggers, many of whom were critical of the Bush administration's response to Katrina, also are marking the anniversary of the storm. At The Right Angle, for instance, Matt Lewis offered three public-relations lessons for the Bush administration to consider: 1) Get on the front line; 2) show that you care; and 3) avoid negative momentum. And Wizbang revisited the flooding of New Orleans by posting "The Katrina Video Congress Didn't Want You To See."

"This is, in a way, the culmination of our extensive Katrina coverage from [a] uniquely local perspective; going back to well before the hurricane hit," Wizbang publisher Kevin Aylward wrote in an e-mail. "There are approximately 175 Katrina posts in our Katrina archives, including the devastatingly accurate predictions about riding out Katrina in The Superdome, unused school buses, media failures, government failures, and plenty on the Corps of Engineers."

Posted by Danny at 09:17 AM | Comments (0)

Folks in the energy sector can fill their tanks with economic, policy and political news focused on the topic at The Oil Drum, a group energy blog launched earlier this year. An editor of the site who writes under the pseudonym Prof. Goose pointed me to the site in a recent e-mail.

The introductory post suggested that oil production is near its peak or may already have reached it. "I would be quite surprised if the world is able to bring enough new production on stream to overcome those high decline rates in existing production for much longer," Stuart Staniford wrote. "And with each passing year, it's only going to get harder to do."

Prof. Goose also pointed me to posts on the politics of oil, legislation to open the Outer Continental Shelf to oil and gas exploration and the efficacy of ethanol. The site has localized blogs in New York City and the United Kingdom, with branch offices planned for Texas, Australia/New Zealand and Canada.

"[W]e primarily focus on peak oil and the ramifications, but we also talk a lot about alternative energy sources, etc.," Prof. Goose said. "I would like to think that we're where a lot of smart people come together, bring argument and empirical evidence, and try to figure things out with regard to our energy situation. We have some of the most interesting and informative comment threads I've ever seen in the 'sphere."

Posted by Danny at 08:54 AM | Comments (0)

I thought it might be useful to post a directory of links to the series of Technology Daily articles and podcasts on the intersection between technology and politics that I have reprinted here over the past several days:

-- Blogs, Podcasts And More On The Trail

-- Voter Outreach In The Information Age

-- Data Mining For Votes

-- 'Robocall' Is On The Line

-- Traffic To Some Political Blogs Is Down

-- Getting Real About Politicking Online

-- Third Parties And The Internet

-- Let's Get This (Internet) Party Started

-- The Political Value Of Blog Ads

-- Silicon Valley Sides With Democrats

-- The Blue-Red Battle For Online Bucks

-- Politics And Technology: The Podcasts

Posted by Danny at 08:40 AM | Comments (0)

Over the past several days, I have republished several Technology Daily articles focused on the intersection between technology and politics. My goal in republishing the articles was to get them out from behind the subscription wall at Tech Daily so bloggers could read them and link to them.

As we published the articles earlier this month, I also made the topic the chief focus of two audio episodes of the Tech Policy Pod. Those podcasts already are freely available, and they include more details from the series that have not been mentioned in the articles I've reprinted. They also provide a brief recap of the entire series and of the articles now available at Beltway Blogroll.

You can listen to the podcasts here and here.

Posted by Danny at 08:30 AM | Comments (0)

Earlier this month, National Journal's Technology Daily published a special series on the intersection of politics and technology. Some of those stories will be of interest to bloggers, so I am republishing them here. The latest story is below.

Party Activists Battle For Bucks At Dueling Web Sites
by Michael Martinez

Online activists are aiming to raise hordes of cash to push candidates to victory in mid-term elections this fall.

Democrats are working to perfect an online fundraising model that has served them for the past two years. Last year, Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett, who was a candidate in a special House race in Ohio, raised more than $55,000 in an eight-hour span through the ActBlue online clearinghouse. Hackett, who received more than $500,000 via Web logs and other online activists, eventually lost. But his fundraising successes have sparked a nationwide trend.

ActBlue has been used to raise more than $7.2 million for Democratic candidates since its launch in 2004. The most popular page -- the one for "netroots candidates" endorsed by major blogs -- has generated more than $420,000 from about 5,500 donors. PAC For A Change, which is affiliated with Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., has raised about $220,000 on its ActBlue page.

According to ActBlue's Ben Rahm, the beauty of the site is that it allows users to direct campaign cash to chosen candidates. He said the site itself does not have any agenda.

"Our mission is to help Democrats to win, period," Rahm said.

Ned Lamont, the former communications executive who ousted Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., in a primary last week, has received more than $300,000 through ActBlue, and more than $100,000 of that went through the "netroots candidates" page. Lamont also raised eyebrows this year by matching online donations with cash from his personal fortune.

But not everyone is as successful. Pete Ashdown, an underdog gunning for the seat currently occupied by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has raised only $859.71 on ActBlue. The donations include a $21.28 pledge from the "Candidates for Colbert" page, a site dedicated to honoring politicians who "embody the spirit, courage and honor" of comedian Stephen Colbert.

Republicans have been scrambling lately to make up ground on the online fundraising front. A group of conservative bloggers recently teamed to launch the ActBlue-inspired Rightroots site, which is being sponsored by the ABC political action committee.

The Rightroots site already has inspired some Lamont-like fundraising matching funds. Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., pledged to donate $14,000 directly to Rightroots-endorsed candidates from his leadership PAC if the project raised $26,000 in its first few days on the Web -- a challenge that donors met.

"This is our opportunity to send a clear message to folks that Republicans don't just beat Democrats on the streets and on Election Day, but on every battlefield, including the Internet," Kingston said, when he issued the challenge.

The Club for Growth also recently revamped its fundraising Web site to accommodate bundling. Andrew Roth, the group's government affairs director and blogger, said it is premature to declare it a success, but he said the site did receive a spike in online donations in the run-up to a Republican primary in Michigan last week. In that race, Rep. Joe Schwarz, R-Mich., was defeated by state Rep. Tim Walberg.

Roth said that conservatives are playing catch-up in some respects but that he is encouraged by how Republican online activists have focused on policy rather than just on campaigning.

"People talk about how a dog year is equivalent to seven human years," he said. "But a regular year is like the equivalent to 20 Internet years. You can miss the boat really quickly."

"Imitation is a form of flattery," Rahm said of the recent Republican online efforts. But he said progressive political philosophies tend to be better suited for online activism because they are more inclusive and not as reliant on a "top-down" strategy.

"That line of reasoning suggests this model would work better for us," he said. "With that said, in terms of strategy, I would never underestimate the Republicans."

Posted by Danny at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)

Earlier this month, National Journal's Technology Daily published a special series on the intersection of politics and technology. Some of those stories will be of interest to bloggers, so I am republishing them here. The latest story is below.

Democrats Get Biggest Cut Of Silicon Valley Cash
by Heather Greenfield

A leader in the Silicon Valley venture-capitalist company, August Capital also is among the area's leading donors of political capital for candidates in November.

Andy Rappaport and his wife, Deborah, gained a spot among the top Democratic donors in the country by downloading $7 million during the 2004 election cycle. Rappaport, a research physicist and former president of The Technology Research Group, has been a partner in August Capital for the past decade and has been involved in two dozen high-tech startups.

So far during the 2006 election cycle, he and his wife have donated more than $400,000 to liberal candidates and political action committees, including a $100,000 check to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, $64,000 to Grassroots Democrats, $50,000 to the NDN Political Fund and $25,000 to Progressive Majority.

Rappaport also gave $17,350 to the online fundraising site ActBlue and $4,000 to BlogPac, a group started by the authors of Democratic blogs to encourage their readers and writers to take actions rather than just rant.

Ned Lamont, the Democratic Senate nominee for Connecticut, and Jon Tester, the Democrat running against Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., are among the biggest individual recipients of the Rappaports' generosity. Andy Rappaport contributed directly to both, and Lamont and Tester are among the biggest beneficiaries of ActBlue.

At a reception for the Rappaports' newest venture, the New Progressive Coalition, which they founded to match progressive causes online with angel donors, Andy Rappaport told San Francisco Magazine he hopes to apply what he learned in venture capital to political change.

Rappaport said venture capitalists do not bank on a single vision but on many ideas that may or may not succeed. He also said he learned that large institutions, like the Democratic Party, are unlikely to change because of pressure from within, which may explain why he has not donated to party leadership groups and just one incumbent, Rep. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.

But other big Silicon Valley donors focused their political capital on the Democratic Party -- overwhelmingly. The top 20 donors to individuals, party committees and leadership PACs, were donors who gave either 100 percent or nearly all their money to Democrats, according to records in opensecrets.org database of the Center for Responsive Politics.

"In '06, almost everyone on the top list was favoring Democrats," CRP researcher Doug Weber said. "In '04, there were several people on the list who were heavily Republican."

Going back further, before limits on soft money, Silicon Valley looked even more bipartisan in its giving. In 2000, Thomas Siebel of Siebel Systems topped the list of Silicon Valley donors with a $500,000 check to the National Republican Campaign Committee, and John Chambers of Cisco Systems was the top Silicon Valley donor to President Bush.

"Where have all the elephants gone?" asked CRP communications director Massie Ritsch. He said that in 2000, the Republican share of Silicon Valley donations "was 43 percent; now its 4 percent."

John Doerr tops the list of contributors in the current cycle, nearing the limit that individuals can contribute to the traditional parties and federal candidates. He made $98,180 in donations, with 96 percent going to Democrats. He did make a $1,000 contribution to the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, Alaska Republican Ted Stevens.

Doerr is a partner at the venture-capital company Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and is a former leader of TechNet, a group of high-tech CEOs that monitors legislative interests of the industry. Doerr's wife, Ann, ranks among top Silicon Valley donors, with all her contributions benefiting Democrats.

The breakdown for the couple includes a total of $25,000 for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and another $25,000 for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Doerr contributed to Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and gave $8,400 to Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn.

His wife contributed to Lieberman and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.

Brooks Byers, also a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, donated $88,733, all to Democrats. Byers' biggest donation was $20,000 to the DSCC. He also gave $10,000 to the DCCC and helped Lieberman and Cantwell.

Tashia Morgridge of Cisco made the top list, as did John Morgridge also a Cisco executive. Their combined $86,900 went entirely to Democrats.

Cisco CEO John Chambers, meanwhile, gave $35,000 to the Republican Governors Association, along with just a few candidates. Lieberman received a check as did Sen. George Allen, R-Va. Most of Chambers' donations were to the TechNet PAC.

The only top Silicon Valley donor giving exclusively to Republicans this campaign season was Peter Wendell of Sierra Ventures, who contributed $35,000.

Apple founder Steve Jobs contributed $26,700 to the DCCC, much less than the $100,000 he donated to the Democratic National Committee in 1996.

His friend, Oracle CEO Lawrence Ellison, was more bipartisan in his $12,000 in contributions, with $5,000 going to Every Republican is Crucial, along with donations to both Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Mike DeWine, R-Ohio. The bulk went to TechNet's PAC.

Posted by Danny at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)

Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner threw an expensive party for the folks at YearlyKos over the weekend. Micah Sifry of Personal Democracy Forum questioned whether that was a smart move by Warner, a potential presidential candidate in 2008. Dave Johnson of Seeing the Forest thinks it was a "brilliant" marketing strategy.

"Some people wonder if it reflects poorly on his judgment, that he lavishly throws money around," Johnson wrote. "I think this may have been a very effective use of marketing dollars and a very sharp strategic move.

"Think about it this way: If Gov. Warner has now established himself in the front of the pack, and grabbed onto a great big piece of the mindshare of the blogosphere, for only $70,000 (or whatever it cost), then good for him. It shows he knows how to reach the audiences he needs to reach, when he needs to reach them."

Johnson also said the blogosphere will benefit from Warner's attention. "[H]e validated the importance of the emerging blogosphere to the American political process," Johnson said. "He lent his own credibility to the blogosphere."

UPDATE: Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos, the inspiration behind YearlyKos, responded to complaints about Warner's spending at the conference. Moulitsas and Jerome Armstrong of MyDD, who now works for Warner at Forward Together, are the co-authors of the book "Crashing The Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics."

John Aravosis of Americablog was a bit defensive about the criticism, too.

UPDATE II: Former Wonkette Ana Marie Cox shared her thoughts on Warner's outreach to blogs, as well as on bloggers' criticism of the media and other topics, in Time magazine.

A contributor at The Huffington Post voiced his fears that "many in this sector of the liberal blogosphere can be bought off by a politician showing a little interest and stroking their outsider egos."

And Matthew Yglesias at TPMCafe asks of Warner: "But where's the beef?" (The policy kind, that is, not the bovine kind that may have been part of Warner's lavish spread at YearlyKos.)

UPDATE: Byron York of The Corner dug through recent campaign finance records to confirm that Warner spent $70,000 for the big party at YearlyKos. "Warner clearly spent money in other ways -- t-shirts and the like -- trying to win Kossack favor, so it's not completely clear what his final YearlyKos expenditure was," York added.

Posted by Danny at 12:53 PM | Comments (5)

Over the past two weeks, National Journal's Technology Daily published a special series on the intersection of politics and technology. Some of those stories will be of interest to bloggers, so I will be republishing them here over the next few days. The latest story is below.

Blog Ads Help Challengers Generate Bucks And Buzz
by Brittany R. Ballenstedt

Political advertising dates to the nation's founding, with the first efforts involving everything from public processions to fliers. Radio came along in 1920 and the television boom in 1952, giving candidates new venues to reach far more people with their messages.

In the Internet era, campaigns have another relatively new advertising tool -- advertisements on Web logs -- and many congressional hopefuls are investing in them this year.

"Blogs don't give as much reach as television, but they give more accountability," said Henry Copeland, who founded Blogads, the innovator in the field. He said political activism on the Internet has grown substantially in recent years.

Copeland said Internet advertising, and specifically blog ads, are incredibly effective, especially for challengers who typically lack the funding of incumbents. "You have a lot of D.C. insiders reading this stuff," he said. "It's a very cheap way to drop a hand grenade in the swimming pool."

Whether those insiders lend much credibility to blogs is another issue. A National Journal "insiders poll" indicated a split between the parties.

The survey found that almost 70 percent of Democrats believe Internet political activists will have a significant impact on the mid-term election. Republican insiders voted almost exactly the opposite, with 70 percent claiming that "netroots" activism will have little to no impact.

Michael Turk, the e-campaign manager for the 2004 re-election campaign of President Bush, chalked that up to GOP activists who have been running campaigns the "old-school way" since the 1970s and 1980s. "The GOP is full of people who learned on old media -- mail, phones, radio and TV -- and don't know anything else," Turk said in a blog post. "What's funny is I imagine the same quotes were probably uttered by consultants when cable TV came along."

A 2006 survey by BlogAds revealed that the average blog reader has an annual income between $60,000 and $90,000, and that 70 percent of blog readers have contributed to a cause or candidate within the last six months.

"Online community and blogs are the town halls of this century," said Trevor Miller, a spokesman for the Progressive Patriots Fund, which is affiliated with Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis. The fund has run various blog ads to draw donations and an audience for its cause. The foundation has generated enough donations to help five congressional candidates this fall.

"The online community in general has grown a hundredfold since the beginning of the year," Miller said. "It continues to be an outlet for people to have their voices heard."

Laura Leyva, a candidate for the state House in Florida, tried blog ads in an attempt to prove her campaign manager wrong about their effectiveness. Her ads sought to raise $5,000 and succeeded. "Using [blog ads] is certainly better than going to fundraisers," Leyva said.

Some candidates have goals other than money in mind. Jonathan Ossoff, the deputy communications director for Hank Johnson, a Democratic House candidate in Georgia, said Johnson used them to generate excitement for Tuesday's run-off primary election against Rep. Cynthia McKinney that he handily won.

"They've been effective in reaching out to people who make the news and reaching the national media at an affordable price," Ossoff said. "They were not as effective in bringing in donations, but that really wasn't the goal."

In Montana, Jon Tester used blog ads early to try to help gain an edge against his Republican opponent, Sen. Conrad Burns. Tester is now a darling of many top Democratic bloggers, and his challenge to Burns is considered one of the most viable for Democrats this year. That has helped him gain popularity and funding, and now his ads are on television and radio.

But Matt McKenna, communications director for the campaign, said more blogs ads are possible. "We've used blog ads in the past, and we will again," McKenna said.

Copeland said blog ads have a bright future in politics and could become a top medium for campaigns. "You're going to see more ads in blogs that are state-focused," he said. "At this point, we've seen, in one form or another, ads for potential presidential candidates. ... You may even find that blog ads for this election are the first ad spends for '08."

Posted by Danny at 10:07 AM | Comments (0)

Over the past two weeks, National Journal's Technology Daily published a special series on the intersection of politics and technology. Some of those stories will be of interest to bloggers, so I will be republishing them here over the next few days. The latest story is below.

Toward A New Party: Is The Internet The Ticket?
by Andrew Noyes

Even though the Internet has forever changed American politics and amplified independent voices, upstart political movements still must "scratch some sort of itch" to meaningfully challenge the two-party system, according to Internet and political experts.

The good news is that the Web's "flash mob" mentality means a new party may not have to be fully formed to support a candidate for president or another major office, high-tech politics pioneer Andrew Rasiej said. Citing last year's devastating hurricane, he said voters are "two Katrinas away" from giving a global-warming candidate a shot at success.

Whether there is someone smart and captivating enough to inspire an entire election campaign remains to be seen, said Rasiej, founder of the Personal Democracy Forum, which studies the crossroads of politics and technology.

That special blend of straight-talk and charisma is what earned Texas billionaire Ross Perot 19 percent of the presidential vote in 1992, he said. Perot announced his candidacy on CNN's "Larry King Live" and recruited volunteers by publicizing a toll-free telephone number. "The Internet is an 800-number times 10 in terms of political potential," Rasiej said.

A decade later, a Web campaign led by "regular people" drafted former Gen. Wesley Clark for a 2004 Democratic presidential run, online advocacy expert Madeline Stanionis said. The Internet trailblazing by now-Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean in the same primary was attributable to "a bunch of kids who showed up in Vermont," she said.

Both races show that "the Internet is made for uprisings ... and yes, new parties," Stanionis said.

While Stanionis is confident that a "new wave of online thinking and organizing" will lead to the ascendancy of an unconventional candidate or party, the liberal fundraiser is skeptical about whether such a movement could occur as soon as 2006 or 2008. Chuck DeFeo, general manager of the conservative news and opinion site Townhall.com, agreed.

The prevailing strategy for the next two elections will be tried and true, said DeFeo, who managed the e-campaign side of the effort to re-elect President Bush in 2004. Conservatives "will continue to support conservative candidates that reflect their views, so the tactics used will be familiar." That is due to a number of close races expected this November, DeFeo said.

Internet experts from both sides of the aisle are uncertain about the potential of Unity08, a new Web-based movement whose aim is creating a bipartisan ticket with one party for president and the other for vice president. It's "a nice attempt at trying to create some fertile ground," but it lacks a standout leader and a rousing agenda, Rasiej said.

Micah Sifry, who helped Rasiej launch PDF, worries that Unity08 is ahead of its time. "Until the 2006 election plays out, it's too early for people's political energies to crystallize around a third party," he said. The project is setting the stage "for something that could very well catch hold" if the GOP maintains control of Congress and the White House and public confidence in both parties wanes, he said.

DeFeo called Unity08's goals "unrealistic" and said passionate partisanship is "a healthy thing" for democracy.

But Unity08 co-founder Doug Bailey is used to hearing cynicism from those whose jobs are vested in "politics as it is played in this town." Some are angry and fearful that his movement threatens to "upset their status quo," and others are dismissive because "they assume new things never happen" in politics, said Bailey, a media adviser to former President Gerald Ford and founder of National Journal's Hotline.

Times have changed since Perot and his third-party predecessors tried to capitalize on the public's disgust with politics-as-usual, Bailey said, because there has never been such an "overwhelming fear for the future of the country" as there is today.

Unity08's goals are "viable," he said, but his project faces a familiar challenge: "How do you raise the sword of moderation and have people follow?"

Posted by Danny at 09:58 AM | Comments (0)

Over the past two weeks, National Journal's Technology Daily published a special series on the intersection of politics and technology. Some of those stories will be of interest to bloggers, so I will be republishing them here over the next few days. The latest story is below.

Third-Party Candidates Make Connections Online
by Andrew Noyes

Most of Maryland is asleep, but Kevin Zeese is roaming the aisles of Baltimore's 24-hour supermarkets with a band of supporters whom the third-party candidate for U.S. Senate recruited via e-mail. While his late-night canvassing strategy may be unconventional, his online recruiting skills are noteworthy. The supporters are out at midnight, after all.

Zeese, the Green, Libertarian and Populist parties' pick for the Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Paul Sarbanes, has embraced the Internet since its inception and has become an exemplar for independents in the metropolitan area. Green Party Media Coordinator Scott McLarty said Zeese is "doing pretty well, but it's an uphill battle."

"The U.S. Senate is a nut the Green Party has not been able to crack yet," McLarty said.

Zeese, the Montgomery County, Md., reformer who once served as Ralph Nader's presidential campaign spokesman, credits the Internet with helping third-party candidates have a platform for national debate. His years of advocacy for legalizing drugs and against war have profited from the Internet's reach, and now his campaign is the beneficiary.

Nader, a Green Party luminary who thrice ran for president, saw the Internet's potential early in his national political career -- even though he still uses a Smith Corona typewriter for daily correspondence, Zeese said. The medium "levels the playing field" and "brings people together," he said.

Zeese uses various tools -- including three tiers of e-mail lists, short Web videos and a campaign "wiki" that lets users contribute and edit content -- to share views on his core issues of "peace, justice, democracy and prosperity."

Libertarian candidates have made unique uses of the Web this year, party communications director Stephen Gordon said.

Standup comedian Doug Stanhope announced his bid for the party's 2008 presidential nomination on MySpace, and Arizona gubernatorial candidate Barry Hess garnered praise for featuring video, a Web log and interactivity prominently on his site. Loretta Nall, who is running for Alabama governor, has raised eyebrows with online animation that lets site visitors glimpse the candidate's cleavage or waistline in exchange for donations.

The party recently unveiled BallotBase.org, a new voter-outreach tool that allows leadership to target specific races, Gordon said. The initiative will not be formally launched until September, but it was piloted in the special election for the California House seat vacated by now-imprisoned Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham, a Republican.

Libertarian Paul King, who challenged now-GOP Rep. Brian Bilbray and Democrat Francine Busby, saw his votes triple with the help of BallotBase, the party said. Few privacy concerns have been raised because data is culled from state voter-registration lists, Gordon said.

"Somebody with a message that resonates can catch on," said Carol Darr, director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University.

Breakout campaigns by wrestler-turned-governor Jesse Ventura in Minnesota and former presidential candidates Howard Dean and John McCain have shown that Americans are increasingly "unhappy with mainstream choices," she said. The Web is a "perfect vehicle" for third-party candidates and others to find like-minded people "quickly, easily and cheaply."

Posted by Danny at 09:38 AM | Comments (0)

Over the past two weeks, National Journal's Technology Daily published a special series on the intersection of politics and technology. Some of those stories will be of interest to bloggers, so I will be republishing them here over the next few days. The latest story is below.

By Heather Greenfield

New mediums of communication are shaping not just how information reaches potential voters and donors but what words are said. Or, at least it should, according to the latest campaign advice from both Democratic and Republican consultants.

While the message in "The Velveteen Rabbit" was that love makes you real, political consultants are telling candidates that with the new media, real makes you loved.

Presidential hopeful John Edwards talked openly about being more real at a recent convention with software developers, blog authors and podcasters. Edwards agreed when one attendee said blogs capture how people actually talk and that is much different than how politicians speak.

"The problem is that we're so trained and so conditioned over a long period of time that being normal and real and authentic requires you to shed that conditioning," Edwards said at the Gnomedex Technology Conference.

From LBJ To John McCain
Naomi Baron, an expert on the use of e-mail, blogs and text-messaging as communication tools and a linguistics professor at American University, does not believe the Internet and new technologies have created demand for informal political communication. But she does believe they sped up an existing trend that she pinpointed to the presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Larry Powell, a communications professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, whose expertise is political communications, agreed. He said former presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton captured hearts with their down-to-earth personalities, but Powell added that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was the first politician to do that well over the Internet in the 2000 Republican presidential primaries.

"He understood the Internet is not just a way of communicating with voters but letting voters communicate with you," Powell said.

Conservative and progressive political consultants have many clients hoping to capture the magic of 2004 Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean when it comes to fundraising, which they attribute to cultivating loyal supporters online.

Diane Thompson, CEO of Campaign Superstore, a conservative high-tech political consultancy, said it is sometimes tough to get her clients to understand that posting a Web site and bombarding people with e-mail solicitations does not work. Thompson said she encourages her clients to build a loyal following through numerous e-mails and sending helpful information that establishes a candidate as credible and personable.

"There are no shortcuts to building meaningful relationships," said Kari Chisholm, the founder of Mandate Media a high-tech political strategy company. "You've got to be authentic."

"Ned Lamont understands that," he added of the Connecticut Democrat who earlier this month upset Sen. Joseph Lieberman in a Democratic primary. "That's part of his appeal." Lamont's campaign has a blog and became a favorite of bloggers who some credit with helping build Lamont's early support and media attention.

Baron said the challenge with writing a blog is sounding off-the-cuff and accessible while really having content that is highly polished and well-conceived. Powell said most politicians would do better with streaming audio than blogs, as they are more used to talking casually than writing.

'My Son Is Not A Pig'
Chisholm's definition of successful new media writing is Colorado Secretary of State Ken Gordon. "He sends e-mails that are clearly Ken sitting at home in his pajamas, telling people what he thinks," Chisholm said. "They're funny and passionate."

In one example entitled "My son is not a pig," Gordon relayed the story of a mother at a news conference who tearfully defended an education program for autistic children that helped her son -- a program that some had called special-interest "pork" and demanded be cut. Chisholm said the e-mail title alone would lead people to open it.

Thompson noted e-mails she gets about once a week from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich as an example of someone using the medium smartly. "He picks two or three issues of the week," Thompson said. "It's candid. It sounds like him talking and it's insight you're not going to get anywhere else."

Chisholm added: "Most e-mails we care about come from real human beings. If a candidate wants to be taken seriously in e-mails, be human."

Advice on how to be human varies. Baron said she would not advise typos or misspelled words, "People want a politician who is as smart or smarter than them."

Powell said it may be OK for bloggers to be edgy in online comments but warned against those running for office being too blunt online. "It's real easy to put a mole [from an opposing campaign] on an e-mail list," Powell said. "The opposition monitors daily. They will look for anything to use against you."

But then, there are risks of not being bold. "If you're going to be authentic, you have to take risks," Chisholm said. "Risk avoidance is a plague among campaign staffers."

Other advice includes better tailoring messages to the medium, instead of simply posting documents to the Web or using formal letters as e-mail. Chisholm said the days of a five-paragraph press release with three stiff-sounding quotes are gone -- or at least should be. "That's totally true," Powell said. "If you're putting a press release on the Web site, it's better to have a shorter statement with links to other things."

Powell said people do not seem to mind receiving press releases via e-mail if they include notes at the top saying something like, "This will be released to the press; we thought you might like an early look."

Personality: The Key To Political Success
"How do you be authentic and be meaningful? It's a character issue," Chisholm said.

And a personality issue. What is authentic for some, just does not work for others. "Clinton knows how to pull your heartstrings by being very folksy," Baron said. "[President] Bush's speaking sounds very, very artificial when he uses words more than three syllables. I don't think Sen. Ted Kennedy is ever going to have a folksy blog. Dianne Feinstein is not. But it's OK because she's earned her credentials over the years."

Chisholm added, "I don't like George W. Bush too much, but he's an authentic human being."

In the New Republic Online, self-proclaimed progressive Elspeth Reeve agreed that you do not have to like someone to respect their candor. Reeve said it is not the terrible things and lies Ann Coulter utters that make liberals cringe so much as when she hits a nugget of truth. "Asked to define the First Amendment, [Coulter replied], 'An excuse for overweight women to dance in pasties and The New York Times to commit treason.' Just completely terrible, I know. But I have to admit, I giggled," Reeve wrote.

Humor seems to be an element of authenticity -- or at least the appearance of it. Baron said humor is critical to gain attention in an era when someone may be engaged in several types of new media at once -- e-mail and instant-messaging on several screens, for example. "For an e-mail, people have come to expect lots of humor," Baron said.

She said the goal is to make people feel welcome. "Welcome is the same thing as authenticity," Baron said. "It could mean humor, a punchy choice of words. It could be informal, but very carefully crafted."

She cited the writing on the blog Wonkette as great but said despite the candid tone, it is crafted through many drafts. "That's how you come across as authentic, by not being," Baron said.

Posted by Danny at 03:33 PM | Comments (0)

Over the past two weeks, National Journal's Technology Daily published a special series on the intersection of politics and technology. Some of those stories will be of interest to bloggers, so I will be republishing them here over the next few days. The latest story is below.

Web Traffic For Political Blogs, Pundits Sags In Summer
by Heather Greenfield

President Bush is not the only one facing falling polling numbers. Conservative pundit Bill O'Reilly of Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" is having to factor in his own losses when it comes to Internet traffic.

Alexa.com, which tracks Web traffic, shows a sharp decline to BillOReilly.com since March, when it had more than 100,000 visits for every 1 million Internet surfers. The decline has been steady and gradual, with visits dropping below 50,000 in August, according to a graph. Another summary pegs the traffic drop over the past three months at 30 percent.

Other conservative sites are losing audience this campaign season, too. Even the recent controversy over Ann Coulter's remarks about Sept. 11 victims did not boost traffic to her site. Ratings there have decreased 16 percent over the last three months. Ditto for Rush Limbaugh, who is down 14 percent, and even the revered conservative site The Drudge Report has fallen 10 percent.

"Partly it's summer time. It's also a general barometer," said David Rothstein, CEO of the IPD Group, which publishes online political reports like U.S. Politics Today. That site alerted reporters to the ratings drop on Alexa.

"We see it as one gauge that the right wing is struggling," Rothstein said. "The mainstream media has been failing. The void was [initially] filled by right-wing media. The left is filling the political void now. There are a lot of Internet sites and bloggers now who are building very solid reputations."

Among the conservatives and liberals who author Web logs, traffic is more mixed, but the drops appear to be greater among the bigger red sites than among the blue sites.

RedState traffic is down 28 percent but page views are up 12 percent over the past three months. RedState underwent a redesign and management overhaul this summer. Right Wing News dropped 20 percent over the same time, Blogs for Bush was down 13 percent, and Townhall, which also was recently redesigned after an acquisition, dropped 14 percent.

By contrast to the big drops for RedState and Right Wing News, readership at the liberal Huffington Post is down 14 percent, and the drop is 12 percent at Daily Kos, the most trafficked blog. Some liberal bloggers even saw gains. Traffic at MyDD is up 9 percent, as is Alternet, and traffic to Virginia's Raising Kaine grew 119 percent over the past three months.

As for the Republican National Committee versus the Democratic National Committee, both saw traffic declines. The DNC was down 24 percent, and the RNC dropped twice as much at 48 percent.

Traffic at the Democratic online donation site ActBlue rose 24 percent. The new competitor Rightroots does not have traffic data yet.

Carol Darr, director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University, said the data is not scientific enough, especially because there are not equivalent Democratic pundits to compare.

Darr said the numbers may show some early indicators of voter sentiment, but it is hard to quantify. "We had seen similar early online