Our Austin Kossacks group has been excited about DemFest since we first heard about it. Looking for a way to contribute, we decided to host a Blogger’s Caucus in the Specific Interests Caucuses timeslot. Note that we’re the only caucus with a link – and it’s to our Kos at DemFest blog, natch.
Othniel has been working hard to line up speakers for the caucus and now Democracy for Texas has put up a special shout out and press release about our caucus.
Netroots organize panel for blogger’s caucus
Democracy Fest | DemocracyFest – Media | Immediate ReleaseState Rep. Mark Strama, Charlie of PinkDome and Dan Fletcher of lookinforward.com to address emerging role of blogs in political news and discourse
In true grassroots fashion, DemocracyFest attendees who regularly post on DailyKOS.com and other progressive political blogs have put together a panel to address the “Blogger’s Caucus” on the afternoon of June 17.
The caucus concept was planned by DemocracyFest organizers as a way for communities of interest to meet and confer during the first day of the conference, but a group of bloggers took that to the next level by bringing in their own panel of speakers notable in the blogosphere.
Pink Dome has a reputation as the snarkiest of the blogs that cover our egregious State Lege.
Mark Strama (D) won his seat to that same egregious Texas Lege by only 500 votes of 60,000 cast. As he says,
Without our tremendous grassroots and online organization, we could not have withstood the negative attacks launched against me in the last days of the election. These attacks were funded by hundreds of thousands of dollars that poured into my opponent’s campaign in the last few weeks, when it became clear that we were leading in the polls.
. . . if we could get 60,000 people to vote, instead of 55,000, then I felt we were certain to win. Sure enough, over 60,000 people voted, and I’m convinced the surge in turnout made a huge difference in my election. (emphasis mine)
Dan is an Austin Kossack who is exploring ways to use blogs and other software to mobilize the grass/netroots to replace R’s with D’s in ’06. We’re especially determined to defeat U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith (Tom DeLay enabler and sycophant).
Great work, Othniel!
If you are going to be at DemFest, join us at the Blogger’s Caucus – we’d love to meet you!
