Two years ago, Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas wrote a book titled "Crashing the Gates" about people-powered politics in the Democratic party. As millions of other progressives, I became extremely hopeful and was deeply moved after reading the book (still have my signed copy). Yesterday, 20 fat cats sent a letter threatening Nancy Pelosi that they will stop donating to DHCC unless she "revises" the opinion she expressed regarding super-delegates and their role in the nomination process. There is already a petition taking place to back up Pelosi.

I would like to ask Jerome Armstrong: where do you stand on this issue? It is time to pick sides: are you with the people or with the fat cats?

Here is the link: http://pol.moveon.org/democracy/ in case you want to sign the petition. I just did.

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As most of you are aware, Congresswoman Julia Carson succumbed to a battle with lung cancer in December.  Indiana's 7th Congressional District is the second most Democratic in the state, and includes most of the largest and capital city, Indianapolis-Marion County.  Several well-qualified Democrats entered the race, along with the Congresswoman's grandson, freshman City Councilor Andre Carson.  A full rundown on the major candidates seeking to replace Mrs. Carson can be found on my recent BlueIndiana diary.

At Julia Carson's funeral, several members of the Congressional Black Caucus endorsed Andre Carson for Congress.  They essentially turned her funeral into an Andre for Congress rally.  Immediately after, the Democratic machine, much of which was built up by Mrs. Carson, started lining up behind Andre.  They leaned hard on other Democrats to try and prevent other Democrats from challenging him for the seat.  The machine did see some success, with former Mayor Bart Peterson--probably the most popular Democrat among Indianapolis Democrats--saying he wasn't interested and endorsing Carson.

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(x-posted from TexasKAOS - where we're Taking Texas Back!)

When Chris Bowers posted Become the California Democratic Party back on December 8, it struck a chord with me.  

Back in June, a contingent of reformers got their first shot at taking over the Texas Democratic Party.  Made up largely of former Dean, Clark, and Edwards supporters, the movement nearly succeeded.  We forced a rare runoff, and fell only 3% short in the second round of voting.  Although the reform contingent constituted a majority of present delegates, we were outvoted by delegates who held proxy power (ie, multiple votes) for non-present delegates.  The loss was heartbreaking for many of us. There were two candidates - Glen Maxey and Charlie Urbina-Jones - who understood that people powered politics is the way of the future.  But we were defeated by the old-schoolers who clearly knew how to work the proxy system.  Lesson learned.

After the convention, we went home defeated but determined to work for and support our Democratic candidates.  The convention was over - it was time to STFU and get to work.  Or as Bill Clinton put it, "Fall in love, then fall in line." We were good soldiers, and we expected that our party would support the Democratic slate from top to bottom.  Needless to say, the convention loss wasn't our last disappointment of this campaign season.

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This is a copy of an announcement that's being distributed across the Texas blogosphere in advance of our state convention, which begins tomorrow.   Chris and I talked about this in Philly over Memorial Day weekend (after re-enacting the epic "Bowers v Texas" battle), and I told him that I was extremely pleased that he's setting an example for everyone by getting involved with the PA Dem Party.  I am a true believer in the Silent Revolution Chris wrote about a few weeks ago, and this is the next step that I'm taking in advancing the progressive agenda within my own state party.  I hope this will provide other bloggers some inspiration to do the same.  

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I did not expect Crashing the Gates to have the effect it's having.  It's having an impact among party leaders who don't realize that their methods are outmoded, but that's not particularly interesting.  What's happening on the right, with the hysteria and the lies, is remarkable.  

The right-wing is lying about sales numbers on Kos's book, and not even in a very slick way.  I mean you can manipulate numbers to make something look bad, but that's not what they are doing.  Drudge simply made up bad sales numbers.  And at the same time, the book The Party of Death by Regnery that they are pushing is just not gaining any traction.

As significantly, Glenn Greenwald's How Would a Patriot Act? is still at number one.  I wish I had time to go into this more deeply, as I think what's happening is that the blogosphere is taking its first steps into becoming a real idea generating factory.  The right spent billion on their think tanks and policy arms; we can't and we don't have time.  But we do have assets, and one of them is this vibrant bloggy public square.

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