You sort of hit on my only comment on this.  I get very tired of the blog triumphalism, but I love blogs for the information they provide.

As someone who spends all day mobilizing and motivating volunteers, it certainly helps to keep the fires stoked as they say.

One good thing about spending way too much time reading blogs is I never run out of topics of conversation with local activists.

Part of getting boots on the ground in the voting booth is having boots on the doorsteps reminding folks to vote and talking up local candidates.  I honestly find that my blog reading provides invaluable fodder for conversation with activists who are perhaps less voracious news-readers than myself.  I think that helps keep them coming back.

PortDork

Amen.

Just a funny aside, the dem backed by the HDCC (state leg. house democrats) in the Southwest corner of WA just lost the primary to a guy who raised $100 and didn't doorbell a soul.  But the HDCC in Washington absolutely has it's shit together, and is providing serious money to lot's of worthy challengers and endangered incumbents in the swing districts of Washington.

So take that for what it's worth.

PortDork

Washington State just had it's first primary in ages where voters were required to select a partisan ballot.  So voters had a choice to vote for Dem. candidates only, Rep. candidates only, or soley in non-partisan races.

600,502 people chose Democratic ballots, and 460,891 people took Republican ballots.  Democrats took 56.5% of 1,061,393 ballots cast.

Obviously which races were competitive across the state affects this.  For instance in Jefferson County there was a contested Democratic primary for County Prosecutor that would essentially be decided in the primary with no Republican in the race.

But across the State it looks like at the very least the Democrats are more energized.

PortDork

Not to mention that often times the State Legislature has a much greater effect on the day-to-day lives of people than the Federal government.  Taxes, Marriage, Land Use, Minimum Wage, etc.

Beware of the ActBlue pages for Washington though.  They currently list Tim Sheldon for Senate in WA-35, even though he is the quintessential DINO.

He caucuses with the Republicans, admits to voting for Bush and has Donated $10,000 to Republican campaign committees.  

At least ActBlue has added his challenger, and the donate link for Sheldon seems to be deactivated.  But I'm curious why he's there at all.

PortDork

Clallam County in rural Washington State (on the Olympic Peninsula) had a great turnout for the Demo Reunion.  Roughly 25-30 people showed up to drop literature for Maria Cantwell, State Rep. Candidate Kevin Van De Wege and the DNC doorhanger.  Everyone seemed to have a good time and we blanketed one of the bigger cities in the county, Sequim, in one day.

People came back with stories of talking to life-long republicans who would vote for Van De Wege  and everyone had a few feel-good stories.  

A few things on the DNC materials, the doorhangers were pretty cool and volunteers spent a few hours hand-writing the phone number for the county dem office on the back.

But the postcards were worthless.  They were completely blank on the back, and no dem groups could afford postage to bother organizing a use for them.  Perhaps if the DNC could provide bulk postage rates for the postcards they would have been better.

All in all I think it was a success, I know that the "100 days until the election" was a very motivating pitch to get volunteers.

PortDork

Our here in rural Washington State we've got roughly 20 people confirmed to doorbell for a state representative candidate and Maria Cantwell as well as dropping off the doorhangers (on 900 of which volunteers handwrote the phone number to the county democratic office)

In organizing this I found the "100 days to the election" to be a very good motivational tool.  I plan on doing the same with 75, 50, 25 etc.

PortDork

Amen brother,

All the high-level talk is great, but we need to accomplish something via this internet activism before we crystalize our thinking about how to use it.  

PortDork

I'd just like to point out that the prospects of having an effect on a statewide Senate race are a lot slimmer than effecting a special election for the House.  I think I'd rather see the netroots figure out how to help win a winnable seat (Hackett, Ciro) than jumpin' up to the big-time (Lieberman) quite yet.  I think we've figured out how to make them sweat at this level, now we need to figure out how to make them pay.

PortDork