Updated: Original title: Netroots 101 for Democratic Women of the Desert 

By request of Sandra Stone, president of Democratic Women of the Desert, and George Zander, president of Desert Stonewall Democrats, I took my fellow Democrats down the rabbit hole with me.  Many of our best Democratic activists here in the desert are still unfamiliar with a lot about the blogosphere, and I hope to bridge the gap a bit.  Word got around after Howie Klein’s visit with Democrats of the Desert last May.  These are politically savvy, experienced Democrats who show up, fundraise, canvass, and phonebank.  Time to join forces more effectively.  I want them in here. 

I’ve pulled some notes together and collected pertinent links.  The goal is more Democrats from the CA-45th active in the blogosphere.  Follow below the flip for the working outline of Netroots 101, a friendly introduction to the blogosphere:

Crossposted to Calitics

Netroots 101 – An introduction to the liberal blogosphere

Short version:  Read TalkingPointsMemo, DailyKos and Calitics (links below), and be an online advocate for your community.  It’s really, really fun in here, and worthwhile for any citizen.

“Some of you in the DNC may see us as barbarians at the gate. Some of us see ourselves as the cavalry.  The truth is, we are fresh horses.” — Miles Kurland, a grassroots DFA activist speaking directly to a large group of DNC members at the DNC Western Regional Caucus, 1/22/05

What is the Netroots Community? 
What are blogs?  Not necessarily journalism, nor literature, nor punditry.  Just free speech on the internet, homespun, in the best American DIY (Do It Yourself) tradition, with all of its potential consequences.  And pootie pics and ponies. 

Excellent example of campaign blogging:  Kid Oakland on why Howie Klein is a netroots hero

Daily Kos & Calitics
Click the sitemeter.  Review the blog reader survey.

Structure:  Login, Frontpage, Diaries, Comments. 
  Importance of rules, especially copyright issues, and wisdom of lurking at first. 
Daily Kos has an extensive FAQ

Types of Diaries/Posts: Recommended, rated, rescued, campaign round ups.
  Getting crossposted, evidence that someone else found merit in your posting.  Google always knows.  If Calitics front posts your diary, you will be read by the California political media. 
  Example of a comment on Daily Kos  – in this case, I’m adding Mary Bono’s latest gaffe to a posting about astronomic GOP stupidity.  Comments in front page postings are more likely to be read than your extensive diary on your candidate.  Participate in the conversation, and add your candidate’s POV where it’s pertinent to the conversation.  Include a link to the campaign webpage.

Database/Info Mgmt elements of blogs:  Links, tags, ratings, trusted user status, hidden comments.  Posting is relatively simple on most blogs, with handy buttons to add boldface, italics, links & pics

Community Features:
The Scotty Show, Sunday Talk, BlueAmerica interviews, Cheers & Jeers.  Digby Revealed at the Take Back America Conference, June 07.  This was the first time her millions of readers got a chance to see or hear the person behind the brilliant words.

Jargon:   snark, trolls, concern trolls, flame wars, meta, DFHs, WATBs, WTF?
  wingnuts/moonbats, Sockpuppets (Lee Siegal example)  Bwahahahaha. 
For your reference, the Lexicon of Liberal Invective. 

Netroots ethos:  Transparency is mandatory, though real names are not.  Why.

Commenting Policy for Crooks and Liars 

The Debased Mainstream Media – now part of the Beltway elite, often worse than useless
Media Matters, working the refs, corporate takeover, stenography
The Deborah Howell re Abramoff Affair, Judy Miller, Broder, Klein, Hiatt, Tweety, Timmeh.  Cocktail weenies.  HuffPost’s Russert watch.  We want professional journalism, and we react to bad work.  Remedies applied:
*Firedoglake and the Libby Trial  Legal expertise, and giving a damn about outing a spy made the difference. 
*TPM and the US Attorneys issue – Having some regard for the role of the Justice Dept. made the difference.  Document dump teamwork.
NB:  You will be held to the same standards when you post a diary or comment.  Expect feedback on style and substance.  Do Not expect it to be uniformly flattering. 

Flip side:  The netroots give proper support and attention to writers like Paul Krugman, Frank Rich, Sy Hersh, Dana Priest, Dan Froomkin, Murray Waas,  Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, etc.  We have their backs. 

Issues with Democrats – The DLC’s sticky fingers and why centrists are perceived as tools, not pragmatists, in the current political environment-  Buying into RW frames and media fatuousness.  Lieberman, the Fox News Democrat, Short Ride Joe.  The whole Rahm v. Dean tension.  Shrum/Consultants, feh.

Venting:  YouTube of Jim Mora, linked in blogs everywhere after the last Iraq funding vote to voice the disgust:

Beloved Democrats – Howard Dean, Russ Feingold, John Conyers, Al Gore, Barbara Boxer (except for CT primary, which just proves that no one rides for free, not even Boxer.  Ruthless scrutiny of Democrats, by Democrats.) 

Netroots Campaigning –  Earning More and Better Democrats
Resources:  Progressive Punch, Sunlight Foundation, WaPo Database.  Campaign bloggers tell the story of the campaign and coordinate with other Democratic activists online on behalf of their districts.  Act Blue.  Viral media.  Bird-dogging for macaca moments.  Pushing back.  Thanks to online activism, many races that no one thought were competitive added to our majority:  Webb, Tester, McNerney, Hall.  Don’t mention it, it was our pleasure.

Will the netroots get behind my guy?  Depends.  Some parameters:

Blue America (Crooks and Liars, Down With Tyranny and Firedoglake)

Howie Klein: “Blue America doesn’t ask much of our prospective endorsees. On GLBT issues, for example, we don’t ask them to promise to support a gay marriage bill; we just ask them if they will fight for gay equality, even if they have to exhibit some leadership in a tough environment.  If they can’t do that, we may still root for them to beat a much worse Republican, but we don’t raise money for them.  We expect the candidates we endorse and raise money for to support a woman’s right to choice, to support serious campaign finance reform, to favor serious proposals to end the occupation of Iraq, to support gay equality– and, like I said, to be willing to exercise leadership on difficult issues.  I mean, sure, we want candidates who are for the minimum wage and who oppose the dismantling of Social Security, but those should be the easy issues for Democrats”.

Blue Majority (Daily Kos, MyDD, and Swing State Project):

The litmus test
by kos

Wed Aug 03, 2005 at 06:33:01 AM PDT
My candidate litmus test, with edits, from James Powell’s excellent comment on Gilliard’s blog:

*Does candidate ‘distance himself’ from the party and/or its leaders, or is he proud to be a Democrat?
*Does he talk like a bureaucrat or like a regular person?
*Does she make it clear that she opposes Bush and the Republicans?
*Does she back down when the corporate press/media or Republican pundits attack him, or does she stand by her words?
*Does he sleepwalk through the campaign, or does he act like he wants to win?

Notice the complete lack of ideology. And if that bothers you, just remember who would control the committees if Democrats took charge. 

Miscellaneous:

Wikipedia. Google basics.  Note:  YouTube (owned by Google) and its growing influence (Google is competing with MySpace, which Rupert Murdoch just bought.)  Pathetic RW spin offs:  QubeTV and Conservapedia.  Check the blogrolls of writers you like.  Follow the links, or you’ll miss the whole point half the time. TalkingPointsMemo is rapidly becoming a daily requirement. 

Endnotes

The blogosphere serves to amplify the best of journalism and commentary, and to fill in the gaps.  It’s a networking godsend to activists.  There is a RW blogosphere, but it has nowhere near our creative energy and has been repeatedly spanked with the facts.  Wingnuttia, as it is called, is just another outlet of the Norquist/Rove media machine, it features foot soldiers repeating talking points, monolithic and unified; whereas the liberal netroots challenge orthodoxy and grow from below, collaborating or not, independently. 

Sideline: Guns, Germs and Steel analogy: 
Why didn’t China conquer the Americas?  Why was it Spain? China had one emperor to ask, Europe had multiple royals.  Columbus got lucky with the third monarch.  A Chinese adventurer had no such option.  Similar dynamic here:  This is the drawback to total control, it rewards mediocre talent and punishes innovation, and it’s isolating.  Again, this is the netroots’ primary complaint of the DLC, its chief weakness and largest similarity to Rove/GOP, this top-down myopia.  This is where “the Democratic wing of the Democratic party” is still alive and kicking.  Local Democrats are demanding more say. 

What was a Dem weakness is a strength here – our cranky, insubordinate, in-house talent pool.  The grassroots are successfully re-branding the Democratic Party partly because the internet levels the playing field.  Money and access aren’t neutralized by any stretch, but they’re less omnipotent.  It’s a start. 

Highly Recommended: Crashing the Gate by Markos Moulitzas Zuniga and Jerome Armstrong, and Anatomy of Deceit by Marcy Wheeler

Remember,

• Lurk first, and if you have to think twice about posting that comment, don’t.  Not everything has to be expressed in print for global consumption, and there is no taking it back.  Revise & extend, yes.  Erase, no.

• Real names aren’t necessary, but absolute transparency is.  Note your conflicts and associations frankly.

• Follow the rules, cite your sources, and know your facts.  Give us a link.  We love a link.

• Don’t feed the trolls.  If an emotionally stunted creature goes after you, ignore it.  Veterans will deal with it.

No law says you ever have to post a thing.  The majority doesn’t  (I think).  I didn’t for over a year at first.  But there’s excellent reading in here, and a nourishing fellowship of liberals.  Your candidate will benefit from your browsing alone.  Some of the writers in here are breathtakingly good.  It’s a tonic.

Appendix

Some Handy Hyperlinks (please note – you don’t have to read all this to keep up.  Just dKos and Calitics to start will cover quite a lot, as everyone reads everyone else and quotes their favorite bits):

These first three are unfailingly appropriate for genteel eyes and ears:

Hotline’s Blogometer  http://blogometer.na…

Dan Froomkin of the WaPo  http://www.washingto…

Scott Horton’s No Comment/Harper’s Magazine http://harpers.org/s…

Some profanity may occur (most likely in the comments) but it is usually merited:

Daily Kos  http://www.dailykos….

Firedoglake  http://www.firedogla…

Down With Tyranny  http://downwithtyran…

Crooks and Liars  http://www.crooksand…

Hullaballoo  http://www.digbysblo…

TalkingPointsMemo:  http://www.talkingpo…

Americablog:  http://americablog.b…

Atrios:  http://atrios.blogsp…

Calitics  http://www.calitics….

Hotline on Call  http://hotlineblog.n…

Local talent! Elle’s Blog http://www.desertdem…

Glenn Greenwald  http://www.salon.com…

Blog Reader Survey  http://www.blogads.c…

Daily Kos FAQ  http://www.dkosopedi…

Calitics Rules  http://www.calitics….

Crooks and Liars Commenting Policy http://www.crooksand…

ActBlue Formatting Guide  http://www.actblue.c…

Blue Majority  http://www.actblue.c…

Blue America 

Firedoglake Archive – Plame 

New York Times regarding the Firedoglake Libby Trial Liveblogging  http://www.nytimes.c…

Jane Hamsher on Countdown with Keith Olbermann

Matt Stoller of MyDD on what’s wrong with Dem consultants 

Gilliard after the 2004 elections 

YouTube – Have You Had Enough of Mary Bono?  

YouTube Jim Mora, proxy of choice for liberal bloggers after the Iraq funding vote

Now go forth and find your own favorite links!

Updated at 12:20pm Wed. June 13 to add links and some features (Cheers & Jeers, ponies, Lexicon, copyright issues)

Updated for clarity and tidiness on July 6, again on July 14, 2007

(In Orange and In Blue. Please give out some rec lovin! Oh, and at Facebook – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Join us on April 27th for a very special Blue House at the Brew House Blograiser to benefit the campaigns of Representative Jerry McNerney (CA-11) and Lt. Col. Charlie Brown (soon to replace John Doolittle as the representative of California’s 4th District).  This is a production of California’s blogger community (and our now moth-infested pockets), and we encourage everyone to come out and enjoy great food, delicious San Diego microbrews, and a big step towards making California even more Blue!

Organized to coincide with the annual California Democratic Party’s Convention, this year in San Diego, we’ll be gathering bloggers, delegates, activists and politicos of all stripes at Karl Strauss Brewing Company downtown to pay our literal and figurative respects to these two great Democrats:

Who: Charlie Brown, Jerry McNerney and friends
What: give $40 (split between the two) via ActBlue
When: 8:30 PM Friday April 27th
Where: Karl Strauss Brewing Company, Downtown San Diego
1157 Columbia Street – San Diego, CA  92101
Why: Cause good beer tastes better with politics

Space is limited! To pre-register with an advanced donation, visit the Blue House at the Brew House ActBlue page to contribute your $40 today.  All advanced contributors will be checked in at the door.

Jerry McNerney knocked off one of the biggest Republican villains in the country last November, and Charlie Brown is poised to capitalize on his near miss as John Doolittle goes down in flames.  Neither race will be cheap, and neither race will be easy, which is why we need your support to deliver victory.

Karl Strauss Brewing Company is ready for you.  California bloggers are ready.  Charlie Brown and Jerry McNerney are ready.  Now, are you ready to support Charlie and Jerry?

Like thousands of others across California and the United States tonight, I took part in a vigil protesting the continuation of the Iraq War.  I was fortunate to have a protest just a bit down the road from me, with folks from Normal Heights, Kensington, and the surrounding area setting up shop on the Adams Ave/I-15 Bridge to catch rush hour traffic on the way home.  I managed to arrive late, as I tend to do, but was still able to have a great time discovering that there’s lots of hope, even in San Diego.

I don’t get as involved in local San Diego action nearly as much as I would like, but I’m really hoping that one of these days (months), my schedule will magically start to line up with more opportunities.  But in the meantime, when I get the chance to join in one of these events, it’s even more exciting than it might otherwise be.

I was ultimately out for only about 45 minutes or so, but in that time, the response was amazing.  The nearly continuous honking from rush hour traffic, the waves, the peace signs, the interested pedestrians were really encouraging.  Granted, this neighborhood tends to be more progressive than many other parts of San Diego, but it’s always good to recharge the soul with some public support.

My fellow attendees (vigil-antes?) covered many generations, and conversation ranged from impeachment (Bush, Cheney, Nixon) to Huffington Post to Obama to Kucinich and, yes, Calitics :).  And the support we received from everyone going by was just as wide-ranging demographically.  Colonel Kilgore once said of Vietnam “Someday, this war is gonna end.” Tonight was a great opportunity for some optimism, despite the unfortunately somber occasion.  I hope the mediocrity of my camera-phone pictures in twilight are compensated for in some small part my my words.  This war will end.  It’s not in the papers, it’s on the walls, and these are some of the people who are making it happen:

now BRING EM HOME!

Busy day or two here in Sunny San Diego.  Hit the flip for the itinerary for any active Democrat.

Later today, start off with the 7th Annual Women’s Day Celebration from Red CalacArts.  Enjoy music by Pistolera, poetry by Maria Fugueroa, and more.

Saturday morning, San Diego Young Democrats are taking on graffiti in North Park and there’ll be food and drink afterwards for all comers.

And if you’d rather be active while sitting and listening, check out Edward Tabash discussing the separation of church and state with the Coronado Democratic Club.

Cap off your day with some words on the impact of humans on the environment from Dr. Milton Saier offered by Progressive Democrats of San Diego.

And if you happen to find yourself absent from San Diego, don’t overlook a screening of “Call Me Malcolm” in Costa Mesa, it does the progressive soul good.

Guest-blogging at the Cafe San Diego blog today is Murtaza Baxamusa, senior planner, Center on Policy Initiatives.  It’s a relatively brief, bullet-point rundown of ways in which San Diego has been fiscally irresponsible with its development deals over the past 10 years or so.  It’s by no means an exhaustive list and it by no means covers everything that’s wrong with the given examples (Qualcomm Stadium, College Grove Wal-Mart, Navy Broadway Complex).  The real kicker- the part that has implications to everything we do here and everywhere else online- comes right at the end:

The last example illustrates how our officials are sold on the idea that any development benefits the community. Seldom does anyone sit down with a calculator and fill in the costs and benefits columns. The CEO of the downtown redevelopment agency, Nancy Graham, recently told reporters: “We don’t get into the financial analysis, and neither does the city.”

Yesterday, Francine Busby sent out an email wondering aloud whether San Diego could become “A Democratic Powerhouse”.  It recounted a recent meeting in which

Party Chairman, Jess Durfee laid out strategic plans to increase and mobilize Democratic voters and elect Democrats who will work for high quality education, energy independence, affordable housing, access to healthcare and other progressive priorities.

All of those, without a doubt, are important tent issues with national, state and local implications.  And while I might be unfairly critical, it sounds a lot like what sank Busby in her congressional race.  Big, national, non-specific ideas without providing me any inkling of what it would look like day-to-day in my life.  San Diego as a Democratic area isn’t as crazy as it sounds.  There are four congressional districts, 2 Democratic, 2 Republican.  The 50th is competitive, which tips the scorecard 2-1-1 if we’re talking about demographic makeup.  But that also means that the county Democratic party isn’t fighting too many tough Congressional races.  The County party is going to be involved exclusively in GOTV for state elections because, at least in the near future, that’s all the SD Democratic Party will be asked to do from state-level campaigns.  So what will it do locally?  Assembly, State Senate, City Council, Mayor and offices on down the line need to be strongly contested and/or defended, but when will the party actually take up the cause of accountability?

This is a tricky line for a party to tread.  Turning on the people you got elected to be representatives of YOUR party is tough to say the least.  But if the Democratic Party isn’t the party of accountability, then what else can it be that will ultimately matter?  If it isn’t the party providing the mechanism to actually get good things done, then as all these young people awake to politics and want to get involved, why would they use the party?

There are lots of reasons why public and party officials would overlook important aspects of this stuff, ranging from the well-meaning to the nefarious.  Maybe they have bad advice, or just a flawed perspective on the situation.  Maybe they just don’t have time to read through everything, and have to delegate to a staffer who misses the boat.  Maybe they’re looking forward to another nice campaign check from the beneficiaries of their actions.  Maybe it’s a healthy dose of condescending contempt for the general population.  Either way, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that the more pressure is placed on government officials, the more responsive they end up being.  That applies whether it’s blog posts, MoveOn petitions, letters to your Congressperson, organizing primary challenges, or anything in between.  The end result is that our government is held mroe responsible and forced to be more responsive.

Now, the stuff in Baxamusa’s blog post isn’t sexy.  It’s not exciting, and it isn’t the stuff that mass movements are made of.  But it’s the day-to-day stuff that adds up to quality of life.  And it’s not that difficult to change.  It can be difficult to find an audience for local and state issues at times, but you don’t need Obama’s million Facebook friends to make a big impact.  For the hundreds or thousands of calls that might be required to get noticed on a national issue, I’d imagine getting five or ten people in one day to express an opinion on a San Diego development project would knock the city council right out of their collective socks.  It’s all a matter of degrees.

Not all places are like San Diego, where the general levels of political awareness and involvement are pretty low.  It’s not a tough bar to clear if you want to get involved and make an impact.  But even in places where civic participation is already a big part of the game, infrastructure gets built by local issues.  We chide our candidates to campaign on local issues, because that’s what resonates.  But too often we forget the implications of such an outlook.

If we want a 50-State Strategy, a 58-County Strategy, generally a party that reflects the people it aspires to represent, local issues ARE the infrastructure.  A party that’s involved all day, every day is the party who’s there to push these issues, because the party that can mobilize people and support their efforts to demand accountability and responsibility from their local government is the party that has the system in place when the national elections come around.

We talk often about changing the party.  Not wholesale, not violently or radically (crashingly?), but making it stronger by making it more able to use the power available to it.  Right now, too often, our local governments just aren’t getting the job done.  It’s not a partisan problem (members of both parties have shown the ability to be bad at their jobs), but a Democratic Party that is not just progressive, not just people-powered, but people-oriented, can provide the support for people to demand better.  And when it comes down to it, that’s what I want from my party and it’s what I’ve found more of in blogging: I want my demands to be loud enough to be heard.

Crossposted at Dailykos, MyDD, and my completely neglected blog

So I went through last night and loaded the Calitics Event Calendar with all sorts of San Diego goodies, and now it’s way overloaded with San Diego bias.  Hopefully that’ll entice people to start using it more (I’ve noticed it gradually gaining some steam), because I think it’s an excellent tool for one of our goals here of providing the mechanism to get people more involved locally.

I know that I personally had no idea how much was going on around my rather red town before really diving into this.  Now I’ve got Guantanamo, the Death Penalty, Iran, Election Fraud, African Poverty, Climate Change, Gloria Steinem, Richard Lederer and a bunch more coming up in the next month or so.  The majority of writers, commenters and readers here are involved in the process outside of blogging, and more specifically outside of direct electoral politics.  This is a simple way to bring politics into the day-to-day world and begin building bridges between the grassroots and the netroots.  We’ve gotta still attend these events, participate in what’s going on around us, and then write about it, but let’s not forget that we’ve gotta do our small part to turn people out in the first place too.

So I hope everyone will start using the event calendar, whether it’s posting events, learning about events, telling others about upcoming events.  It’s one way to build a cohesive community.

I am honored to be serving as a delegate to the CDP along with Ellis Perlman, a Professor Emeritus in political science from the University of Michigan-Flint.  He has been a keen observer of grassroots politics as it relates to this state for the past 100 years, and I asked him to put together some information on it, to serve as a historical perspective for those of us who don’t quite remember the days of Hiram Johnson and Earl Warren.  There’s some very good information here, and it all speaks to the fact that this “people-powered” movement is nothing new, it’s just being adapted for the 21st century.

The report, on the flip…

Grass Roots and Political Change in California  Jan. 21, 2007

Progressivism, building on earlier populist movements, has spurred a variety of grass roots movements during the past hundred years in California.  The state’s political history is encouraging.  It demonstrates that progressive grass roots movements can achieve power and influence public policy.  The examples below illustrate such achievements and influence.

Two factors should be noted.  One is that the movements typically have been rooted in the middle and upper middle class.  The second is that conservatives have had similar successes, especially in the 1960 and beyond.  -Ellis Perlman  January 24, 2007 

The Progressive movement in California was founded by Chester Rowell and Edward Dickson, two journalists who had become disgusted with the Southern Pacific Railroad’s control of the state legislature.  Their efforts ultimately led to formation of the Lincoln-Roosevelt Republican League, with clubs forming throughout the state.  This was a grass roots movement, largely from within the Republican Party, to clean up California government, and make it more responsive to Progressive ideals.
Source:  Joseph P. Harris, California Politics (Chandler:  1967), pp. 1-13

Another form of grass roots action and accomplishment in California involved the response of women when they first gained the right to vote.  Women’s suffrage was opposed by the elite in Los Angeles, and especially by the Los Angeles Times.  It was approved by 2000 votes in Los Angeles, and by 3587 votes statewide in a special election on October 10, 1911.  By December, more than 82,000 women had registered in Los Angeles, and more than 90% voted in the mayoral election.  Ironically, the Times, having opposed the women’s vote, congratulated women for their “intelligent voting” in defeating the Socialist mayoral candidate, John Harriman. 
Source:  Jane Apostal, “Why Women Should Not Have the Vote:  Anti-Suffrage Views in the Southland in 1911,”  Southern California Quarterly  70:29-42 (Spring, 1988)

A group of Republicans, mainly liberals, met in August, 1923, to organize a campaign to secure a liberal state legislature, and to oppose Friend W. Richardson, the conservative Republican governor.  They created the Progressive Voters League to contest the 1924 and 1926 elections.  The very conservative Richardson followed two progressive governors, Hiram Johnson and William Stephens.  The Democratic Party was weak, commonly winning no more than a third of the gubernatorial vote.  When Richardson was elected in 1922, conservative Republicans had a majority in the Assembly, and almost a majority in the Senate.  The Voters League was instrumental in electing a Progressive, Clement Young, as Governor.  The League then disbanded, and Conservative James Rolfe was elected governor in 1930.  As with most revolts against dominant political authority in 20th century California, grass roots organization played a major role, and the revolt came from within the  Republican Party.

Source:  Russell Posner, “The Progressive Voters League, 1923-1926,” California Historical Society Quarterly  36:251-261 (September, 1957)

Progressivism is generally considered to have faded as a force in California and nationally by the 1920s-1930s period.  Rosanne  M. Barker demonstrated that Progressivism continued as an active movement during this period, sustained by women’s organizations, particularly in small towns.  She highlights the activity of Pearl Chase and other women activists in Santa Barbara, and notes that progressive women activists were achieving success in other towns, as well.  The types of activities and accomplishments described by Barker did not draw much attention, at the time or later.  It represented, however, substantial grass roots effort and achievement of progressive goals.
Source:  Rosanne M. Barker, “Small Town Progressivism:  Pearl Chase and Female Activism in Santa Barbara,” Southern California Quarterly  79:47-100 (Spring, 1997)

The California Republican Assembly was organized in 1934 as a response to Republican losses in 1932.  Clubs were formed throughout the state.  By 1938, Earl Warren had become the key figure in bringing moderate/progressive Republican leadership to power, to control the state for the next twenty years.  Subsequent grass root movements, beginning with United Republicans of California and the John Birch Society regained conservative control of the Republican Party by the 1960s.
Source:  Richard Harvey, Dynamics of  California Government and Politics  (Wadsworth, 1970) ch. 2

The California Democratic Council, with chapters throughout the state and a peak membership of 66,000, grew out of Adlai Stevenson’s unsuccessful 1952 campaign for President.  The political leader most associated with the CDC was Alan Cranston, State Controller and later U. S. Senator.  The CDC was a grass roots movement, one generated from within the Democratic Party.  Its membership tended to be middle class and suburban, as were the several Republican grass roots movements that fostered progressive reform.
Source:  Clyde E. Jacobs and John F. Gallagher, California Government:  One Among Fifty  (Macmillan, 1966), pp. 102-106

I hope you all enjoyed that as much as I did (or perhaps not; I’m a history nerd).  It’s interesting that grassroots movements in this state have traditionally started in the middle and upper-middle classes; not surprising, certainly on the basis of leisure time.  I think our challenge in the netroots is to ensure a multiplicity of voices, to understand and hear from the concerns of the poor and those typically not present in the larger political debate.

The other factor is that our opposition is just as equipped to pull this off, so we must be smarter, and grow larger, and continue to innovate to maintain any kind of advantage.  We also must keep an eye on our legislators in Sacramento, as the “clean up government” mantra has bounced back and forth between the parties over the years.

I’m going to try and get Ellis to write a little more for the site, if you have any specific areas of interest, please put them in the comments.