I normally don’t keep up with the Tennessee Democratic Party. It’s not that I have anything against Democrats. It’s just that I live in East Tennessee. This means, even if I wanted to embrace my Democraticyishness, it’d be pointless to do so. For the record, I don’t want to embrace my Democraticyishness… any more than I want to give Bill Haslam money.
But this caught my attention.
Yesterday, progressive bloggers across the state of Tennessee launched an online fundraising campaign for the Tennessee Democratic Party. The campaign was apparently organized by newly elected party chair, Chip Forrester, who has promised to expand the state party’s grassroots organizing effort, and well-known KnoxViews blogger, R. Neal (an excellent advisor for such an expansion, I think.)
They’d hoped to raise $1000 by this Friday. With approximately 18-20 bloggers participating, they hit the goal within “FOUR HOURS AND 20 MINUTES!” The amount was increased $2000, goal met, and has now been upped to $3000. (Last time I checked, they were roughly $300 short of that $3000 with several hours remaining. I also noticed they went from 30+ supporters to 70 within a relatively short period of time.)
Go ahead. Scoff Republicans. After all, this isn’t a vast amount of money. (It might buy a ticket or two to one of those GOP events.) And the fact is state Republicans have always recognized the benefits of online political communities and have relied upon them immensely to help spread information and, yes, sometimes inaccuracies. Whatever works, right?
Still, given the small number of participants, the amount of time in which they organized the campaign and raised the money, and the fact that they did so in absence of any upcoming election (which tends to create a sense of urgency in donors), the effort becomes far more laudable, don’t you think? You may also want to take note of the fact that the Dem’s are expanding their network of supporters. Don’t forget that.
It might be important later.
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The campaign was apparently organized by newly elected party chair, Chip Forrester
Actually, he didn’t know about it until after it launched. It was an independent effort by Tennessee progressive bloggers, and not affiliated with or endorsed by the TNDP.
But thanks for the post. We are all pleasantly surprised by the outcome.
I apologize for the error.
This makes the effort all the more impressive.
I can only speak for myself. But my comments weren’t so much a pooh, poohing of the effort as a response to some of the overheated rhetoric of the Chipinista. In fact, I congratulated them several times for trying to do something productive. But there was a lot of talk about “flexing muscles,” and $2,500 isn’t much muscle flexing, and restructing the Tennessee Democrat Party and starting an online revolution. That’s completely unrealistic.
And I’m like you, I’m not anywhere close to embracing my Democratyishness. I don’t have any. I’m just injecting some realism into the conversation. Facebook pages and text messages aren’t going to win elections in Tennessee. If they did, Obama would have won at least the Democratic Primary.
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“That’s completely unrealistic”.
Yeah, so was the online revolution that put Obama in the White House.
>.<
There is also the fact (and captainkona you know this as well as I do) if the Democratic party wishes to make progress east of Knoxville, these grassroot efforts, particularly the establishment of strong online communities, will be necessary.
While I don’t think there will be huge or immediate gains as this is a conservative area, I’m also convinced there are a lot of Democrats in this area. They just don’t know it yet.
What else would you call folks, who self-identify as Republican, support Republicans, and vote Republican – but reject 90% of the party’s ideas? I’m telling ya this area is becoming more “swingable” than either party realizes.
I agree with the swingability of your side of the state. Here in northwest Tennessee, the same thing is happening.
I’m seeing more and more people identifying themselves as Independent. With that said, both parties should be paying close attention to the rural areas.
Don’t i always say Mike Williams will be our governor someday?
Heh. Good luck talking him into that.