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.
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.
