Friday, June 16, 2006

Time to start Acting Blue

ActBlue is the federal clearinghouse for donations to Democratic candidates, having channeled over $5.5 million to Dem contenders so far. With your help, we can activate it for Texas... for statewide, state house, and state senate candidates.


Together, Texas bloggers have agreed to help activate ActBlue for our state's non-federal candidates by asking our readers to put us over the top. Normally, ActBlue asks each state to raise $10,000 before moving forward (Texas being at $4,625 so far). But we've got some good news for you from the people at ActBlue:


However, in doing some more preliminary research Texas turns out to be similar to some other states we've already done -- so if we could break $5000 we'd be ready to move ahead with it. Would the Texroots be able to help us out with the remaining $1000 by the end of the month?


As far as timeline, my aim would be to have everything ready to go as early in July as we can.


So will you -- the TexRoots, that's you -- get us over the $5,000 mark and activate ActBlue for all our state non-federal candidates? Do it here.


This is the most important thing you can do for the David Van Oses, the Hank Gilberts, the Maria Luisa Alvarados, and the VaLinda Hathcoxes of Texas as we move forward to support all of the TexRoots candidates, to be announced in the coming months here and elsewhere around the Texas liberal blogosphere.

Update (7 p.m.): $5000.02. Thanks everyone who pushed us over the top, including SH-126 candidate Chad Khan.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Gracias tanto, TDP

Amber Moon, Communications Director
Hector Nieto, Deputy Communications Director
Texas Democratic Party
707 Rio Grande Street
Austin, Texas 78701

Dear Amber and Hector:

Over the past few months, you have done tremendous work to bring the Texas Democratic Party and the surging Texas netroots community together.

Specifically, we want to commend you for the accommodations you provided at the recently completed Texas Democratic Party Convention in Fort Worth. From the front row seating to free wi-fi access, you gave us tremendous access to an excellent convention. Most importantly, you treated us with the same respect you gave to the traditional media.

The Texas blogging community may be an unconventional bunch. We don't write for major dailies, and we can't guarantee thousand-dollar checks. We do, however, work tirelessly -- as volunteers, as activists, as organizers, and as bloggers -- to fight for the candidates and the people of our Texas Democratic Party.

Thanks again for all the work you did helping make the 2006 TDP convention a success, and we are eager to continue working together to help move Texas forward.

Sincerely,
The Texas Progressive Democratic Webloggers

Rep. Aaron Pena
www.acapitolblog.blogspot.com

Sean-Paul Kelley
www.agonist.org

Anna
www.annatopia.com

Perry Dorrell
http://brainsandeggs.blogspot.com

Karl-Thomas Musselman, et al
www.burntorangereport.com

Vince Leibowitz
http://capitolannex.com

Nathan Nance
www.commonsensetx.com

Stace Medellin
dos-centavos.blogspot.com

wcnews and dembones
www.eyeonwilliamson.org

Greg Wythe
www.gregsopinion.com

Shannon & Ted McLaughlin
http://jobsanger.blogspot.com

Matt Glazer
www.justanothermatt.blogspot.com

Marc Gault
www.marcsmiscellany.blogspot.com

Trey McAtee
www.mcblogger.com

Martha Griffin
http://muse-musings.blogspot.com

Charles Kuffner
www.offthekuff.com/mt

M. Eddie Rodriguez
http://theredstate.typepad.com

Texas Kos
http://soapblox.net/texaskos

CC: Boyd Richie, Chairman, Texas Democratic Party
Ruben Hernandez, Executive Director, Texas Democratic Party