Mitch Arnowitz: Politics Archives

February 20, 2005

Democrats' Grass Roots Shift the Power

Will the dems grassroots movement reshape party politics? Read all about it in today's Washington Post. The facts speak for themselves:

1. the republicians beat the dems at the grassroots game in 2004.
2. given the make-up of the party, the democrats should have been able to get out more votes.

Democrats' Grass Roots Shift the Power (free reg required) (hat tip to ameriblog)

It is no surprise that Democratic leaders are paying much closer attention to grass-roots activists. In 2003 and 2004, those activists became prodigious contributors to the Democratic Party, to Kerry and to Dean, who first tapped into their potential through the Internet during his campaign for the Democratic nomination.

Technorati Tags:

Posted by Mitch at 10:25 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

January 18, 2005

Mickey Rooney’s rear end and why you should care about it.

Bob Larsons, of registration provider Go Daddy, has an interesting post on Mickey Rooney’s rear end and how this banned Super Bowl commercial relates to the First Amendment and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Technorati Tags:

Posted by Mitch at 01:23 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

January 17, 2005

WSJ: Dean Campaign Made Payments To Two Bloggers

More on the recent WSJ article about the Dean campaign paying bloggers to write good things:

* excerpts from the article

* from Kos:

Sat Jan 15th, 2005 at 15:46:59 PST

For those of you unable to listen to the podcast of this interview here's a transcript I typed up due to the fact that I have entirely too much time on my hands.

* Jeff Jarvis has an interesting post on Zephyr Teachout's recent post that seems to be stirring this pot.

* Laura Gross, who spoke to the WSJ, had this to say about the story:

I know many of you have questions so I wanted to give you the full story. I am sorry I have not responded sooner, I have been traveling all day with Gov. Dean and I'm in St. Louis now. Thank you for your messages and e-mails . . . here's the full story:

So I got a call Thursday from the Jeanne Cummings, The Wall Street Journal reporter who covered the Dean campaign. By all accounts, she did a fine job -- covered all aspects of the campaign, even met the Web team and wrote a long story on their work. She was calling, she said, on behalf of some of her paper's reporters in Boston who were looking into a story about the campaign and the blogs.

She said she thought she knew what was going on, and we talked "on background" so she could "just clear things up once and for all" -- that is, not for attribution. By the end of the conversation she had confirmed what she thought -- that there was no news, that this was what she called a "dead story" -- and said that she didn't think there would be any article at all, much less one that mentioned Dean. She said that if for some reason she needed a quote she'd call me back.

Next thing I know there appears in the WSJ an article so sloppy and so inaccurate that I spent the morning trying to track Jeanne down to find out what happened. She called me back at 10:30 a.m. -- and actually apologized for the article (written by two colleagues). She said that she wouldn�t work with those reporters in the same capacity again, would only give them on-the-record quotes and assured me that she had notified her editors.

Technorati Tags:

Posted by Mitch at 08:55 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

January 13, 2005

More transparency, more Simon Rosenberg

Zephyr Teachout, formally of the Dean online campaign, says that Simon Rosenberg hired Matt Stoller presumably not just because he’s got good ideas, but because he already has a “commentator,” “spokesperson,” role within the blogging media.

In other words, matt got paid...

Technorati Tags:

Posted by Mitch at 12:06 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

January 12, 2005

Your timing really stinks Joe

Joe Trippi endourses Simon Rosenberg, of the New Democratic Network, for DNC Chair. Joe's post is OK but check out the comments-- interesting stuff...

Technorati Tags:

Posted by Mitch at 11:33 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

January 11, 2005

Howard Dean and the DNC

Howard Dean announces, on his blog of course, his candidacy for DNC Chairman (from commoncraft)

I'm Running

As I have traveled across our country, I have talked to thousands of people who are working for change in their own communities about the power of politics to make a difference in their own lives and in the lives of others. Every group I have spoken to, I encouraged them to stand up for what they believe and to get involved in the electoral process—because the only sure way to make difference is to step up and run for office yourself.

Today, I'm announcing my candidacy for the Chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee.

Technorati Tags:

Posted by Mitch at 11:39 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

August 09, 2004

InformationWeek > Online Advertising > Political Ads Popping Up On Web Sites > May 12, 2004

As if you didn't know it, political ads are doing a brisk business this cycle... (hat tip: Taegan Goddard)

Technorati Tags:

Posted by Mitch at 12:52 PM | Permalink

July 31, 2004

balloon drops

TheBostonChannel.com - Democratic Convention 2004 - Thousands Of Balloons Prepped For DNC Finale

Did anyone catch the live TV profanity and network coverup surrounding the DNC Thursday night balloon drop? Well, here's an article written before the drop that wouldn't be noteworthy if the balloons actually dropped like they were supposed to!

Technorati Tags:

Posted by Mitch at 06:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

DNC 2004 Weblogs: News Aggregator

Just in case you haven't had your fill of the Dems, here's a roll-up of convention blogs. (hat tip- Dave Stratton)

Technorati Tags:

Posted by Mitch at 06:24 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

June 22, 2004

(re) find: Ken Mehlman and Joe Trippi discuss 2004 Vote

I was having an interesting conversation about differences between the Dems and GOP with respect to (local) grassroots community organizing and it made me think of this speech from the recent Politics Online Conference.

Here, Bush-Cheney Campaign Manager Ken Mehlman and former Dean Campaign Director Joe Trippi discuss the 2004 Vote.

Technorati Tags:

Posted by Mitch at 06:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)